Monday, May 31, 2010

June New Books

Whiplash by Catherine Coulter 6/15
Yale professor Dr. Edward Kender's father is undergoing chemotherapy when the supply of a critical accompanying drug suddenly runs out. Unwilling to accept the drug company's disingenuous excuse of production line problems, Dr. Kender hires private investigator Erin Pulaski to prove that something more sinister is going on at Schiffer Hartwin.

Meanwhile, in Maryland, married FBI agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich are investigating a rather unusual case: Senator David Hoffman is experiencing a ghostly apparition with possible malicious intent. The case is baffling, and Sherlock and Savich are not sure what to believe, even after witnessing the disturbing specter for themselves. They're no closer to cracking the case when a call comes in from Connecticut: A top foreign Schiffer Hartwin employee has been found murdered behind the drug company's U.S. headquarters.

Unbeknownst to the FBI, Erin Pulaski had uncovered a bombshell in her investigation: The Culovort shortage is set to bring in a windfall profit in excess of two billion dollars. Upon learning of the murder, Erin is certain it has something to do with her findings, but she risks exposing herself by coming forward. As the feds move in, the case becomes even more complicated for Erin, since the murder of a foreign national on federal land can mean only that the pharmaceutical house has a secret of epic proportions-one it would do anything to keep hidden.


Spy by Clive Cussler 6/1
It is 1908, and international tensions are mounting as the world plunges toward war. When a brilliant American battleship gun designer dies in a sensational apparent suicide, the man's grief-stricken daughter turns to the legendary Van Dorn Detective Agency to clear her father's name. Van Dorn puts his chief investigator on the case, and Isaac Bell soon realizes that the clues point not to suicide but to murder. And when more suspicious deaths follow, it becomes clear that someone-an elusive spy-is orchestrating the destruction of America's brightest technological minds... and the murders all connect to a top- secret project called Hull 44.
But that is just the beginning. As the intrigue deepens, Bell will find himself pitted against German, Japanese, and British spies, in a mission that encompasses dreadnought battleships, Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet, Chinatown, Hell's Kitchen, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Isaac Bell has certainly faced perilous situations before, but this time it is more than the future of his country that's at stake- it's the fate of the world.


The Burning Wire by Jeffrey Deaver 6/1
The weapon is invisible and omnipresent. Without it, modern society grinds to a halt. It is electricity. The killer harnesses and steers huge arc flashes with voltage so high and heat so searing that steel melts and his victims are set afire.

When the first explosion occurs in broad daylight, reducing a city bus to a pile of molten, shrapnel-riddled metal, officials fear terrorism. Rhyme, a world-class forensic criminologist known for his successful apprehension of the most devious criminals, is immediately tapped for the investigation. Long a quadriplegic, he assembles NYPD detective Amelia Sachs and officer Ron Pulaski as his eyes, ears and legs on crime sites, and FBI agent Fred Dellray as his undercover man on the street. As the attacks continue across the city at a sickening pace, and terrifying demand letters begin appearing, the team works desperately against time and with maddeningly little forensic evidence to try to find the killer. Or is it killers . . . ?

Meanwhile, Rhyme is consulting on another high-profile investigation in Mexico with a most coveted quarry in his crosshairs: the hired killer known as the Watchmaker, one of the few criminals to have eluded Rhyme’s net.

Juggling two massive investigations against a cruel ticking clock takes a toll on Rhyme’s health. Soon Rhyme is fighting on yet another front—and his determination to work despite his physical limitations threatens to drive away his closest allies when he needs them most . . .





Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich 6/22
Trenton, New Jersey, bounty hunter Stephanie Plum has inherited a “lucky” bottle from her Uncle Pip. Problem is, Uncle Pip didn’t specify if the bottle brought good luck or bad luck. . . .
BAD LUCK:
Vinnie, of Vincent Plum Bail Bonds, has run up a gambling debt of $786,000 with mobster Bobby Sunflower and is being held until the cash can be produced. Nobody else will pay to get Vinnie back, leaving it up to Stephanie, office manager Connie, and file clerk Lula to raise the money if they want to save their jobs.
GOOD LUCK:
Being in the business of tracking down people, Stephanie, Lula, and Connie have an advantage in finding Vinnie. If they can rescue him, it will buy them some time to raise the cash.
BAD LUCK:
Finding a safe place to hide Vinnie turns out to be harder than raising $786,000. Vinnie’s messing up Mooner’s vibe, running up pay-per-view porn charges in Ranger’s apartment, and making Stephanie question genetics.
GOOD LUCK:
Between a bonds office yard sale that has the entire Burg turning out, Mooner’s Hobbit-Con charity event, and Uncle Pip’s lucky bottle, they just might raise enough money to save the business, and Vinnie, from ruin.
BAD LUCK:
Saving Vincent Plum Bail Bonds means Stephanie can keep being a bounty hunter. In Trenton, this involves hunting down a man wanted for polygamy, a turnpike toilet paper bandit, and a drug dealer with a pet alligator named Mr. Jingles.
GOOD LUCK:
The job of bounty hunter comes with perks in the guise of Trenton’s hottest cop, Joe Morelli, and the dark and dangerous security expert, Ranger. With any luck at all, Uncle Pip’s lucky bottle will have Stephanie getting lucky---the only question is . . . with whom?



