In the stacks, there is a table where readers put books ...



Smythie

The monthly e-newsletter of the Smyth Public Library

September 2020

Volume 14, No.6

|EXTENDED FALL HOURS!! |

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| |It is wonderful to see so many of you at the library and we are expanding our time that |

| |you can now visit. We are currently open Monday, Wednesday and Saturday 10am-2pm and |

| |starting on September 24 we are expanding to include Thursdays and Sundays 10am-1pm.  We |

| |are providing as many services as possible while keeping everyone safe and appreciate |

| |that you are wearing the required face coverings and being mindful of social distancing. |

| |Unfortunately, live programs, use of our meeting room area and interlibrary loan are not |

| |happening yet. We are still offering curbside pickup for those who aren’t quite ready to |

| |come inside. As always, you can visit our website at for access to a |

| |great selection of downloadable materials from Overdrive, Hoopla and Kanopy. And |

| |remember, we are just an email or phone call away at Librarian@603-483-8245. |

| | |

|EVEN THE BEST LIBRARIES NEED FRIENDS |

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|The Friends of the Smyth Public Library is an organization that provides financial and volunteer support to the Library through |

|membership and contributions. |

|In the past few years, the Friends have given funds for our telescope, summer music series as well as for programming to the |

|library and passes to area museums. |

|Members have the satisfaction of knowing that your membership and contributions have helped support vital library programs. |

|If you would like to show your support for the Library by joining the Friends, please use the Contact Us form on our website at |

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Events…

Candia’s 4thAnnual

TRIVIA CONTEST

Wednesday, September 17, 6:30pm

{See if the Einsteins can finally win}

Outside by the gazebo

PRIZES to the TOP TEAMS!!

Teams:

1. Up to 6 people. Children under 12 don’t count towards the 6.

2. Must have at least 2 Candia residents

3. For purposes of this contest, all Jesse Remington faculty and students and Moore School teachers are Candia residents.

Get your neighbors; get your friends and smart enemies. We are asking for sign-ups just so we can judge how big the prizes will be.

You can show up the night of and still join the fun.

Rain Date on Monday, the 21st

Bird Migration

October 14 @ 6:00 PM 

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Join us at the library for this new program hosted by Open World Explorer, Steve Hale- who holds university degrees in marine biology, evolutionary biology, and ecology. He has lived in New Hampshire over 20 years and has explored most of the state. The history of discoveries in bird migration reveals the role of creativity and ingenuity in science. Through elegant and clever experiments scientists uncover amazing capabilities that birds possess to undertake what is arguably one of the greatest natural spectacles on Earth … the massive and synchronous movement of billions of birds from one region of the globe to another. This presentation highlights several especially beautiful scientific approaches to unlocking the secrets of bird orientation, navigation, and travel.

HOW-TO’s

If you have a special talent you’d like to share, please email Heidi

How-To: Whole Grains

September 24 @ 6:30 PM 

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Did you know that not all grains are whole grains? Are you eating whole grains? How about Ancient Grains? 15 grain bread, multi-grain or whole wheat bread…which one do you really get the most whole grains from?

This is a fun “how-to” class for you to learn about grains, nutrition facts and label fiction. Also it is the perfect class to test your whole grain knowledge skills, tasting of grains, and how to make and take grain bowl recipes. Join us here at the library for this nutrient-rich “how-to” event! Hosted by Dietician Marilyn Mills and Hannaford Market, come learn new and delicious ways to use all the many varieties of grains available for making your meals wholesome and satisfying. Please call to reserve a spot at this event!

Heidi Deacon is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Time: Sep 24, 2020 06:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting



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Passcode: 843895

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Passcode: 843895

Find your local number:

New on our shelves…

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New Fiction...[pic] [pic] [pic] [pic]

If I were you Austin, Lynn N.,

Cry baby Billingham, Mark

Deadlock Coulter, Catherine

Playing nice: a novel Delaney, JP

Atomic love Fields, Jennie

Henna artist Joshi, Alka

The Iowa Baseball Confederacy Kinsella, W. P.

Assassin's strike Larsen, Ward

Designer Baby: Underlying Crimes Mead, Joanne

Bitter pill Michaels, Fern

The daughters of Ireland Montefiore, Santa

Then she vanished Parker, T. Jefferson

1st case Patterson, James

The midwife murders Patterson, James

Under pressure Pobi, Robert,

The palace: a Simon Riske novel Reich, Christopher

Muzzled Rosenfelt, David

The first to lie Ryan, Hank Phillippi

The order: a novel Silva, Daniel

The silent wife: a novel Slaughter, Karin

Royal: a novel Steel, Danielle

The age of Shiva: a novel Suri, Manil.

