The Aurora Farmers Fair is fast approaching! Yay! Fair food! This is just a reminder that the Aurora Public Library and the Local History Library @ the Depot will be operating under different hours during the fair.
The Dillsboro Public Library’s hours of operation will remain the same. The entire Aurora Public Library District will also be closed on Monday, October 8 for Columbus Day, so make sure you plan accordingly. If you have any questions, stop in or give one of the branches a call!
First published in 2008, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society has made its way to the small, streaming screen of Netflix just this year. I noticed it when I was scrolling through, looking for something to watch, and knew I had to read the book first before I watched the movie. I’m annoying like that.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows takes place just after the end of World War II in 1946. Parts of London remain piles of rubble and people still wait for loved ones to return from the prison camps they were sent to overseas. The war in its entire horror has not yet been realized by the characters, but life still goes on. Juliet Ashton is engaged in a cross-country tour of England, promoting the book she wrote under her pen name, Izzy Bickerstaff. The book is a compilation of the columns she wrote about life during World War II, and despite the success of it, Juliet wishes to retire her pen name and write something of substance under her own name.
While trying to come up with a book idea of her own, Juliet receives a letter from Dawsey Adams, a complete stranger, who lives on the island of Guernsey and has come into possession of her old copy of Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb. Dawsey requests more information about the author and any other information and news Juliet can give him since the Nazis cut off all communication with the world outside of the island for five years during the German Occupation. Dawsey also mentions that he’s a part of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which immediately piques Juliet’s interest. Thus begins a correspondence between Juliet, Dawsey, and other members of the society and their adventures during the war.
The premise of the novel itself is unique, but so is the epistolary format in which it is told. In other words, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is told completely in letters between the various characters, making it a super quick and entertaining read. The Netflix film features big-ticket names like Lily James, Michiel Huisman, Glen Powell, Jessica Brown Findlay, Katherine Parkinson, Matthew Goode, Tom Courtenay, and Penelope Wilton. I can’t wait to see it! (And compare/contrast/dissect every way in which the book is different; I’m annoying like that.)
Happy Reading! (And Watching!)
Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably heard the whole world buzzing about the new movie, Crazy Rich Asians, which is based on the first book in the Crazy Rich Asians series by Kevin Kwan. The movie is the first film by a major Hollywood studio to feature a majority Asian cast in a modern setting since The Joy Luck Club in 1993, which is also based off of a book by the same name by Amy Tan. The movie has been breaking barriers and setting records since its release into theaters in the United States in August, and I was so excited when I found out that it was based on a series of young adult novels. (Apparently I had been living under a rock during the release of this series…)
New York native Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, anticipating meeting his family for the first time while spending quality time together at his family’s home. Despite Rachel’s assurance that Nick is The One, he might have left out a few minor details about his life in Singapore; namely, that he grew up in what is practically a palace and rode in more private planes than cars with a family who is more than wealthy. Oh, and he is also Singapore’s most eligible bachelor, painting a target on Rachel’s back the second she steps off the plane. Her vacation quickly turns into a war between old money, new money, nosy relatives, and scheming social climbers.
This series will not disappoint if you love drama, romance, and all-consuming books that you won’t be able to put down. We have hard copies available as well as digital copies available from OverDrive. But you better hurry to put your name on the hold list because this series is super popular right now!
Representation is extremely important not only in the media, but in the mainstream media. With all the buzz from the movie, how could we not mention the books, too? Let me know what you think!
Happy Reading!
September 13 is National Kids Take Over the Kitchen Day! Sometimes it can be hard to let go and let your little ones have free range anywhere, much less the kitchen where there are sharp knives, fire, and other dangerous items. The Aurora Public Library District has plenty of physical and digital copies of books to get your kids cooking with minimal supervision on your part!
Studies have shown that letting your kids help you out in the kitchen will make them more likely to eat what you put in front of them, including vegetables! So, if you do find yourself in the Library, here are some books you can check out for your kids to help make dishes from around the world:
If your family loves eating out but hates the bill afterward, try these cookbooks with your favorite ethnic recipes that you and your little chef can make right at home:
If you can’t stop in the library, be sure to check out a kid-friendly cookbook from OverDrive. You can prop your iPad, tablet, or smartphone up and cook straight from there! Let us know what you make!
