End of Summer Reading…. :(

A team tries their hand at the Landmark Matching Game during Adult Mystery Night.

We’re coming up on the last two days of Adult Summer Reading – that’s not to say that it’s the end of summer or that you can’t do any reading after Saturday, of course. It’s just that we won’t have more of our fabulous games and prizes for you to win.

We still have some great things planned for August (including our Sun Block Party for the solar eclipse), so don’t quite despair. But, if you haven’t gotten your tickets for our weekly or grand prize drawings yet, you might want to put that on your to-do list for today or tomorrow!

 

Read, Watch, Listen: Space Edition

Forty-eight years ago this month, mankind landed on the moon – an achievement that over 600 million people watched live. Of course, the space age didn’t begin or end with the journey of Apollo 11 – and many would argue that humans have always and will always search beyond the Earth for answers. There’s just something about the Final Frontier that holds an attraction for humans – read, watch, or listen to one of the following to “explore” this theme a little more.

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READ

The Right Stuff – Tom Wolfe

• The moments of grandeur and weakness, the aspirations, and the problems of America’s astronauts are revealed in an exploration of the dimensions of their inner lives in space, on the moon, and on the earth.

Dark Side of the Moon: The Magnificent Madness of the American Lunar Quest – Gerard J. DeGroot

• Discusses the myths constructed by the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations that were used to exploit American fears of what Russians would do in space.

Amazing Stories of the Space Age: True Tales of Nazis in Orbit, Soldiers on the Moon, Orphaned Martian Robots, and Other Fascinating Accounts from the Annals of Spaceflight – Rod Pyle

• Accompanied by rarely seen photos and illustrations, an insider’s perspective reveals the most unusual and bizarre space missions ever devised inside and outside of NASA during a time when nothing was too off-the-wall to be taken seriously, and the race to the moon and the threat from the Soviet Union trumped all other considerations.

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WATCH

Hidden Figures

• The story of a group of African-American female mathematicians who served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in U.S. history.

For All Mankind

• A chronicle on mankind‘s journey to the moon, using no narration, only the voices of the astronauts and mission control.

Cosmos

• This documentary series explores the history of science and how we found our place in the cosmos.

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LISTEN

Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon – Craig Nelson

• Recreates the story of the Apollo 11 moon mission through interviews, NASA oral histories, and declassified CIA documents.

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void – Mary Roach

• Describes the weirdness of space travel, answers questions about the long-term effects of living in zero gravity on the human body, and explains how space simulations on Earth can provide a preview to life in space.

Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon – Jeffrey Kluger

• Citing the space race, Cold War and 1967 Apollo 1 tragedy, a riveting account of the harried mission to use an untested rocket to secure America’s position as the first nation to reach the moon reveals the dangers endured by its crew and the ways the mission brought inspiration and renewal to an America ravaged by assassinations and war.

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Annotations for books are courtesy of NoveList Plus. Annotations for movies are from the TFPL catalog.

Take Ten: Unusual Map Books

The summer is a time for road trips – but you don’t even have to get gas if you decide on some armchair travel. Plus, who needs the hassle of all of those fold-up maps when you can use one of the following books of beautiful and unusual maps. Instead of dealing with traffic and noisy backseat drivers, escape to other worlds (and times)…

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Atlas Obscura – Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, Ella Morton*

• Wonder meets wanderlust in an extraordinary new travel book: Atlas Obscura is the bucket-list guide to over 700 of the most unusual, curious, bizarre, and mysterious places on earth.

Atlas of Cursed Places: A Travel Guide to Dangerous and Frightful Destinations – Olivier Le Carrer*

• Profiles forty locations across the globe that have come to be known for the horrific deeds done there, their mysterious inhabitants, and the paranormal activities witnessed there, including Aokigahara, Strait of Messina, and Poveglia.

Atlas of Lost Cities: A Travel Guide to Abandoned and Forsaken Destinations – Aude de Tocqueville

• A look at places at the rise and fall of notable cities and lesser-known places that no longer exist. Beautiful, original artwork shows the location of the lost cities and depicts how they looked when they thrived.

Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Never Set Foot on and Never Will – Judith Schalansky

• Visually stunning and uniquely designed, this wondrous book captures fifty islands that are far away in every sense-from the mainland, from people, from airports, and from holiday brochures.

Great City Maps

• A beautifully illustrated history of the world’s most celebrated historical city maps, from the hubs of ancient civilization to sprawling modern mega-cities, created in association with the Smithsonian Institution.

Our Dumb World: The Onion’s Atlas of the Planet Earth

• Features incorrect statistics on all of the Earth’s 168, 182, or 196 independent nations. It also features maps, including a fold-out world map at actual size.

Picturing America: The Golden Age of Pictorial Maps – Stephen J. Hornsby

• Hornsby has unearthed the most fascinating and visually striking maps the United States has to offer: Disney cartoon maps, college campus maps, kooky state tourism ads, World War II promotional posters, and many more.

Plotted: A Literary Atlas -Andrew DeGraff

• A wide-ranging collection of maps—all inspired such literary classics as The Odyssey, Hamlet, Pride and Prejudice, Invisible Man, Lord of the Flies, A Wrinkle in Time, Watership Down, The Handmaid’s Tale and more—offers readers a new way of looking at their favorite fictional worlds.

Vargic’s Miscellany of Curious Maps: Mapping the Modern World – Martin Vargic

• This wonderful and strange atlas is a treasure trove of interesting, unexpected and bizarre facts – a glorious celebration of our big beautiful diverse world.

The Works: Anatomy of a City – Kate Ascher

• Offers a cross section of the hidden infrastructure of cities around the world, using beautiful, innovative graphic images combined with short, clear text explanations to answer all the questions about the way things work in a modern city.

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Annotations with * are courtesy of NoveList Plus; all others are courtesy of the publisher. Log in to NoveList Plus with your Library card to access book reviews, suggestions, and series and author information.

 

 

Summer Reading Continues!

We’ve still got another 3 more weeks of summer reading, so keep up with your challenges and activities! We’ve given out less than half the prizes, so there are still tees, totes, and more up for grabs. Plus, that Grand Prize is still waiting…

Download the chart or drop by the Library, and work on getting those tickets! And, don’t forget to attend summer events to get even more tickets – check out the calendar here.