February 2025 book -- Black Cake

 There's been a change to the February 2025 book. It's now Black Cake. Tried to change it on the list but didn't have any luck.

Spring 2023 in the Northwoods

 Even though it doesn't look like it right now, spring is on the way. The book clubs are meeting and selecting their choices for the upcoming months. All the libraries are in the process of creating events. As usual I'll start posting the events so if you're out of town you'll still be able to make plans. 

If you're up here and find yourself with computer problems, you can contact Dan at Northwoods Nerds (https://www.northwoodnerds.net) for help. As you'll see from their homepage, they will even come out to your house to work.

As soon as the new book club choices are made, I'll post them here.

June 2022 Winchester LIbrary Events

    June 9 - at Noon - Jeff Kersten of the Wisconsin Consumer Protection Agency will talk about Common Senior Scams and Frauds and How to Protect Yourself. Dessert and beverages will be served. 

      June 17-Vilas County Elder Specialist on Medicare, Medicaid and Supplement advice. 10:30-11:30.

       June 20 Book Club with an Author Visit at 3 PM. Judy Mundle, author of Block Manager, will be speaking about her book and sharing insights into  the Japanese Internment Camps during World War II and after.

    June 28, Tuesday, 10:30-11:30 - A Naturalist  from the Discovery Center will present a Children's program on the Life of a Water Drop; the Water Cycle

What's On The Hold Shelf???

At the Manitowish Waters book club yesterday, it dawned on me that one of the best parts of any book club is members sharing information about favorite books or anticipated books by favorite authors or exciting books by new authors.
                                                                         
So -- in addition to trying to keep the book lists for the three local clubs current -- I thought I'd change the focus of the rest of the blog to what's on the hold shelf. Those are the books that you hear about and put on a list to read. I'm also going to try to rate some books as either "readable" or "discussable" or "both".

You can post comments to the blog with book suggestions. And, if you rate the book, we'll have an ongoing list of selections for the book clubs.

(Just a note -- even though this post is dated 2017, it's actually July 2013. I still can't figure out how to make this post always appear at the top with the correct date.)

(When I started this blog in 2013, I added the 2017 date to make it appear on top. Since 2017 is just around the corner, I suppose I'd better add a few more years on to the post.)

Boulder Junction Book Selections

Last Wednesday, June 13, the Club met for the annual luncheon and selected books for the upcoming year. There were three books that are possible reads for next year:

Grace of Silence
Girl on the Velvet Swing
The Feather Thief

If I notice that any of the books are on sale as eBooks, I'll send out an email.

Winchester Book Club

The first meeting of the Winchester Book Club will be June 19 at 3:00 PM at the Winchester Public Library. Last year the club ran from June until December.

The June meeting will be a chance to make suggestions of book choices for the upcoming months.

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Award Season 2015

The lists of best books are starting to fill.

Here's the link to the National Book Awards. The fiction long list just came out today. I just look at the WPLC catalog and there are only a couple that don't have copies. If you go to the WPLC site, select "Advanced Search", type the book title in the space and then select "Additional Books to Recommend", you can recommend a book purchase and you can also be put on the hold list if the book is purchased.

2015 Pulitzer Prizes

2015 Man Booker Prize

2015 National Book Awards

WPLC Book Purchase Requests

Here's another really nice WPLC feature -- requesting book purchases.

When you're looking for a certain book on the WPLC site, you'll notice a choice for additional titles to recommend in addition to "all books" and "available now" books. Some books are only available in one format -- either an eBook or an audio book.

Patrons can now sign in and recommend purchases. Each patron has a certain number of recommendations per month and you can elect to have your name placed on the hold list if the book is purchased.

The next time you're looking for a book and see if the option to recommend shows up.

Another Civil War book

Here are links to a reviews of another civil war book -- Neverhome by Laird Hunt -- where an Indiana farm wife fights for the South as a man.

Myrtle Beach Online

BookPage

Women & The Civil War

Although I can't find any other books where a man disguises himself as a woman, I found a few interesting sites and books about women and the civil war that seem to go along with The Good Lord Bird.

Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War -- Karen Abbott is the author of this recent nonfiction book that's received many good reviews. One of the women in the book is Elizabeth Van Lew. You probably remember her from The Secrets of Mary Bowser by Lois Leveen.