Happy Eating! And Reading!
This debut novel by Johnathan French is truly a book no fantasy lover should miss, if Lord of the Rings and Son’s of Anarchy could have a baby it would be The Grey Bastards.
Such is the creed of the half-orcs dwelling in the Lot Lands. Sworn to hardened brotherhoods known as hoofs, these former slaves patrol their unforgiving country astride massive swine bred for war. They are all that stand between the decadent heart of noble Hispartha and marauding bands of full-blood orcs.
Jackal rides with the Grey Bastards, one of eight hoofs that have survived the harsh embrace of the Lots. Young, cunning and ambitious, he schemes to unseat the increasingly tyrannical founder of the Bastards, a plague-ridden warlord called the Claymaster. Supporting Jackal’s dangerous bid for leadership are Oats, a hulking mongrel with more orc than human blood, and Fetching, the only female rider in all the hoofs.
When the troubling appearance of a foreign sorcerer comes upon the heels of a faceless betrayal, Jackal’s plans are thrown into turmoil. He finds himself saddled with a captive elf girl whose very presence begins to unravel his alliances. With the anarchic blood rite of the Betrayer Moon close at hand, Jackal must decide where his loyalties truly lie, and carve out his place in a world that rewards only the vicious.
”The first Grey Bastards were potters, named not for our skin, but from the dry clay which covered it. We knew fire and heat and mud, until the day we rode into battle on the backs of hogs that knew only the yoke of a supply wagon. That day we became warriors. We were carving a path to freedom, though we didn’t know it then. Carving it with swords fallen from the hands of our fleeing masters, carving it through the flesh of our orc fathers.”
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
1984 by George Orwell
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
“All children, except one, grow up.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”
“”Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.”
“Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids.”
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”
“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.”
“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun.”
“When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.”
“It was a pleasure to burn.”
“This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.”
“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.”
“All this happened, more or less.”
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
“In the corner of a first-class smoking carriage, Mr. Justice Wargrave, lately retired from the bench, puffed at a cigar and ran an interested eye through the political news in the Times.”
“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.”
Good luck! Comment what your guesses were to see if you’re right!
In an irreverent new series in the tradition of Monty Python, the bestselling authors of the Iron Druid Chronicles and Star Wars: Phasma reinvent fantasy, fairy tales, and floridly written feast scenes.
In this pun-laden quest, first in a trilogy, Hearne (A Plague of Giants) and Dawson (Star Wars: Phasma) skewer the traditional tropes of epic fantasy sagas. Though the field is already rife with parodies and satires, the authors execute their own unique twist by killing off the titular farm boy on page 31 before his hero’s journey can ever truly begin. Now it’s up to a ragtag band of unlikely heroes—including a seven-foot-tall horticulturalist in a chainmail bikini, a cursed half-rabbit bard, a bread-conjuring would-be dark lord, a clumsy rogue, and a boot-eating talking goat—to save the kingdom from magical misdeeds. As they face their greatest childhood fears, contend with gourmand giants, and negotiate with arrogant elves, these improbable heroes display surprising depths and complexities. There’s a Pratchettian humor at play here, manifesting in frequent pun wars, silly songs, and an underlying level of societal absurdity—everyone takes cheese rather seriously, for instance. The authors claim they wanted to make fun of the typical “white male power fantasies,” and in that, they succeed, with their heroes all characters of color and/or falling somewhere under the LGBTQ umbrella. Even so, there’s the feeling that they’re marching through familiar, previously conquered territory, putting this solidly in the middle of the field of humorous fantasy. If you are a fan of The Princess Bride by
“Ranks among the best of Christopher Moore and Terry Pratchett.”—Chuck Wendig
“When you put two authors of this high caliber together, expect fireworks. Or at least laughs. What a hoot!”—New York Times bestselling author Terry Brooks
