February's Middletown Book for Discussion: The Midnight Library

 

The MUM Book Discussion group will next meet on Tuesday, February 22.  Our title is Matt Haig's The Midnight Library.  Here is a brief summary of this search for fulfillment among infinite realities:

"Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better? Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place."  

Here is where you can find the book:

• There are several copies available through Miami, OhioLINK, and SearchOhio.  
  
• Amazon has the hardcover, Kindle, and audiobook 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.  On January 18th the members of the group discussed The Kitchen Front, and also shared a few titles to add to your reading/viewing lists:

• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie
  
• Corretta: My Life, My Love, My Legacy, Coretta Scott King
• The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020, Diana Gabaldon, ed.
• The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, V. E. Schwab
• Career and Family: Women's Century-Long Journey Toward Equity, Claudia Goldin
• Places and Names: On War, Resolution, and Returning, Elliot Ackerman
• What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami
• Kudos, Rachel Cusk

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

Join Zoom Meeting

You may also join by calling +1 9292056099

Passcode: 497071
‬

Add this event to your Google Calendar!  (which includes the Zoom and calling 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

"library" by chanzi is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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

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 skim down our new materials list of items we added to the collection in December! We added 118 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: 

• Rockstar manager : from theory to practice / Mary Kovach, Ph.D. [forward by: Rocco DiSpirito]
• When I grow up : the lost autobiographies of six Yiddish teenagers / Ken Krimstein
• In the eye of the wild / Nastassja Martin translated from the French by Sophie R. Lewis"
• The story paradox : how our love of storytelling builds societies and tears them down / Jonathan Gottschall
• Sludge : what stops us from getting things done and what to do about it / Cass R. Sunstein
• Reconstructions : architecture and Blackness in America / edited by Sean Anderson and Mabel O. Wilson
• Swan and shadow : an ordinary sorcery tale / A.R. Henle
• The immersive reality revolution : how immersive technologies will change society - for better or worse / T.P. Ffiske
• The sleeping beauties : and other stories of mystery illness / Suzanne O'Sullivan
• How the other half eats : the untold story of food and inequality in America / Priya Fielding-Singh, PhD

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 John Burke (burkejj@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. 

Thanks again for keeping our collection vibrant and your information needs met!

January's Middletown Book for Discussion: The Kitchen Front (Jan. 18)

 

The MUM Book Discussion group will next meet on Tuesday, January 18.  Our title is Jennifer Ryan's The Kitchen Front.  Here is a brief summary of this tale of wartime experiences on the homefront:

"Two years into World War II, Britain is feeling her losses; the Nazis have won battles, the Blitz has destroyed cities, and U-boats have cut off the supply of food. In an effort to help housewives with food rationing, a BBC radio program called The Kitchen Front is putting on a cooking contest--and the grand prize is a job as the program's first-ever female co-host. For four very different women, winning the contest presents a crucial chance to change their lives."  

Here is where you can find the book:

• There are several copies available through Miami and SearchOhio.  
  
• Amazon has the hardcover, Kindle, and audiobook 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.  On December 21st the members of the group discussed Skipping Christmas, and also shared a few titles to add to your reading/viewing lists:

• The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles
  
• Vanderbilt: the rise and fall of an American dynasty, Anderson Cooper
• Later, Stephen King
• I Was Told It Would Get Easier, Abbi Waxman
• The Tie That Binds, Kent Haruf
• Allegedly, Tiffany Jackson
• People We Meet on Vacation, Emily Henry
• Women Rowing North, Mary Pipher (not recommended)
• Black Buck, Mateo Askaripour
• The Startup Wife, Tahmima Anam
• The Henna Artist, Alka Joshi
• Belfast (the movie)
• Eligible, Curtis Sittenfeld
• A Psalm for the Wild Built, Becky Chambers

We will meet at 12 pm on the18th both in Room 123 in the Library and in Zoom at 

Join Zoom Meeting

You may also join by calling +1 253-215-8782‬

Passcode: 893374
‬

Add this event to your Google Calendar!  (which includes the Zoom and calling 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

"File:Blitz and Pieces Kitchen.jpg" by Jack1956 is licensed under CC0 1.0

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

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 skim down our new materials list of items we added to the collection in November! We added 103 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: 

• Hurts so good : the science and culture of pain on purpose / Leigh Cowart
• Born in Blackness : Africa, Africans, and the making of the modern world, 1471 to the Second World War / Howard W. French
• The 1619 Project : a new origin story / edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones, Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman, and Jake Silverstein
• How to be animal : a new history of what it means to be human / Melanie Challenger
• Hail Mary : the rise and fall of the National Women's Football League / Britni de la Cretaz and Lyndsey D'Arcangelo
• The nutmeg's curse : parables for a planet in crisis / Amitav Ghosh
• The evidence liberal arts needs : lives of consequence, inquiry, and accomplishment / Richard A. Detweiler
• Everything and less : the novel in the age of Amazon / Mark McGurl
• H of H playbook / Anne Carson
• Navigating autism : 9 mindsets for helping kids on the spectrum / Temple Grandin, Debra Moore

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 John Burke (burkejj@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. 

