In April, the Library hosted bestselling author Shelby Van Pelt. Following her presentation, during the Q&A, an audience member asked what she was currently reading. She shared that she had just finished a new book by Steven Rowley called The Celebrants. She loved it and thought that it was a powerful, thought-provoking read. I am […]
With summer on the way, it is a good time to start thinking about what books to take on vacation. To me, vacation reading has become synonymous with a category of fiction called Beach Reads. These are some of my favorite books to read while sitting at the beach enjoying the sand, surf and summer […]
Sam Mazur and Sadie Green first met, at age 11, in a hospital game room in California. Sadie was at the hospital visiting her older sister, Alice, who was fighting cancer, and Sam was recovering from a horrific car accident that left his foot crushed. Sadie had upset her sister and been banished from the […]
Welcome to 2023! As we kick off a brand new year, I like to reflect on what I have read during the previous year. And 2022 was a good one, reading-wise for me. I love writing each title down and keeping track of the total I read; with this year’s grand total being 44. That […]
As Alice Stern approaches her fortieth birthday she feels unsatisfied with her life and is at a point where she is not sure why or how it happened. Her father, who she is immensely close with, is in the hospital with an unknown illness; her work keeps her busy, but the job does not utilize […]
Diana O’Toole has her life completely mapped out – educational aspirations, career goals, engagement and marriage plans, timeline for kids, when to move out of the city to the suburbs – but when the COVID-19 pandemic hits things start to become unpredictable and move far beyond Diana’s control. First, her new high-profile client decides to […]
I had the pleasure of getting to hear lawyer, criminal justice reform advocate, and author Brittany K. Barnett speak at the 2022 Public Library Association Conference in Portland, Oregon, in March. She was one of the conference’s “Big Ideas” speakers. Speakers that were invited to share information and ideas that would take the 4,000+ conference […]
I usually leave reviewing cookbooks to the talented Lisa Brown, who has a much more worldly palate than I, but I have checked out “READY, SET, COOK: HOW TO MAKE GOOD FOOD WITH WHAT’S ON HAND” at least once a month since we added it to the collection in December, so I just had to share my […]
Marin Cole is not a risk taker. When she was seventeen the death of her mother caused her to alter her lifelong dream of becoming a globetrotting journalist, like her mother had been, to instead become a responsible caregiver to her twelve year old sister Sadie. Years later, Marin has grown into a homebody who […]
As we kick off a new year, I like to reflect on what I have read during the previous year. And for the third year in a row, I kept track of the books I read, for a grand total of 30. That is down a little from last year, but I started several things […]
1901 East 20th Street
Joplin, MO 64804
Phone: 417-623-7953