The Smithsonian has a couple of interesting articles about women fighting in the civil war.

Women Who Fought in the Civil War

Women Who Fought As Men

The Civil War Trust has another article -- Untold Stories of Women in the Civil War.  This article has a link to a National Park Service site that has the story and pictures of Jennie Hodgers, aka Private Albert Cashier, who the article lists as one of the most famous female civil war soldiers.

Jennie Hodgers

Just found a story about a Civil War general, Nathaniel Lyon, who did spy as a female. -- Here's a link to the story of "The Lady In Spurs" --

Civil Wars St. Louis

WPLC Ebooks & Streaming Video

The WPLC passed a real milestone last week. On June 21, 2012 there was a total of 11,942 books. That number included all adult fiction, adult non-fiction, children's fiction and non-fiction and teen fiction and non-fiction. On June 12, 2014 adult fiction went over the 20,000 book level! While a lot of books have holds, there are usually still over 7,000 adult fiction available.

6/12/14 -- 20172 Adult Fiction
                   6644 Non Fiction
                   4415 Teen Fiction & Non Fiction
                   6397 Children Fiction & Non Fiction

The other nice addition to the WPLC site is the availability of streaming video. Like the "old" days of ebooks, the number of videos available are limited but, if ebooks are any indication, in a couple of years you'll have a great selection.

Another really nice addition to your account page at WPLC is a listing of the number of books checked out, the number of holds and the wish list books that are available. If you haven't started using the wish list, it's a great way of marking and remembering books to read. If you're looking through books and see an interesting book that you might not have time to read right now, you can add a red ribbon and the book will be added to your wish list. You can keep as many books on your wish list as you like. Now if you're just looking for a book to read, your available wish list books are shown.

LA Times Reading Guide

Heard about this site on PBS today. Looks like a lot of good reading. I've added the link on the left but thought I'd add a post also.

LA Times Summer Reading Guide

The Other End of the Bridge -- WPR

Just a quick note -- Jim Fleming is reading The Other End of the Bridge by Mary Lawson on Chapter-A-Day. March 31 is the first day and he finishes up on April 25.

Just A Fun Site . . .

Lileks' Institute of Official Cheer

While looking at the book blog site today, I clicked a link to a site that I used to visit on a daily basis. It's just a fun site. If you check it out, be ready to laugh and be sure to look at the Gallery of Regrettable Food. It reminds me of every old cookbook I ever seen.

Everything else on the site

If you still haven't laughed enough for the day, here's the link to his Everything page. 

Online Card Catalogs

I've added links to the left for the three main search sites for books here in the Northwoods.

The Merlin site covers the resources available through the Northern Waters Library system. You are able to request items and have them sent to your nearest local library for pick up. The Merlin site also lists some digital editions and offers a link to the WPLC site.

The WPLC Digital site covers only digital resources available through Overdrive. When I started looking at this site, there were about 6,000 books available. This week the total number of just fiction is 17,728. If you log in with your library and library card number you may find more books available since Advantage libraries have purchased extra copies of certain books. Those of you who are from a different part of the state or from out-of-state can log on using either card.

The WISCAT site searches over 550 libraries. You can request items through your local librarian. Some of the books on our most recent book list will probably have additional copies available. If you don't want to purchase a copy and can find it on WISCAT, just call your librarian and ask for the book.

Our daughter lives in central Illinois and her library system offers Zinio magazines. You log on to your library website and can download copies of digital magazines. I think there are some Wisconsin libraries that offer the magazines too.

Be sure to check your home library for digital resources that might not be offered here. The other site that I've seen quite often is for the 3M Cloud Library. It appears to be another digital resource like Overdrive. I've seen it listed more often on Minnesota library sites.

Just added another one -- If you go to the Northern Waters Library Service site, there is a whole list of online search engines listed to the left. The Digital Media Guide page shows a number of other resources.

Free ebooks for adults

After finishing the post on the LitPick site, I decided I should share a few free ebook sites for adults. Some sites are geared toward one device or another. For most devices, you can download an app that allows you to use either format. For instance, a Kindle app allows you to download Kindle editions on to other devices. One thing NOT to assume is that they only offer bad books. Two of my favorite books -- Driftless by David Rhodes and The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison -- were free. Don't forget to check for free apps too. I've found some really fun free games.