Thanks again for keeping our collection vibrant and your information needs met!

December's Middletown Book for Discussion: Skipping Christmas (Dec. 21)

 

The MUM Book Discussion group will next meet on Tuesday, December 21.  Our title is John Grisham's Skipping Christmas.  Here is a brief summary of this tale of attempted holiday avoidance:

"Luther and Nora Krank decide to opt out of Christmas, choosing instead to set sail on a Caribbean cruise on December 25, but they learn there are consequences to pay for trying to ignore the holiday frenzy."  

Here is where you can find the book:

• There are several copies available through Miami, OhioLINK, and SearchOhio.  
  
• Amazon has the paperback, Kindle, and audiobook 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.  On November 23rd the members of the group discussed A Lesson Before Dying at great length, but still had time to share a couple of titles to add to your reading/viewing lists:

• The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett
  
• The Hunting Trip, William E. Butterworth III (not recommended)
• The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles
• The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell, and its sequel, Children of God
• Quote from the meeting: "We teach what we need to learn and we write what we need to know." Gloria Steinem (just to be clear, Gloria was not at the meeting, but her words were shared. 8-) )

We will meet at 12 pm on the 21st both in Room 123 in the Library and in Zoom at 

Join Zoom Meeting

You may also join by calling +1 253-215-8782‬

Passcode: 893374
‬

Add this event to your Google Calendar!  (which includes the Zoom and calling 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

"Pine tree by the sea ... HDR" by Emil9497 Photography & Art is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

TEC Lab Workshop: Make Personalized Holiday Ornaments (Dec. 1)

Looking for a little something special to decorate your holidays, or to give as a gift?  Come to the TEC Lab Makerspace on Wednesday, December 1 from 1:00pm to 2:00pm.  

We'll be using the laser cutter to create wooden and acrylic ornaments, engraving names, messages, and more on them.  We'll also have clear, empty ornaments on hand for you to fill or decorate, and more fun ways to make things.

Are ornaments not your thing? Well, the same technology can be used to engrave a wooden or acrylic item for other purposes.  Come try it out!

Sign up today to hold your spot - we may need to limit attendance based on demand. We'll be in touch to confirm your reservation.

Can't make it on the 1st?  Use this calendar to make an appointment to work with us on another day that week. 

Enjoy this free creative experience as we reach the end of the semester - and take home a marvelous creation!

Everyone is welcome - join us in Room 125 Gardner-Harvey Library.

Don't forget! - Craters of the Moon National Monument presentation (November 16)

Craters of the Moon National Monument

Tuesday, November 16

4:45-6:15 p.m.

Gardner-Harvey Library SPACE (GRD 014) and on Zoom at https://miamioh.zoom.us/j/82551718301?pwd=WDNyRDdsUjJCRm9LMTVwSUpqcjhYZz09

Tammie L. Gerke, Associate Teaching Professor in Geology at Miami University will share the geology and other interesting information about each national park, monument, or preserve. Get your questions answered and participate in a lively discussion on these national treasures.

Add this event to your Google Calendar!

We will move the National Parks Talks Series session on Crater Lake (originally scheduled for November 16) into our schedule for the Spring semester.

"Craters of the Moon National Monument, ID" by Mark Kaletka is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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

We are adding many new items to the collection each month, and making sure that you can see them on display! Take a look at our New Books shelves or skim down our new materials list of items we added to the collection in October! We added 106 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: 

• What are the chances? : why we believe in luck / Barbara Blatchley
• Shoutin' in the fire : an American epistle / Danté Stewart
• The secret history of food : strange but true stories about the origins of everything we eat / Matt Siegel
• Start your own consulting business : your step-by-step guide to success / The Staff of Entrepreneur Media Inc. & Terry Rice
• The transgender issue : an argument for justice / Shon Faye
• This is ear hustle : unflinching stories of everyday prison life / Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods
• Teaching machines : the history of personalized learning / Audrey Watters
• The morning star / Karl Ove Knausgaard translated from the Norwegian by Martin Aitken
• I love you but I've chosen darkness / Claire Vaye Watkins
• The fight for climate after COVID-19 / Alice C. Hill

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 John Burke (burkejj@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. 

