Summer Reading 2018 is Almost Over…

Erica and Andrea after running the cotton candy station during our Summer Reading Street Dance!

We’re sad to see Summer Reading end, but we’ve had a great time – this year’s theme, “Libraries Rock,” allowed us to do some cool music-related things, like our concert with Mark Kroos and our Street Dance. We hope you all had fun too and we can all look forward to next year.

Don’t forget, adults can still turn in their Summer Reading activities for tickets through Saturday (July 28). We’ll draw for the final weekly tees and totes, as well as for the Grand Prize – an Amazon Fire – next week.

And, just because Summer Reading’s officially over doesn’t mean you have to put the books down in August. Our Librarians can help you find a couple of good reads to get you through the dog days.

The Way Back Machine – Best Sellers 1972

Step into the Way Back Machine (it’s air-conditioned at least, right?) and let’s transport ourselves back to 1972. The swinging 70s are underway, and we are sure to find a book that recalls the craziness of the time. Here’s a look back to help you remember – or understand – what the year looked like:

• In January, the first scientific hand-held calculator came on to the market – the HP-35 cost $395.
• In March, The Godfather premiered in New York.
• In June, five burglars were arrested attempting a burglary at a DC hotel called Watergate. Wonder what happened with that?

Grab one of these books from the New York Times Best Seller list for the week of July 16 for a deeper dive into 1972!

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FICTION

1. Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

2. The Winds of War by Herman Wouk

3. The Word by Irving Wallace

4. Captains and the Kings by Taylor Caldwell

5. My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

6. The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton

7. A Portion for Foxes by Jane McIlvaine McClary

8. The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty

9. Dark Horse by Fletcher Knebel

10. The Blue Knight by Joseph Wambaugh

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NONFICTION

1. I’m O.K. You’re O.K. by Thomas Harris

2. O Jerusalem! by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre

3. The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn

4. The Super Lawyers by Joseph C. Goulden

5. Open Marriage by Nena and George O’Neill

6. The Game of the Foxes by Ladislas Farago

7. Report from Engine Co. 82 by Dennis Smith

8. George S. Kaufman by Howard Teichmann

9. Bring Me a Unicorn by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

10. Eleanor and Franklin by Joseph P. Lash

Take Ten: Southern Gothics

We heard it was National Pecan Pie Day, and though it started us thinking about lunch, it also made us reminisce about some good old-fashioned Southern Gothic novels.

Southern Gothics are basically stories that are slightly mysterious, usually dark, and involve death, illusion, and the feeling that something’s just not as it seems. Of course, they’re set in the American South – and not in the open squares, but in the back alleys, mossy swamps, and decrepit plantation mansions, adding to the creepiness. In other words, good reads for lazy summer days.

If this sounds appealing, give one of these a chance for a few chills:

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Beloved by Toni Morrison

• Sethe, an escaped slave living in post-Civil War Ohio with her daughter and mother-in-law, is persistently haunted by the ghost of her dead baby girl.

Bliss House by Laura Benedict

• Rainey Bliss Adams desperately needs a new start when she and her daughter Ariel relocate from St. Louis to Old Gate and settled into the impressive, historic, and inexplicably mysterious house where the Bliss family had lived for over a century.

Child of God by Cormac McCarthy

• Set in Tennessee in the 1960s, this chilling novel sees Lester Ballard become increasingly isolated from society. After taking a deceased woman as a girlfriend, he “saves her” from a fire–and his life spirals into deepening depravity.

The Cutting Season by Attica Locke

• When the dead body of a young woman is found on the grounds of Belle Vie, the estate’s manager, Caren Gray, launches her own investigation into Belle Vie’s history, which leads her to a centuries old mystery involving the plantation’s slave quarters–andher own past.

Deliverance by James Dickey

• In the Georgia wilderness, four men on a canoe trip discover a freedom and exhilaration beyond compare. And then, in a moment of horror, the adventure turns into a struggle for survival as one man becomes a human hunter who is offered his own harrowing deliverance.

The Little Friend by Donna Tartt

• Growing up in a small Mississippi town in a family haunted by the murder of her brother, Robin, Harriet Cleve Dusfresnes lives in a world of her imagination, until, at the age of twelve, she decides to find Robin’s murderer and exact her revenge.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil John Berendt

• In charming, beautiful, and wealthy old-South Savannah, Georgia, the local bad boy is shot dead inside of the opulent mansion of a gay antiques dealer, and a gripping trial follows.

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

• Retells the tragic times of the Compson family, including beautiful, rebellious Caddy; manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their Black servant.

This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash

• Easter and her sister Ruby have been shuffled around the foster care system in Gastonia, North Carolina. Then their ne’er-do-well father whisks them away in the middle of the night.

The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

• A sweeping story about a great dynasty of four centuries of witches – a family given to poetry and incest, murder and philosophy, a family that over the ages is itself haunted by a powerful, dangerous, and seductive being called Lasher who haunts the Mayfair women.

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