March's Middletown Book for Discussion: Absolution (March 22)

 

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The MUM Book Discussion group will next meet on Friday, March 22.  Our title is Alice McDermott's Absolution.  Here is a brief summary:

"American women―American wives―have been mostly minor characters in the literature of the Vietnam War, but in Absolution they take center stage. Tricia is a shy newlywed, married to a rising attorney on loan to navy intelligence. Charlene is a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three, a beauty and a bully. In Saigon in 1963, the two women form a wary alliance as they balance the era’s mandate to be “helpmeets” to their ambitious husbands with their own inchoate impulse to “do good” for the people of Vietnam."  (publisher)

Here is where you can find the book:

• There are several copies available in Miami, OhioLINK, and SearchOhio libraries.  
  
• Amazon has the hardcover, paperback, and Kindle available, and Bookshop.org has links to purchase the title from independent booksellers.

Our group is always finding interesting titles to share, and we look forward to the new things you'll bring to the table.  In addition to discussing The Guncle, the group also shared these titles for consideration at their February 26 meeting:

• The Editor, Steven Rowley (also The Guncle Abroad and the Celebrants)
  
• Famous Father Girl, Jamie Bernstein
• Someone Else's Shoes, Jojo Moyes
• The Wind Knows My Name, Isabel Allende
• Endpapers, Jennifer Savran Kelly 
• Horse, Geraldine Brooks
• Under Orders, Dick Francis
  
• All About Me!, Mel Brooks
  
• Maisie Dobbs series, Jacqueline Winspear
• A Bakery in Paris, Aimie Runyan
• The Women, Kristin Hannah
• Spare, Prince Harry
• The Book of Delights (and the Book of More Delights), Ross Gay
• Arbitrary Stupid Goal, Tamara Shopsin

We will meet at 12 pm on the 22nd both in Room 123 in the Library and in Zoom at 

Join Zoom Meeting

Passcode:  525155

‬Add this event to your Google Calendar!  (which includes the Zoom information) 

Please come along to our discussion to share what you've been reading/watching/listening to/experiencing!

If you're looking for something interesting to read, check out our page of past and future reads at http://www.mid.miamioh.edu/library/bookdiscussion.htm

John

"1963 Downtown Saigon" by manhhai is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

What's Happening in the Gardner-Harvey Library This Spring? Check Out Our Newsletter

Construction is over and the Gardner-Harvey Library is excited to show off everything from our new roof to new events to some online tools to help you with AI and textbook alternatives!

Read the Spring 2024 Newsletter!

Sign up today for our Diversity Book Discussion: "Riot Baby" (Feb. 27)

Join us for our February discussion where we will be reading Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi 

We will meet on Tuesday, February 27th, at 12:00 PM. The discussion will be simulcast to both locations of the Center for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (100 Johnston Hall at Middletown and 114 Rentschler Hall at Hamilton) for attendees who would like to meet face-to-face. You will also be able to attend via Zoom. Snacks will be provided for face-to-face attendees.

Below is a brief synopsis of the book: 

Ella has a Thing. She sees a classmate grow up to become a caring nurse. A neighbor's son murdered in a drive-by shooting. Things that haven't happened yet. Kev, born while Los Angeles burned around them, wants to protect his sister from a power that could destroy her. But when Kev is incarcerated, Ella must decide what it means to watch her brother suffer while holding the ability to wreck cities in her hands.

Rooted in the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is as much an intimate family story as a global dystopian narrative. It burns fearlessly toward revolution and has quietly devastating things to say about love, fury, and the black American experience.

Please use our LinkTree to sign up so we will know if you're coming to one of the Centers or if you'll join us on Zoom. You can also tell us how you'd like to receive your free copy of the book (while supplies last, limited quantities). 

Thank you to our wonderful sponsors:

Bennyce Hamilton, Director, Center for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Krista McDonald, Director, Rentschler Library

John Burke, Director, Gardner-Harvey Library

We cannot wait for another excellent book discussion!