Thanks again for keeping our collection vibrant and your information needs met!

November's Middletown Book for Discussion: A Lesson Before Dying (Nov. 23)

 

The MUM Book Discussion group will next meet on Tuesday, November 23.  Our title is Ernest Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying.  Here is a brief summary of this tale of unexpected family discoveries:

"A Lesson Before Dying, is set in a small Cajun community in the late 1940s. Jefferson, a young black man, is an unwitting party to a liquor store shoot out in which three men are killed; the only survivor, he is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, who left his hometown for the university, has returned to the plantation school to teach. As he struggles with his decision whether to stay or escape to another state, his aunt and Jefferson's godmother persuade him to visit Jefferson in his cell and impart his learning and his pride to Jefferson before his death. In the end, the two men forge a bond as they both come to understand the simple heroism of resisting—and defying—the expected."  

Here is where you can find the book:

• There are several copies available through Miami, OhioLINK, and SearchOhio.  
  
• Amazon has the paperback, Kindle, and audiobook 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.  On October 26th the members of the group discussed Akin, and also shared these titles to add to your reading/viewing lists:

• A Slow Fire Burning, Paula Hawkins
  
• The Last Thing He Told Me, Laura Dave
• Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty, Anderson Cooper
• Apples Never Fall, Liane Moriarty
• The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles
• Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
• Coraline, Neil Gaiman
• Where the Past Begins, Amy Tan
• A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Becky Chambers
• The Four Winds, Kristin Hannah
• The Women in the Castle, Jessica Shattuck
• No Time Like the Present, Nadine Gordimer
• Factory Man and TrueVine, Beth Macy

We will meet at 12 pm on the 23rd both in Room 123 in the Library and in Zoom at 

Join Zoom Meeting

You may also join by calling +1 253-215-8782‬

Passcode: 893374
‬

Add this event to your Google Calendar!  (which includes the Zoom and calling 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

"prison" by Kim Daram is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Sublimation and Vinyl at the TEC Lab Makerspace! (Nov. 3)

Join us on Wednesday, November 3rd for our TEC Lab workshop on sublimation and vinyl! You may stop in any time between 11am and 1pm, or between 4pm and 6pm to learn how to make items.

Check out our TEC Lab and all the equipment available to use. We will have materials and guidance ready for you to make items to take with you. From mugs to shirts, sublimation printing and heat transfer vinyl can create high quality custom items. Participants can create their own items using these two techniques for printing while learning about each process and the types of items they can be used with.  You can see more information on sublimation and vinyl on our Middletown TEC Lab Makerspace guide.

We are limiting you to 2 blank items per person, but additional blanks can be purchased at minimal cost. 

This workshop is free and open to the public.

The event will be held in the TEC Lab makerspace (Room 125) at the Gardner-Harvey Library on the MIddletown campus.

Add this event to your Google Calendar!

Craters of the Moon National Monument presentation (November 16)

Craters of the Moon National Monument

Tuesday, November 16

4:45-6:15 p.m.

Gardner-Harvey Library SPACE (GRD 014) and on Zoom at https://miamioh.zoom.us/j/82551718301?pwd=WDNyRDdsUjJCRm9LMTVwSUpqcjhYZz09

Tammie L. Gerke, Associate Teaching Professor in Geology at Miami University will share the geology and other interesting information about each national park, monument, or preserve. Get your questions answered and participate in a lively discussion on these national treasures.

Add this event to your Google Calendar!

We will move the National Parks Talks Series session on Crater Lake (originally scheduled for November 16) into our schedule for the Spring semester.

"Craters of the Moon National Monument, ID" by Mark Kaletka is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Gardner-Harvey Middmester Newsletter: Spooky tales, new furniture, and more

 
Spooky Tales, technology for checkout, and a comfortable new look. All of this and more in our Gardner-Harvey Middmester Newsletter. 

My Strange & Spooky World: An Evening with James A. Willis (Oct. 22)

Join the Gardner-Harvey Library and author and paranormal researcher James Willis at Verity Lodge on Friday, October 22 at 6:00 p.m. for ghost stories and strange tales around the fireplace!

Add this event to your Google Calendar!

