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Book Discussion -- This Tender Land Thursday June 17 at 10:00am <p>Join us to discuss <i>This Tender Land</i> by William Kent Krueger (2019).</p><p>*Please click on the Zoom link to join:</p><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5993746465">https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5993746465</a></p><p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(51,51,51);">1932, Minnesota—the Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O’Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee, he and his brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own.</span><br><br><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(51,51,51);">Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphans will journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, </span><i>This Tender Land </i><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(51,51,51);">is an enthralling, big-hearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.</span></p> more info...
Book Discussion -- This Tender Land Tuesday June 22 at 1:00pm <p>Join us to discuss <i>This Tender Land</i> by William Kent Krueger (2019).</p><p>*Please register to receive the Zoom link before the event*</p><p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(51,51,51);">1932, Minnesota—the Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O’Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee, he and his brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own.</span><br><br><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(51,51,51);">Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphans will journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, </span><i>This Tender Land </i><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(51,51,51);">is an enthralling, big-hearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.</span></p> more info...
Book Discussion--Uncanny Valley Thursday July 15 at 10:00am <p>Join us to discuss <i>Uncanny Valley </i>by Anna Weiner (2020). Please register to receive the Zoom link before the event.</p><p>Copies of the book are available at the library during<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.midlibrary.org/Announcements"> Express Service</a> hours. To pick up a copy of the book using curbside service, please call 608-827-7403 or email <a href="mailto:info@midlibrary.org">info@midlibrary.org</a>.</p><p>In her mid-twenties, at the height of tech industry idealism, Anna Wiener―stuck, broke, and looking for meaning in her work, like any good millennial--left a job in book publishing for the promise of the new digital economy. She moved from New York to San Francisco, where she landed at a big-data startup in the heart of the Silicon Valley bubble: a world of surreal extravagance, dubious success, and fresh-faced entrepreneurs hell-bent on domination, glory, and, of course, <i>progress</i>.<br><br>Anna arrived amidst a massive cultural shift, as the tech industry rapidly transformed into a locus of wealth and power rivaling Wall Street. But amid the company ski vacations and in-office speakeasies, boyish camaraderie and ride-or-die corporate fealty, a new Silicon Valley began to emerge: one in far over its head, one that enriched itself at the expense of the idyllic future it claimed to be building. <br><br>Part coming-of-age-story, part portrait of an already-bygone era, Anna Wiener’s memoir is a rare first-person glimpse into high-flying, reckless startup culture at a time of unchecked ambition, unregulated surveillance, wild fortune, and accelerating political power. With wit, candor, and heart, Anna deftly charts the tech industry’s shift from self-appointed world savior to democracy-endangering liability, alongside a personal narrative of aspiration, ambivalence, and disillusionment.<br><br>Unsparing and incisive, <i>Uncanny Valley</i> is a cautionary tale, and a revelatory interrogation of a world reckoning with consequences its unwitting designers are only beginning to understand.</p> more info...
Book Discussion--Uncanny Valley Tuesday July 20 at 1:00pm <p>Join us to discuss <i>Uncanny Valley </i>by Anna Weiner (2020). Please register to receive the Zoom link before the event.</p><p>Copies of the book are available at the library during<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.midlibrary.org/Announcements"> Express Service</a> hours. To pick up a copy of the book using curbside service, please call 608-827-7403 or email <a href="mailto:info@midlibrary.org">info@midlibrary.org</a>.</p><p>In her mid-twenties, at the height of tech industry idealism, Anna Wiener―stuck, broke, and looking for meaning in her work, like any good millennial--left a job in book publishing for the promise of the new digital economy. She moved from New York to San Francisco, where she landed at a big-data startup in the heart of the Silicon Valley bubble: a world of surreal extravagance, dubious success, and fresh-faced entrepreneurs hell-bent on domination, glory, and, of course, <i>progress</i>.<br><br>Anna arrived amidst a massive cultural shift, as the tech industry rapidly transformed into a locus of wealth and power rivaling Wall Street. But amid the company ski vacations and in-office speakeasies, boyish camaraderie and ride-or-die corporate fealty, a new Silicon Valley began to emerge: one in far over its head, one that enriched itself at the expense of the idyllic future it claimed to be building. <br><br>Part coming-of-age-story, part portrait of an already-bygone era, Anna Wiener’s memoir is a rare first-person glimpse into high-flying, reckless startup culture at a time of unchecked ambition, unregulated surveillance, wild fortune, and accelerating political power. With wit, candor, and heart, Anna deftly charts the tech industry’s shift from self-appointed world savior to democracy-endangering liability, alongside a personal narrative of aspiration, ambivalence, and disillusionment.<br><br>Unsparing and incisive, <i>Uncanny Valley</i> is a cautionary tale, and a revelatory interrogation of a world reckoning with consequences its unwitting designers are only beginning to understand.</p> more info...
