@ Your Library
It is only the last Friday of January and I already feel behind in 2023. I have been working on a jigsaw puzzle and playing some solo board games in the evenings and not doing as much reading as I’d like. I need to figure out how to read and play games each evening and still get to bed at a decent time. I also have several knitting projects I am tackling and of course have to do something with sourdough each week. So I stay busy and am beginning to daydream, plot and plan for summer vacations. Best Road trips: Midwest and the Great Lakes: escapes on the Open road a Lonely Planet guide has some wonderful ideas. And I love looking at maps and Wild Maps for Curious Minds by Mike Higgins provides ‘100 new ways to see the natural world.’ There are maps showing where the tiniest animals of a variety of species live, where earthquake zones are, where oceans get their water and where people are most at risk from natural disasters, to name just a few.
Seven Aunts by Staci Lola Drouillard explores life with her seven aunts, both Anishinaabe and European, as they navigate life in Northern Minnesota. A beautiful story of family and love and survival. Then here are four new fiction titles that grabbed me. In Love’s Time by Kate Breslin is a WWI story of courage, duty and heartbreak in Russia on a secret mission. I also enjoyed Switchboard Soldiers by Jennifer Chiaverini about the women who served in the U.S. Armey Signal Corps in WWI. Noelle Salazar has written about the Dutch resistance in WWII in Angels of the Resistance.
More contemporary novels include Where the Blue Sky Begins by Katie Powner throws two unlikely characters together and both find themselves having to answer the question what matters most at the end? While The Personal Assistant by Kimberly Belle is a thriller with secrets. Everyone has secrets, some have more power than others and what happens when someone you’ve trusted with your secrets vanishes?
Some intriguing new non-fiction include Myth America: historians take on the biggest legends and lies about our past edited by Kevin M Kruse and Julian E. Zellizer includes over 50 pages of notes and source material at the end. The Noom Mindset allows you to learn the science and lose the weight, making good health a habit by focusing on what you are thinking, not what you are doing.
And then we’ll end with two new cookbooks. Effortless Eggless Baking by Mimi Council includes 100 easy and creative recipes for baking without eggs. The full range of baking from quick breads, yeast breads, cookies, pies and cakes are all here. Jessie Sheehan has made snack time even more wonderful with her new cookbook Snackable Bakes. I want to try the ‘Otherworldly Vanilla Scones’ and the ‘Secret Ingredient Crispy Rice Cereal Treats’ and the ‘gooey blondies with toasty pecans and chocolate x3’.