Martin Scarsden is a journalist whose career has stalled. After surviving a terrifying incident in the Middle East, he has returned to his job in Sydney but is struggling with PTSD. His editor, hoping to give Martin a way back, sends him to Riversend, a drought-ridden rural Australian town, where a mass shooting occurred a…
Have you heard of Lynda? No, not Lynda Barry, the famous cartoonist and author. The Lynda I am referring to is a very helpful and just as inspiring website. Lynda.com offers courses in just about anything! You can master a class in animation or an operating system you need to familiarize yourself with for work.…
Lyndsay Faye tackles both the New York City mafia and Oregon’s infamous racist laws in her outstanding new 1920s thriller. The Paragon Hotel shines a light on a horrifying part of Oregon’s history, whose original constitution outlawed blacks from living or working in the state. When the novel opens in 1921, the Ku Klux Klan…
For the 4th year in a row, AV Librarian Becky King comes onto the podcast to talk about the Academy Awards ceremony. Nate and Becky discuss the night’s biggest moments, plus share a few 2018 movies not mentioned during the awards but that you definitely don't want to miss. Find out what movies to catch…
Though it pains me to admit it, I am not a fan of audiobooks: they take so much longer to get through than a print edition, they distract me from my driving, or I’m too distracted by other things (like driving, or my children, or cooking dinner) to pay attention to the story. But everyone…
On February 21, Michelle Wilson will be at the Cook Park Library in Libertyville at 7 p.m. to help us find out more about applying for membership in a lineage society. Wilson is the Registrar for our local Ansel Brainerd Cook Chapter of the DAR so she will focus primarily on the DAR but will…
Welcome back to my first post of 2019! While talking with a coworker about a potential topic for a post, she mentioned that she had just finished putting new file folders into our history collection, and suggested I take a look at the file on the Libertyville Business Men's Association. There was only a single…
It’s no secret that I’m a fan of literary retellings – classic stories reimagined. Sherlock Holmes is a particular favorite, though I won’t turn my nose up at Shakespeare or Jane Austen, either. That being said, the one genre I’m loath to explore is literary continuations. You know the kind: a (usually bestselling) author is…
If this cold winter is starting to feel like it was last forever, we've got a suggestion for something to give you a bit of that hygge feeling until spring shows its face. Join our Up Lit Adult Winter Reading Club and find some uplifting and heartwarming titles to get you through the last few…
When Joe Thorne receives a mysterious email from an anonymous sender saying only ‘it’s happening again’, he knows he must return to his hometown of Arnhill, an old English mining town that has seen better days. He returns reluctantly, gets a teaching job at his old high school and soon finds out that no one…