James A. Willis, Founder and Director of The Ghosts of Ohio and the author of various books such as 'The Big Book of Ohio Ghost Stories', 'Weird Ohio', and 'Central Ohio Legends & Lore' will speak about unusual happenings in Ohio.

Light refreshments will be available. All are welcome to attend at no charge.  Copies of James' books will be available for sale by the author.

"Ghostly Woman" by H o l l y. is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Rescheduled: National Parks Talks Series: Craters of the Moon National Monument (now Nov. 16)

The presentation scheduled for tonight at 4:45pm has been rescheduled until November 16.  We apologize for the need to make this change, and we hope you can join us on the new date.  

We will move the National Parks Talks Series session on Crater Lake (originally scheduled for November 16) into our schedule for the Spring semester.

The new date/time and the Zoom link is below:

Craters of the Moon National Monument

Tuesday, November 16

4:45-6:15 p.m.

Gardner-Harvey Library SPACE (GRD 014) and on Zoom at https://miamioh.zoom.us/j/82551718301?pwd=WDNyRDdsUjJCRm9LMTVwSUpqcjhYZz09

Tammie L. Gerke, Associate Teaching Professor in Geology at Miami University will share the geology and other interesting information about each national park, monument, or preserve. Get your questions answered and participate in a lively discussion on these national treasures.

Add this event to your Google Calendar!

"Craters of the Moon National Monument, ID" by Mark Kaletka is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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

 

We are adding many new items to the collection each month, and making sure that you can see them on display! Take a look at our New Books shelves or skim down our new materials list of items we added to the collection in September! We added 223 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: 

• Ghosts and haunts of the Civil War : authentic accounts of the strange and unexplained / Christopher K. Coleman
• On compromise : art, politics, and the fate of an American ideal / Rachel Greenwald Smith
• Among the mosques : a journey across Muslim Britain / Ed Husain
• Subpar parks : America's most extraordinary national parks & their least impressed visitors / Amber Share
• Travels with George : in search of Washington and his legacy / Nathaniel Philbrick
• The three box solution : a strategy for leading innovation / Vijay Govindarajan
• Panics and persecutions : 20 tales of excommunication in the digital age / edited by Claire Lehmann, Colin Wright, Jamie Palmer, Jonathan Kay, Toby Young
• The right to sex : feminism in the twenty-first century / Amia Srinivasan
• A place so deep inside America it can't be seen : poems / Kari Gunter-Seymour
• AI 2041 : ten visions for our future / by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan

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 John Burke (burkejj@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. 

Thanks again for keeping our collection vibrant and your information needs met!

October's Middletown Book for Discussion: Akin (Oct. 26)

 

The MUM Book Discussion group will next meet on Tuesday, October 26.  Our title is Emma Donoghue's Akin.  Here is a brief summary of this tale of unexpected family discoveries:

"Noah Selvaggio is a retired chemistry professor and widower who is days away from his first visit back to Nice since he was a child, bringing with him a handful of puzzling photos he's discovered from his mother's wartime years. But he receives a call from social services: Noah is the closest available relative of an eleven-year-old great-nephew he's never met, who urgently needs someone to look after him. Noah agrees to take Michael along on his trip. The two come to grasp the risks people in all eras have run for their loved ones, and find they are more akin than they knew. Akin is a funny, heart-wrenching tale of an old man and a boy, born two generations apart, who unpick their painful story and start to write a new one together."  

Here is where you can find the book (note: our delivery service among Ohio libraries is still slow at the moment, but appears to be improving.  Fortunately, the movement of books within the Miami system or within an individual public library's system appears to be moving as fast as normal):

• There are several copies available through Miami, OhioLINK, and SearchOhio.  
  
• Amazon has the paperback, Kindle, and audiobook 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.  On September 28th the members of the group discussed Jane Eyre, and also shared these titles to add to your reading/viewing lists:

• Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery
• Akin, Emma Donoghue
• A Slow Fire Burning, Paula Hawkins
• The Fault in our Stars, John Green
• Marge Piercy's poetry
• Emily Dickinson's poetry
• The Ghosts of Eden Park, Karen Abbott
• One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• The Fault in Our Stars, John Green
• Dune, Frank Herbert
• Muhammad Ali documentary by Ken Burns
• Roadrunner: a Film About Anthony Bourdain

We will meet at 12 pm on the 26th both in Room 123 in the Library and in Zoom at 

Join Zoom Meeting

You may also join by calling +1 253-215-8782‬

Passcode: 893374
‬

Add this event to your Google Calendar!  (which includes the Zoom and calling 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

"Coastal Nice, France" by kevinpsiu is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0