Category Archives: Uncategorized

Catalog temporarily down

Thursday, 16 June 2022 11:45

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Our online catalog is currently having some problems due to emergency maintenance on the servers that host it. This also affects your ability to log into your library account online. We apologize for the inconvenience; the problem is expected to be resolved by 1:00 p.m.

Reading Recommendations from Just Desserts members in July 2021

Sunday, 01 August 2021 13:52

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Hey, mystery fans! Looking for something good to read?

At the July 2021 Just Desserts meeting that took place at the Bennett Martin Public Library, group members participated in a discussion of Ruth Ware’s One by One. Following that discussion, we held our monthly round robin in which all 21 attendees were able to share recommendations of what other books they’ve been reading recently.

Here’s the list of mystery, thriller and suspense books recommended by Just Desserts members in July 2021:

• Burning Bright (in the Peter Ash series) by Nicholas Petrie
• Target Acquired (part of The Campus/Jack Ryan Jr. series) by Don Bentley (and others in the series by Mark Geaney)
• Total Power by Vince Flynn
• Lost Books and Old Bones by Paige Shelton
• Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson
• All 6 volumes in the Bone Secrets series by Kendra Elliot
• Eye of the Wolf by Margaret Coel – past author selection for Just Desserts
• Several Walt Longmire volumes re-read as audiobooks by Craig Johnson – past author selection for Just Desserts
• Murder on Cold Street (in the Lady Sherlock Holmes series) by Sherry Thomas
• Two-Minute Mysteries (picked up in a grocery story check-out lane) – author unidentified but possibly Donald J. Sobol, who has written several of these, as well as the Encyclopedia Brown mysteries for teens and pre-teens decades ago)
• The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware – a different title by this month’s author selection for Just Desserts
• The Deep, Deep Snow by Brian Freeman
• The Disappearing Act by Catherine Steadman
• Fallen by Linda Castillo – past author selection for Just Desserts
• Multiple volumes in the “Bill Slider” series by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
• The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
• The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict
• Murder at Melrose Court by Karen Menuhin
• The Cork O’Connor series by William Kent Krueger – past author selection for Just Desserts
• The Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths – past author selection for Just Desserts
• 21^st Birthday by James Patterson (and Maxine Paetro) – past author selection for Just Desserts
• Robert B. Parker’s Payback by Mike Lupica
• We Begin at the End by Chris Whittaker
• The Bounty (by Janet Evanovich and Steve Hamilton (as a book-on-cd)

And here were some non-mystery titles some group members also recommended in July 2020:

• The Searchers by Alan Lemay and The Searchers: Making of an American Classic by Glenn Frankel
• This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger (two readers)
• The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin (two readers)
• The Last Outlaws: The Lives and Legends of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid by Thom Hatch
• The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
• Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg
• Deacon King Kong by James McBride
• Paths of Glory by Jeffrey Archer
• The documentary Five Came Back: They Showed the War to the World on Netflix (based in part on the book Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Mark Harris)
• Zorrie by Laird Hunt
• Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker (one of the three 2021 One Book – One Lincoln finalists)
• Interior Chinatown by William Yu (one of the three 2021 One Book – One Lincoln finalists)
• Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi (one of the three 2021 One Book – One Lincoln finalists)
• The Sunflower Sisters by Martha Hall Kelly
• Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington by Cokie Roberts
• The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins
• My Name is Memory by Ann Brasheres
• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by Victoria Schwab
• The Rosie Result (last in a trilogy) by Graeme Simsion (as a book-on-cd through InterLibrary Loan)
• The Crime Buff’s Guide to Outlaw Pennsylvania by Karen B. Valentine and Fran Franscell (the library has other regional volumes in the Crime Buff’s series by Franscell as Hoopla E-books only)

What mysteries have you been reading lately that you’d recommend?

Coronavirus-themed Comics Aiming to Educate, Engage

Thursday, 23 July 2020 09:45

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Series of web-published comics being produced by industry veterans, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

University of Nebraska–Lincoln faculty have collaborated with illustrator and writer Bob Hall to develop “C’rona Comix,” the first in a series of five comics designed to address misconceptions about the novel coronavirus while motivating young readers to learn more about the virus and pandemic.

Published weekly and freely available at https://worldofviruses.unl.edu/covid-19, “C’rona Comix” follows a cast of anthropomorphic animals — Professor Grey, Graffiti Mouse, Cat, Bat, Reporter Fox and Skate Goat — as they come to grips with and, in some cases, literally get to know the virus.

The development team, which includes multiple members who co-created the “World of Viruses” and “Biology of Human” comics, plans to complete the five coronavirus-themed series by the end of 2020 and publish them together in a print edition by summer 2021. Upcoming series will highlight topics that span the transmission of viruses from bats to humans and the particular challenges facing Native American tribes.

Judy Diamond, a professor and curator at the University of Nebraska State Museum who is heading the project, said “C’rona Comix” and its follow-ups are being written to inform, entertain and stimulate rather than prescribe, condemn or alarm.

“We have a really deep respect for kids’ ability to learn on their own and to ask important questions,” said Diamond, whose collaborators include Liz VanWormer from the School of Natural Resources and researchers in education, sociology, the Nebraska Center for Virology and the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Later this year, the team will distribute copies of the comics to roughly 10,000 middle school students in Lincoln Public Schools. By surveying student opinions of the comics, which are being funded by the National Science Foundation, the team will continue its long-running research on how best to engage students and bolster their science literacy.

“We feel like there’s a lot of misinformation that goes out, and what we’re doing is trying to create accessible information in ways that kids will be motivated to want to read, because it’s fun to read,” Diamond said. “Hopefully, that will help them become motivated to take the next step to read some articles about it, to read the news, to begin to distinguish good information from misleading information. That’s a really critical ability that we hope to instill in people.”

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Press release courtesy of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Communication Office. Lincoln City Libraries has partnered on this project to make these comics available on our Teen Page.