The orphan collector Wiseman, Ellen Marie

Choppy water Woods, Stuart

New Non-Fiction...

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A continual feast: words of comfort and celebration collected by Father Tim

Hobbit Virtues: Rediscovering J. R. R. Tolkien's Ethics from the Lord of the Rings Snyder, Christopher A.

Parenting the wholehearted child: captivating your child's heart with God's extravagant grace Cunnion, Jeannie,

Refresh: embracing a grace-paced life in a world of endless demands

Murray, Shona,

Caste: the origins of our discontents Wilkerson, Isabel

The fifth risk Lewis, Michael

The cold vanish: seeking the missing in North America's wildlands Billman, Jon,

Shuttle, Houston: my life in the center seat of Mission Control Dye, Paul

Handy farm devices and how to make them Cobleigh, Rolfe.

Positively outrageous service: how to delight and astound your customers and win them for life Gross, T. Scott,

Horse crazy: the story of a woman and a world in love with an animal

Nir, Sarah Maslin,

Olive the Lionheart: lost love, imperial spies, and one woman's journey to the heart of Africa Ricca, Brad

Return from Siberia Shallman, John

Beyond valor: a World War II story of extraordinary heroism, sacrificial love, and a race against time Erwin, Jonathan D.,

Last mission to Tokyo: the extraordinary story of the Doolittle Raiders and their final fight for justice Paradis, Michel,

Operation Vengeance: the astonishing aerial ambush that changed World War II Hampton, Dan

Lincoln on the verge: thirteen days to Washington Widmer, Edward L.,

New Books on CD…

Deadlock CD (9) Coulter, Catherine

The world was never the same: events that changed history GC CD Vol 1-3 (18)

Fears, J. Rufus.

Last girl standing CD (10) Jackson, Lisa

Devoted CD (9) Koontz, Dean R.

1st case CD (6) Patterson, James

Cajun justice CD(9) Patterson, James

The midwife murders CD (7) Patterson, James

Royal CD (7) Steel, Danielle

Choppy water CD (6) Woods, Stuart

New Video…

Fahrenheit 451 DVD 1260

Friends are forever DVD 1263A [G]

Resistance DVD 1264 [R]

Trolls world tour DVD 1265A [PG]

Scoob! DVD 1266A [PG]

Harriet DVD 1267 [PG13]

The boxcar children DVD 1268A [G]

The winning season DVD 272 [PG]

The devil and Miss Jones DVD 274C

All about Steve DVD 277 [PG13]

Frozen II DVD 701.5A [PG]

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"It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature."

~Henry James

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I read a book twice as fast as anybody else. First, I read the beginning, and then I read the ending, and then I start in the middle and read toward whatever end I like best. Gracie Allen

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Tip from the front desk

9 Books That Predicted the Future

The problem with writing fiction is that readers expect the worlds authors create, even the most baffling and high concept ones, to make sense—so authors spend a lot of time making the worlds they craft believable. And sometimes, they come up with a plot point in their work that seems to foresee a real-world event. Some of the predictions in these books came true in such eerie detail that you have to wonder whether fiction is as fictitious as it claims.

1. Futility

In this book written by Morgan Robertson, a massive ocean liner described as “the largest craft afloat” is steaming at full speed through the North Atlantic when a watchman cries out “Iceberg.” But the ship hits the ice and begins to sink. With too few lifeboats, many of the passengers drown when the ship goes down.

The story sounds familiar, but this ship wasn’t the Titanic—Futility's ship was the Titan. Robertson penned his novel 14 years before the Titanic took its doomed maiden voyage—and those aren’t the only similarities between Robertson’s Titan and the Titanic, either. Such was the predictive power of the text that just a week after the sinking of the Titanic the story—now called The Wreck of the Titan; or, Futility—was being serialized in newspapers as “an amazing prophecy.”

2. Earth

In 1990, sci-fi author David Brin published Earth, a novel packed with a number of predictions about the year 2038. In the book, something resembling spam overwhelms email inboxes; there has been a nuclear meltdown at Japanese nuclear power plant; and the world suffers from global warming. "Three million citizens of the Republic of Bangladesh watched their farms and villages wash away as early monsoons burst their hand-built levees," Brin wrote, "turning remnants of the crippled state into a realm of swampy shoals covered by the rising Bay of Bengal."

In the afterword, Brin said that he “exaggerated the extent greenhouse heating may cause sea levels to rise by the year 2040,” but some models suggest he may not have been that far off the mark after all.