Cookbook Book Group - Summer Desserts Thursday July 29 at 7:00pm <p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">A book group for people who love to cook, eat, or just admire cookbooks! This group meets 4 times a year (on Zoom for now) to discuss cookbooks that share a common theme. This month’s theme is “Summer Desserts” You can choose <strong>ANY</strong> cookbook you like that focuses on or includes recipes for tasty summer treats. If you need some suggestions check out this </span><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://library.booksite.com/7434/nl/?list=CNL1&group=EB355"><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"><u>booklist</u></span></a><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">. Ideally you will make a few different recipes from your chosen book and bring one along to the meeting. We’ll come together on Zoom to share what we learned, what works well, what fell flat and enjoy some of our creations together.</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">*Please register to receive the Zoom link</span></p> more info...
Book Discussion--The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu Tuesday August 17 at 1:00pm <p>Join us to discuss <i>The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: and their race to save the world's most precious manuscripts</i> by Joshua Hammer (2016). Please register to receive the Zoom link before the event.</p><p>Copies of the book are available at the lower level service desk. To reserve a copy of the book in advance, please call 608-827-7403 or email <a href="mailto:info@midlibrary.org">info@midlibrary.org</a>.</p><p>To save ancient Arabic texts from Al Qaeda, a band of librarians pulls off a brazen heist worthy of <i>Ocean’s Eleven</i> in this “fast-paced narrative that is…part intellectual history, part geopolitical tract, and part out-and-out thriller” (<i>The Washington Post</i>) from the author of <i>The Falcon Thief</i>.<br><br>In the 1980s, a young adventurer and collector for a government library, Abdel Kader Haidara, journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River, tracking down and salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that were crumbling in the trunks of desert shepherds. His goal: preserve this crucial part of the world’s patrimony in a gorgeous library. But then Al Qaeda showed up at the door.<br><br>“Part history, part scholarly adventure story, and part journalist survey…Joshua Hammer writes with verve and expertise” (<i>The New York Times Book Review</i>) about how Haidara, a mild-mannered archivist from the legendary city of Timbuktu, became one of the world’s greatest smugglers by saving the texts from sure destruction. With bravery and patience, Haidara organized a dangerous operation to sneak all 350,000 volumes out of the city to the safety of southern Mali. His heroic heist “has all the elements of a classic adventure novel” (<i>The Seattle Times</i>), and is a reminder that ordinary citizens often do the most to protect the beauty of their culture. His the story is one of a man who, through extreme circumstances, discovered his higher calling and was changed forever by it.</p> more info...
Book Discussion--The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu Tuesday August 24 at 10:00am <p>Join us to discuss <i>The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: and their race to save the world's most precious manuscripts</i> by Joshua Hammer (2016). Please register to receive the Zoom link before the event.</p><p>Copies of the book are available at the lower level service desk. To reserve a copy of the book in advance, please call 608-827-7403 or email <a href="mailto:info@midlibrary.org">info@midlibrary.org</a>.</p><p>To save ancient Arabic texts from Al Qaeda, a band of librarians pulls off a brazen heist worthy of <i>Ocean’s Eleven</i> in this “fast-paced narrative that is…part intellectual history, part geopolitical tract, and part out-and-out thriller” (<i>The Washington Post</i>) from the author of <i>The Falcon Thief</i>.<br><br>In the 1980s, a young adventurer and collector for a government library, Abdel Kader Haidara, journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River, tracking down and salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that were crumbling in the trunks of desert shepherds. His goal: preserve this crucial part of the world’s patrimony in a gorgeous library. But then Al Qaeda showed up at the door.<br><br>“Part history, part scholarly adventure story, and part journalist survey…Joshua Hammer writes with verve and expertise” (<i>The New York Times Book Review</i>) about how Haidara, a mild-mannered archivist from the legendary city of Timbuktu, became one of the world’s greatest smugglers by saving the texts from sure destruction. With bravery and patience, Haidara organized a dangerous operation to sneak all 350,000 volumes out of the city to the safety of southern Mali. His heroic heist “has all the elements of a classic adventure novel” (<i>The Seattle Times</i>), and is a reminder that ordinary citizens often do the most to protect the beauty of their culture. His the story is one of a man who, through extreme circumstances, discovered his higher calling and was changed forever by it.</p> more info...