Bullet by Laurell Hamilton 6/1
The triumvirate created by master vampire Jean-Claude, necromancer Anita Blake, and werewolf Richard Zeeman has made Jean-Claude one of the most powerful vampires in the U.S. He's consolidating power in himself and those loyal to him, doing in America what Belle Morte did in Europe when she was at her height of power. She almost owned Europe, and there was those who are determined that Jean-Claude won't do the same in America. Jean-Claude's motives may be kinder, but as any lawyer will tell you: motives matter, but you're just as dead.


Assassins are coming to St. Louis to kill them all. Anita knows they're coming, but even being forewarned doesn't mean you can win.



Frankenstein:Lost Souls by Dean Koontz 6/15 The work of creation has begun again. Only now things will be different. Victor Leben, once Frankenstein, has not only seen the future—he’s ready to populate it. Using stem cells, “organic” silicon circuitry, and nanotechnology, he will engender a race of superhumans—the perfect melding of flesh and machine. With a powerful, enigmatic backer eager to see his dream come to fruition and a secret location where the enemies of progress can’t find him, Victor is certain that this time, nothing and no one can stop him.


It is up to five people to prove him wrong. In their hands rests nothing less than the survival of humanity itself.

They are drawn together in different ways, by omens sinister and wondrous, to the same shattering conclusion: Two years after they saw him die, the man they knew as Victor Helios lives on. Detectives Carson O’Connor and Michael Maddison; Victor’s engineered wife, Erika 5, and her companion Jocko; and the original Victor’s first creation, the tormented Deucalion, have all arrived at a small Montana town where their old alliance will be renewed—and tested—by forces from within and without, and where the dangers they face will eclipse any they have yet encountered. Yet in the midst of their peril, love will blossom, and joy, and they will discover sources of strength and perseverance they could not have imagined.



The Perfect Someone by Johanna Lindsey 6/15
Nine years ago, Richard Allen fled England and his controlling father. Determined to live his own life, he took to the sea and settled in the Caribbean, joining a band of treasure-hunting pirates and adopting the persona of a carefree, seductive Frenchman named Jean Paul to guard the secrets of his past. When he slips back into England to carry out an urgent task, Richard becomes infatuated with a married woman, Georgina Malory. But his reckless attempt to woo Georgina at a masked ball turns out to be the worst mistake of his life because it brings him face to face with another beautiful woman.

Thrilled that her solicitors have finally come up with a way to free her from her betrothal contract to the Earl of Manford’s son who abandoned her years ago, heiress Julia Miller is ready for the marriage mart and hopes to find that perfect someone at her friend Georgina’s ball. Charmed by a masked Frenchman who gives her her first kiss, she can’t help but pursue this mysterious man—until she makes a shocking discovery. Now, to avoid falling into a ruthless nobleman’s trap, Julia must enter a risky, intimate charade with a man she never believed she could love.



The Rule of Nine by Steve Martini 6/1
The Old Weatherman dreams of a plan that could be his swan song, an attack to drive a stake through the heart of the right-wing establishment and bury it for good. Now he's found the money, the ideal weapon, and the professional who knows how to use it. And he has set his sights on the perfect target at the very seat of the United States government, in the heart of downtown Washington. It will be a strike heard round the world.

San Diego defense attorney Paul Madriani is still reeling from the trauma of a near nuclear explosion he helped avert at the naval base in Coronado. Threatened by federal authorities to keep quiet about the close call in California, Madriani is now faced with a new problem in the steely-eyed and alluring Joselyn Cole, a weapons control expert, who believes he has to go public with what he knows if they have any hope of stopping a similar event in the future.