New books (and more) added to the Gardner-Harvey Library in January!

  

We add many new items to the collection each month, and we hope you'll check some out. Take a look at our New Books shelves or the New Media Display to help guide you to titles, or at our selection of staff DVD picks or our Black History Month display. You may also skim down our new materials list of items we added to the collection in January!  

We added 97 books, e-books, DVDs, and other items during that time, thanks to your selections and suggestions. The list can be sorted by call number, area of our collection, or by title. There is definitely something here for everyone!

Here are ten titles from the list, to give you an idea of what we've been buying: 

• Bottoms up and the devil laughs : a journey through the deep state / Kerry Howley
• Slow down : the degrowth manifesto / written by Kōhei Saitō 
• Filterworld : how algorithms flattened culture / Kyle Chayka
• The feminist killjoy handbook : the radical potential of getting in the way / Sara Ahmed
• More : a memoir of open marriage / by Molly Roden Winter
• Earlier / Sasha Frere-Jones
• Things that go bump in the universe : how astronomers decode cosmic chaos / C. Renée James
• Nuts & bolts : seven small inventions that changed the world (in a big way) / Roma Agrawal
• The blue machine : how the ocean works / Helen Czerski
• Mapping the darkness : the visionary scientists who unlocked the mysteries of sleep / Kenneth Miller

This tag will show you all of the prior lists of new materials, in reverse chronological order. We are eager to hear from you about individual items you would like us to buy, or types of items we should be on the look out for, or general subject areas we should build up in the collection.

If you have a suggestion of something to order, please use our "Tell GHL to Buy It" form, email Alan Kelley (kelleya@miamioh.edu), or drop by the library with your request. And pass your general suggestions or comments about the collection to us in those same ways. 

If you know some titles we should add, we have acquisitions funds available.  We look forward to your suggestions of items to add to the collection!  

Join us for February Events at the the Gardner-Harvey Library!

The Gardner-Harvey Library staff would like to take this time to invite you to participate in our February events!  If you have any questions about them, please let us know. Additional information on the events is available (and will be updated) in our Events Calendar.  Everyone is welcome to attend!

TEC Lab: Vinyl Clocks

Wednesday, February 7, 2024, 2-4pm

Hang out with us in the TEC Lab (GRD 125) and use our laser engraver to create a vinyl record clock. Limited supplies are available; one clock per person. The event is from 2-4 PM.

 

Animals You Know of But Not About: Cnidaria

Tuesday, February 13, 2024, 4pm

Al Cady, professor of Biological Sciences at Miami University Regionals, will take us on a journey through the inner workings of common but largely unknown animals. Join us in the SPACE (GRD 014) or on Zoom at 4pm.

 

National Park Talk: Dinosaur National Monument

Tuesday, February 20, 2024, 4:30pm

Tammie L. Gerke, teaching professor in Geology at Miami University, will share the geology, archeology, history, and other interesting information as we trek across the United States. Talks will include visits to the southwest, upstate New York, and the Midwest as we look at the new Ohio UNESCO sites. Get your questions answered and participate in a lively discussion on these national treasures in the SPACE (GRD 014) and on Zoom at 4:30 PM.

Underground Academy: “We’re Just Putting It In Our Files”: Lolita at the Cincinnati Public Library

Wednesday, February 21, 2024, 4pm

When the controversial novel, “Lolita” first appeared, the Cincinnati Public Library decided to do its part to prevent the book’s circulation -- and the public from reading it -- by hiding it. Marianne Cotugno, interim chair of the Department of Justice and Community Studies, examines what Brian Boys calls one of the “few flickers of outrage” in the U.S. about the novel. Join us in the SPACE (GRD 014) or on Zoom at 4 PM.

DEI Book Club: Riot Baby, Tochi Onyebuchi

Wednesday February 27, 2024, noon

Join representatives from Miami Regionals Libraries and the Center of Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion in an exploration of literature that embraces diversity in a variety of subject matters. Meeting in JHN 100 face-to-face, and via Zoom at noon!