3. The World Set Free

In this 1914 novel, H.G. Wells predicted that the problem of extracting energy from the atom would be solved in 1933—and in that year, Leo Szilard did, in fact, come up with the idea of a nuclear chain reaction. That wasn’t the only prescient element of The World Set Free: Wells also described how radioactive elements could be used in “atomic bombs” that left battlefields radioactive for years to come.

4. Gulliver’s Travels

In Jonathan Swift’s biting 1726 satire, he lampooned many aspects of British life, including scientists and their obscure research. He wrote that the Laputans found two moons with relatively short orbital periods around Mars—150 years before two such moons were discovered. It wasn't just the existence of the moons that Swift got right: According to S.H. Gould in Journal of the History of Ideas, the moons’ “strange behavior agreed very closely with Swift’s description.” Several craters on Mars’s moon Phobos are now named after Swift’s characters.

5. From The Earth to the Moon

More than 100 years after Jules Verne wrote his tale of three men traveling to the Moon from the United States, the first real lunar travelers splashed down in the Pacific—just as their fictional counterparts had (albeit in the sequel, Around the Moon). Verne got their take off spot in Florida right too, though launching them from a giant space gun would have shattered the astronauts’ bones. In the 1950s, John Paul Stapp took a rocket sled from 0 to 632 mph in five seconds, experiencing up to 20 Gs (and hitting 46.2 when slowing down). According to modern calculations, being launched from Verne’s cannon would produce 23,413 Gs.

6. Fahrenheit 451

When you turn on your flat screen TV or pop in your earbuds, you’re living out the dystopian vision of Ray Bradbury’s 1953 book Fahrenheit 451. In the novel, people bombard themselves with entertainment instead of talking to each other. Much easier to pop your seashell radios in your ears and forget about the books you planned to read.

7. Stand on Zanzibar

Written in the late '60s and set in 2010, John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar predicted a popular politician by the name of President Obomi, president of Beninia; random mass shootings; a European Union; and people connecting to an encyclopedia over the phone. Unfortunately, Brunner never wrote a book about next week’s lottery numbers.

8. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

In The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket—the only novel written by Edgar Allan Poe, published in 1838—sailors are adrift and starving in the ocean after their whaling vessel is hit by a storm. Desperate, they draw lots to decide who should be sacrificed, and the fate of being eaten falls on Richard Parker. Nearly 50 years after Poe had written his tale of cannibalism, a real-life Richard Parker was killed and eaten by his hungry shipmates after their ship, the Mignonette, sank in a storm.

9. “The Machine Stops”

Chances are that you’re currently self-isolating to keep sickness at bay. If you have to see people, you log on to Zoom. Touching anyone else seems risky. In E.M. Forster’s 1909 novella “The Machine Stops” (later featured in the book The Eternal Moment and Other Stories), that’s what the normal world has become. Writing at the BBC, Will Gompertz called the story “not simply prescient; it is a jaw-droppingly, gob-smackingly, breath-takingly accurate literary description of lockdown life in 2020.”

Come in to the library to find some of these and more futuristic tales to astound you!

Excerpt by Ben Gazur (July 27, 2020)

Heidi Deacon, Director

LOVE TO SHARE A GOOD BOOK?

Outside?

How about sharing your thoughts on a book at the friendly monthly book discussion group?

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Wednesday, September 30, 7 p.m.

Outside on library grounds

Out Stealing Horses

by Per Petterson

We were going out stealing horses. That was what he said, standing at the door to the cabin where I was spending the summer with my father. I was fifteen. It was 1948 and one of the first days of July.

Trond’s friend Jon often appeared at his doorstep with an adventure in mind for the two of them. But this morning was different. What began as a joy ride on “borrowed” horses ends with Jon falling into a strange trance of grief. Trond soon learns what befell Jon earlier that day―an incident that marks the beginning of a series of vital losses for both boys. 

Set in the easternmost region of Norway, Out Stealing Horses begins with an ending. Sixty-seven-year-old Trond has settled into a rustic cabin in an isolated area to live the rest of his life with a quiet deliberation. A meeting with his only neighbor, however, forces him to reflect on that fateful summer. E-mail us for a copy

Next month feature: Outcasts United: The Story of a Refugee Soccer Team That Changed a Town by Warren St. John

Rosetta Stone

EBSCO is providing free access for NH public libraries to for at home language learning. Access via this link:



Making Your Life Easy:

By going to our website, you can search our entire catalogue for books, CD’s, DVD’s and movies. Once found, you can check to see if what you want is in. If so, just to our website and reserve the book. The next time you come in, it will be waiting for you at the front desk. WITH OUR NEW WEBSITE YOU CAN DO IT WITH YOUR MOBILE DEVICE!