But Madriani has been linked to the murder of a Washington, D.C., political staffer, and authorities believe a shadowy figure called Liquida—a hired assassin known as "the Mexicutioner"—may be responsible. And this man, as the last survivor of the attack in San Diego, might be driven by a bizarre and horrifying star-crossed vendetta, and might now be looking for Madriani himself. What Madriani and Cole begin to fear is that the Old Weatherman and this madman have joined forces and intend to pull the city—and the country—into a vortex of terror before Madriani and Cole can find answers to the enigma that is "the rule of nine."



The Devil Amongst the Lawyers by
Sharyn McCrumb 6/22
In 1934 all the national publications sent their star reporters to remote Virginia to cover the trial of Erma Morton: a beautiful 21-year-old year old mountain girl with a teaching degree, accused of murdering her father--a drunken tyrant of a man.

Eager for a new cause celebre to capture the public's imagination, they were counting on reports of horse-drawn buggies, run-down shacks, children in thread-bare clothes--all of the stereotypes of mountain life. But among them is Carl Jennings, an 18-year-old mountain boy on his first job. An eager, honest journalist, he reports accurately--describing telephones, electricity, gas stations, and coal company executives.



The Whisper by Carla Neggers 6/29











Private by James Patterson 6/28
Former CIA agent Jack Morgan runs Private, a renowned investigation company with branches around the globe. It is where you go when you need maximum force and maximum discretion. The secrets of the most influential men and women on the planet come to Jack daily--and his staff of investigators uses the world's most advanced forensic tools to make and break their cases.

Jack is already deep into the investigation of a multi-million dollar NFL gambling scandal and the unsolved slayings of 18 schoolgirls when he learns of a horrific murder close to home: his best friend's wife, Jack's former lover, has been killed. It nearly pushes him over the edge. Instead, Jack pushes back and devotes all of Private's resources to tracking down her killer.



Family Ties by Danielle Steel 6/22
Annie Ferguson was a bright young Manhattan architect. Talented, beautiful, just starting out with her first job, new apartment and boyfriend, she had the world in the palm of her hand—until a single phone call altered the course of her life forever. Overnight, she became the mother to her sister’s three orphaned children, keeping a promise she never regretted making, even if it meant putting her own life indefinitely on hold.

Now, at forty-two, as independent as ever, with a satisfying career and a family that means everything to her, Annie is comfortable being single and staying that way. She appears to have no time for anything else. With her nephew and nieces now young adults and confronting major challenges of their own, Annie is navigating a parent’s difficult passage between lending them a hand and letting go, and suddenly facing an empty nest. The eldest, twenty-eight-year-old Liz, an overworked, struggling editor in a high-powered job at Vogue, has never allowed any man to come close enough to hurt her. Ted, at twenty-four a serious and hardworking law student, is captivated by a much older, much more experienced woman with children, who is leading him much further than he wants to go. And the youngest, twenty-one-year-old Katie—impulsive, artistic, rebellious—is an art student about to make a choice that will lead her to an entirely different world she is in no way prepared for but determined to embrace.

Friday, May 28, 2010

















The Kasson Public Library will be closed on Saturday, May 29th and Monday May 31st
for Memorial Day Remembrance. The library will also be closed on Saturday's during the summer until after Labor Day weekend.
Keep the Armed Service personnel in your thoughts over this holiday. Remember to thank a Veteran of past wars and conflicts for the FREEDOM we enjoy today!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Robins, Cardinals, Buejays - Birds Storytime

WOW!! Over 50 people showed up for Tuesday's storytime. They just kept coming and coming. The children thought today's project a thaumatrope was the coolest ever. What is a thaumatrope? The word "thaumatrope" has Greek roots. "Thauma" means magic in Greek and "trope" refers to something that turns. Learn all about it and how to make one at this website. http://www.randommotion.com/html/thauma.html Enjoy! The kids and their families sure did.

Additional pictures can be found on our picture page of Flickr : http://www.flickr.com/photos/kassonlibrary/

Just Like Home Thursday May 27


Regular Storytime Wednesday, May 26th






KM Nursery Group Tuesday May 25th



Tuesday, May 25th Regular Storytime

Additional pictures may be found at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/kassonlibrary/

Monday, May 24, 2010

Three Things You Wish You’d Known at 20

Once again one of my favorite sites had a great question for us all. http://www.onsimplicity.net/2008/08/three-things-you-wish-youd-known-at-20/

While there’s little point in having regrets, I think we all wish we’d been a bit wiser when we were young–at least in one or two ways. So this week I’d like to hear three things you wish you’d known when you were 20.





1. Focusing on your school work will pay off (literally). But it’s also okay to blow off a few more afternoons and have some fun.