You can always go to the main site for Kindle books or Nook books and search for free books. At the Nook site, just enter "0.00" in the search space for Nook books. When the free books come up, just order them by most recent. Another way to search is to include a word (i.e. 0.00 mystery) and only free mysteries will show up.

Nook Blog -- I started going to the Nook Blog a couple weeks after getting my first Nook.

Free Friday post: A free book and a free app are made available every Friday. Even if you don't care for the book or app that week, check out the list of comments. There are several people who list other free books and they will put them in a comment attached to the post.

Barnes & Noble Book Clubs -- If you scroll down to the Book Discussion section, you'll see "Book Discussions". The latest post will be listed and many days it will be about a free book available that day.

BookBub -- This is a fun site and I always look forward to receiving my daily email. You can look through the free books or special deals or you can wait for your email to come through listing your deals of the day. Once again, you have to be prepared to download different formats.

Project Gutenberg -- Seems like the original free book site. You can download almost any classic book. Just go to the site and start searching.

Google Books -- I've found some interesting old genealogy books online at Google Books. You can set up a library and search for free books. When you find something interesting, download it to your library. They also have classics available.

LitPick -- Great Idea!!

While checking out the Wisconsin news today, I ran across this article "Getting the pick of the literature" in the Tomah Journal. It's an article about a book site, LitPick. This program started by a father/son duo offers free ebooks or low cost paperbacks to young adult readers from 4th grade to college. From how I understand it, a reader becomes a member and, with the help of an adult sponsor, can select books to read. They must write a two or three paragraph review of each book in exchange for receiving it for free or at a reduced cost -- paperback "membership" is $7.50/year.

Award Winners

This time of year is so much fun with book awards being announced. I know I have links to the award sites but thought I'd put them into a post. It's particularly fun when you find a book that you liked in the long list or as the winner. Here are the link to the most recent fiction prizes.

National Book Awards

The Man Booker Prize

Pulitzer Prize

eBooks & Libraries

A couple weekends ago, our daughter came to visit and we spent the entire weekend "shopping" for eReaders. She had a chance to sit and play with my Nook and we looked at different book sources, apps and options. I've come across a couple things that I didn't know before and thought I'd share it.

Our library systems here in Wisconsin are doing a great job of adding ebooks to collections. If you own property up here and find that your home library ebook selection isn't very good, you have the option of purchasing a library card from another area.

The best library I've come across for out-of-state cards is in Houston. Houston Library They offer almost as many books as the Wisconsin site, they offer some books as ebooks that we can only get as an audio book, they don't restrict ebook checkouts to residents, and they offer mail in  registration.

I routinely check the WPLC site to see what new books are available. What I noticed today was a difference in the number of books available. One time it said there were about 60 more books. Here's the hint -- always sign in with your library and card number. Some libraries (probably Advantage libraries) offer more books than others and those books show up if you use your library card. 

If you really need a book to read, click on the selection that only shows books with copies available. You can list them by release date to find the newest books or they can be ordered by the most popular. 

If you've got plenty of books to read and are just browsing, click on all fiction. You can put books on hold. When the book becomes available, you'll get an email and will have three days to check it out. You can also create a wish list. As soon as you have a list set up, you can click on the ribbon at the bottom of the book and it will add that book to your list. The next time you browse available books, the books that are on your wish list will have a red ribbons.

Looking Forward To Fall

This Season's Coolest 30 Books

Found this fall preview of books at USA Today and thought I'd share it. I've already got a couple of the books via Overdrive -- The Lowland and Songs of Willow Frost.

We read Jamie Ford's first book, On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, for book clubs. Songs of Willow Frost takes place in the 1930's in Seattle. It's about a young Chinese American orphan, William, who is convinced that a famous starlet, Willow Frost, is his mother. I just started it today and can already recommend it.

LibraryReads

I ran across this site, LibraryReads, last month. Member librarians recommend books they've read over the past month. The ten books with the most recommendations are posted and, of those ten books, the book receiving the most recommendations is selected as the top book of the month. It's only been going for the months of September and October.

It might not be the best site for book club selections this year since the books are so new but it might give us some books to read and recommend for next year.