PLUS!! Check out our website updates and Smyth Library’s Public Catalog featuring:

- A new signup button for new library card accounts! Tell your friends and neighbors!

- A crawl of new items.

- “What’s Hot” now covers several choices.

-“Most Popular” titles (a combination of checkouts and reserves are used to determine this list).  

- “More Search Options” includes Medium that lets members search by DVD or Large Print, etc.

More Research Options:

Full text articles from thousands of magazines, journals and national newspapers, plus NoveList. Call or e-mail us and provide your name and your library card number, and we’ll give you the password.

We’re on Facebook! [pic]

Like the Smyth Public Library

Look at our page on Facebook for events and updates about our library!

Downloadable Books!!!!

Ipods and Kindles work and you can

Order right from our website!

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Today my son asked, "Can you lend me a book mark?"

I immediately burst into tears.

12 years old and he doesn't know my name is Brian.

New books for children…

Biggest ever book of questions & answers

My Bible animals storybook Mackall, Dandi Daley

Best Friends Forever And More True Stories Of Animal Friendships AmyShields

Catching thoughts Clark, Bonnie,

Tales of princes and princesses

The hidden rainbow Matheson, Christie,

A girl like you Murphy, Frank

New books for Juniors…

Two truths and a lie: it's alive! Paquette, Ammi-Joan,

History's mysteries: curious clues, cold cases, and puzzles from the past

Jazynka, Kitson

Samantha Smith: a journey for peace Galicich, Anne.

Willa of the wood Beatty, Robert

Samantha Smith: the girl who dreamed of peace Meyers, Tracy Lynn,

Beyond the river Elmer, Robert

Walk across the sea Fletcher, Susan

Space case: a Moon Base Alpha novel Gibbs, Stuart

The turnover Lupica, Mike

Minecraft dungeons: the rise of the arch-illager Forbeck, Matt,

Seekers of the Wild Realm Ott, Alexandra,

Framed!: a T.O.A.S.T. mystery Ponti, James

From the Junior Shelves~

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The Turnover

by Mike Lupica

From New York Times bestselling author Mike Lupica comes a story about a young basketball player confronting the truth about his hero and grappling with right and wrong on and off the court.

Gramps is Lucas’s hero, which is second only to the fact that he is also Lucas’s basketball coach. Gramps coached the team to victory in the championships last year, and when he decides to come out of retirement to coach another season, Lucas is thrilled. This season will absolutely be the greatest yet.

So when his English teacher challenges the class to write a biography of the person they most admire, Lucas can’t think of anyone he’d rather write about.

Except...Gramps is being cagey. He avoids every question Lucas asks, and gets angry every time Lucas brings up his past as a hotshot basketball player. Lucas can’t help but wonder—is there something Gramps is trying to hide? And if there is, will Lucas be prepared to face the truth about the man he thought he knew?

With basketball championships fast approaching, time is running out for Lucas to decide. 

Goodreads

New books for young adults…

The last days of California Miller, Mary

Love & other theories Bass, Alexis.

Take me there Dean, Carolee.

The Real Estate Kid Herman, Randy

They both die at the end Silvera, Adam

From the Young Adult Shelves~

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The Last Days of California

by Mary Miller (Goodreads Author)

 

Jess is fifteen years old and waiting for the world to end. Her evangelical father has packed up the family to drive west to California, hoping to save as many souls as possible before the Second Coming. With her long-suffering mother and rebellious (and secretly pregnant) sister, Jess hands out tracts to nonbelievers at every rest stop, Waffle House, and gas station along the way. As Jess’s belief frays, her teenage myopia evolves into awareness about her fracturing family.

Selected as a Barnes & Noble Discover pick and an Indie Next pick, Mary Miller’s radiant debut novel reinvigorates the literary road-trip story with wry vulnerability and savage charm. Goodreads

Trivia Time!

Every month we ask a trivia question. If you know the answer, drop it off at the front desk or e-mail it here.

Last month’s question and answer:

Q. What is the name of Charles Dickens’ last work, which was only half completed at the time of his death?

A. Mystery of Edwin Drood

This Month’s Trivia Question:

What was the name of the monster faced by hero Beowulf?

