Reading Room Blog
A life-threatening health condition led Dee Williams, author of The Big Tiny: A Built-It-Myself Memoir, to make some unorthodox life decisions. In seeking the traditional American dream of being a homeowner, she buys a house—one with great potential, but in need of extensive TLC. Dee, a farm girl, is not intimidated by hard work, and gradually she transforms her fixer-upper into charming digs, complete with a lavish garden. Between maintaining her abode and traveling for her job as a state hazardous waste inspector, she has no time to simply luxuriate in little day-to-day pleasures. It’s not until she is diagnosed with heart failure in her early forties that she realizes how vital it is to change her priorities. She is no longer content to be a slave to house and yard work.
Science fiction offers a rich history and has gone through many changes since its birth almost 200 years ago. The genre is so much more than mere aliens, robots, and time travel. It allows us to address complex issues in an accessible way.
Confession time: I am news junkie. Obsessed to the core with headlines, bylines, and editorials, I love starting my morning with a hot cup of coffee, a good podcast, and the online editions of my favorite papers.
You will find wisdom and comfort in this sweet, funny, and smart story. Counselor Maggie Brennan specializes in helping her patients in a special type of loss: the anguish of the loss of a four-legged friend. Her insight into the loss of this special bond moves her grieving patients who are often embarrassed and confused about the emotional turmoil caused by the loss of their pets: loss is loss and love is love. Her patients are not “Dog Crazy” but “Dog Normal.”
Wayward Pines, Idaho: population 416. Secret Service Agent Ethan Burke arrives in the sleepy mountain town with one mission: to recover his fellow agents who went mysteriously missing two months earlier.
I'm not a great cook, and I don't have a lot of time to cook. But I love, love, love browsing cookbooks! Here are some of our recently acquired cookbooks that have the one thing I require: great photos. I may never make any of the recipes, but, thanks to these cookbook authors and their photographers, I've spent quality time salivating over the photos.
In honor of American Craft Beer Week (May 11-18), raise a pint at one our area’s local breweries, enjoy a draft in your favorite pub or tavern, or just pick up a six-pack to take home. Beer and pizza, beer and good times with friends, beer and backyard barbeques—there are virtually no wrong ways to enjoy a brew. Just don’t overdo it! Be sure to imbibe responsibly.
After her husband Mike is murdered, young FBI agent Cassie McKenna decides to take some much needed R & R. On leave from the Bureau, she moves back to her hometown in the Chesapeake Bay area of Virginia. She’s thrilled to sail her boat on the bay’s calm waters and to finally get relief from the sudden tragedy, both mentally and physically.
But the serenity she’s looking for does not last.
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