2. You never know what job (menial or not) will be the deciding point of getting a job.

3. You will change over and over again. Don’t worry about figuring out who you are just yet.

What do you wish you knew at age 20? Or, what are you glad you didn’t know?

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Kasson Police Are At the Library This Week During Storytime



This week storytime theme was police officers in our community. The children, parents and library staff were excited about the officers coming and talking to the children. We even has the police K9 officer and his partner come to the library and demonstrate what they do on the job. The police talked to the children about 911, equipment they use in their veichle or have on their uniform. The children enjoyed the police stickers and red suckers.

The children even sat in the back seat of the squad car and as our children's librarian said on our Twitter and Facebook page "Hopefully this is the only time they will sit in the back seat of a police car."

Thank you to all of the offiers and the police deparment for taking time to share with preschoolers at our storytime.

Additional pictures can be found on our picture page of Flickr : http://www.flickr.com/photos/kassonlibrary/

Monday, May 17, 2010

I have loaded this on my computer. The images are amazing. Very easy to download!
When Chris Pirillo wrote about Electric Sheep on his blog, I just had to try it. I hate normal screensavers because their patterns recur too often and everyone runs the same ones. Electric Sheep is free, works on multiple platforms, but most of all it is lovely.
When your screensaver turns on, it communicates over the Internet and brings in new abstract art for you to view. The computers all share the work of morphing and changing the art, plus you can vote for your favorites. The designs change over time and are detailed, fascinating and fun.
I have had multiple people stop in their tracks when they see my screensaver and ask what it is. This is really one you should try. Give your computer something to dream about.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Kite Storytime Week of May 11th

This weeks story time theme is kites. Library Director Bonnie Adams read two stories to the children about runaway kites. The children enjoyed acting along with the story and were glad the kites came back down. The children colored kite pictures to share with their families.

Staff member Donna K. will read to the children on Wednesday as I am at a meeting and Ingvild is in the cities at a huge Scholastic book fair. Ingvild will be back on Thursday to read to the children.

Additional pictures can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kassonlibrary/















Bedtime Storytime

Bedtime Storytime was held on Monday, May 10th at the library. Children's Librarian Ingvild was ready with great books to read and even had cookies and milk for those that attended the monthly evening story time. YUM! YUM!

Monday, May 10, 2010

Every Trail

Wow!! Is this great! Have fun looking at all of the trips and maps.

EveryTrail is a website that offers geo-tagged content created by users. Share information on a trip with photographs plotted on a map. Over 80 countries have entries already. Some of the trail guides are for sightseeing while many are for specific modes of travel: hiking, biking, boating, or running. You can view trails by what activity is involved and also by location.
If you have an iPhone, you can use their app which lets you take the trail with you on your journeys as well as create your own.
The combination of great photography and getting off the beaten path make this a very enticing travel site.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Semi-Annual Book Sale

The Friends of the Library held the first book sale of the year. They plan a second one in November. There were lots and lots of items for sale and people came through the door ready to buy.




Items for sale.






Gary Wallin and Marcia Drazkowski



Gary Wallin showing children how to make a spiral mobile.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Mother's Day Storytime 5/4-6

Sunday May 9th is Mother's Day and it was chosen as the theme for storytime this week. The children had their pictures taken and then placed in a house with a door and window that opens. The children loved having thier pictures taken and ttok home their craft to share with their families.

Additional pictures can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kassonlibrary/






Tuesday, May 4, 2010

May Friends Morning Book Club











There were thirteen enthusiastic book readers at the library for the May Book Club. Very lively discussion on the book the Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls by the members.

The Friends of the Library sponsor the book club the first Tuesday of each month. The next morning book club will meet Tuesday, June 8th at 10 am with the book Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen.

There is also an evening book club sponsored by the Friends the third Thursday of each month. The May PM book club will be Thursday, may 20th at 6pm in the library. The group will discuss Just Listen by Sarah Dessen. There is still room for people to join this group.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Friends of the Library Morning Book Club

A Reminder:
The Friends of the Kasson Library will discuss this month's featured book The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
Tuesday, May 4 at 10:00 am in the Library.
There is still room for other to join this group.

Glass Castle Summary:It is a story about he author's father was a charismatic but alcoholic man who greatly preferred poker to gainful employment and wasn't above stealing the family grocery money to purchase liquor. His wife could barely be bothered to raise her children. So Walls and her siblings had to fend for themselves, providing their own food, shelter and clothing - even if it meant picking through dumpsters. Remarkable for its lack of sentimentality and anger, the story is a striking testament to the power of human determination.