From the New and Recent Shelves~

We (being I) are always looking for contributors to this reviews section. The editor has a limited range of taste, so any reviews would be more than welcomed. Just e-mail them in reply to this, or to librarian@

Fiction…

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This is the second Dr. Lucas Page book after City of Windows. They are both excellently written thrillers with a great main character. Dr. Page is a half-bionic genius astro-physicist who helps the FBI with its worst and most monstrous crimes. You need not read City first, but it wouldn’t hurt. Fans of Lincoln Rhyme will love him. (That sounds like a jacket blurb.)

The books are not stop action set squarely in our times. Dr. Page has a real, if acerbic personality, a family and a unique genius. Robert Pobi does write down to his readers and occasionally has amusing turns of phrase. For instance, after a building was blown up: “The scene around 60 Hudson Street looked like fire engines had been on sale with zero percent financing and no money down.”

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During World War II, Rosalind Porter enjoyed professional success as a scientist, working on nuclear projects alongside a team of equally brilliant men. But since 1945, she has been haunted by two things: abrupt abandonment by her British lover Thomas Weaver, a fellow scientist, and the destruction caused by the atomic bomb they both helped build. In her fifth novel, Atomic Love, Jennie Fields picks up Rosalind's story in 1950, when Weaver resurfaces, pleading with her to see him. As Weaver begins courting her, so does the FBI: they believe he might be selling nuclear secrets to the Russians. Rosalind must walk a fine line as she wrestles with how to help her country and protect her own heart.

Fields sets her story in postwar Chicago, where Rosalind--driven out of the lab by a damning report, written by Weaver--is selling jewelry at a department store. Charlie Szydlo, the FBI agent assigned to Rosalind's case, is facing struggles of his own, including nightmares of his time as a POW in the Philippines and Japan. As Charlie and Rosalind work together to uncover Weaver's secrets, the attraction between them complicates matters, yet gives them hope for a second chance at happiness. Fields sensitively depicts the layered dynamic between Charlie and Rosalind, as well as Rosalind's fraught relationship with her sister (who is facing marriage difficulties) and Charlie's battle to leave his war experience behind. Atomic Love is a twisty, compelling story of science, passion and conflicting loyalties. –thanks to Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Non-fiction…

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In the bestselling tradition of works by such authors as Susan Orlean and Mary Roach, a New York Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist explores why so many people—including herself—are obsessed with horses.

It may surprise you to learn that there are over seven million horses in America—even more than when they were the only means of transportation—and nearly two million horse owners. Acclaimed journalist and avid equestrian Sarah Maslin Nir is one of them; she began riding horses when she was just two years old and hasn’t stopped since. Horse Crazy is a fascinating, funny, and moving love letter to these graceful animals and the people who—like her—are obsessed with them. It is also a coming-of-age story of Nir growing up an outsider within the world’s most elite inner circles, and finding her true north in horses.

Nir takes us into the lesser-known corners of the riding world and profiles some of its most captivating figures. We meet Monty Roberts, the California trainer whose prowess earned him the nickname “the man who listens to horses”; George and Ann Blair, the African-American husband and wife who run a riding academy for inner city youth on a tiny island in the middle of Manhattan’s East River; and Francesca Kelly, a wealthy London socialite whose love for an Indian nobleman shaped her life’s mission: to rescue an endangered Indian breed of horse and bring them—illegally—to America.

Woven into these compelling character studies, Nir shares her own moving personal narrative. She details her father’s harrowing tale of surviving the Holocaust, and describes an enchanted but deeply lonely upbringing in Manhattan, where horses became her family. She found them even in the middle of the city, in a stable disguised in an old townhouse and in Central Park, when she chased down truants as an auxiliary mounted patrol officer. And she speaks candidly of how horses have helped her overcome heartbreak and loss.

Infused with heart and wit, and with each chapter named after a horse Nir has loved, Horse Crazy is an unforgettable blend of beautifully written memoir and first-rate reporting. Goodreads

Ever want to be one of those know-it-all reviewers?

Got a book to recommend?

Want to write a blurb?

Have a child with a favorite book who would like to contribute to the Smythie?

We welcome contributors (less for us to write!), especially children and teens to review and recommend favorite books. Just drop Heidi Deacon an e-mail at librarian@ or “reply” to this and we’ll include it here. It need not be a new book – it can be a golden oldie, a classic, a trashy beach book or whatever you have enjoyed.

I hope you have enjoyed this edition. Comments, suggestions and, of course, reviews are always welcomed.

Rick Mitchell and the library staff

The Smythie is now over 800 subscribers strong!!

But… We may not be for everyone. If you do not want to be on this e-mail list, just reply and tell us to remove your name.

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