Archive for the ‘Recommended’ Category

In A History of Southern Illinois , George Washington Smith begins by describing the geology of Southern Illinois and the lives of the Indians who lived there.  He then details the experiences of Europeans who explored the area.  Using information he found in journals, he gives us biographies and a glimpse of the daily lives of the European settlers. We learn the obstacles they overcame to establish farms and businesses and to build schools and churches.  Smith also describes the growth of military protection and government.  Pictures, maps, and architectural drawings bring Continue Reading

In A History of the Huguenots, William Carlos Martyn details the growth, development, and influence of this religious group in Europe.  In the eleventh century, the Paulicans believed in religious liberty and a return to Christian worship as they believed the original apostles taught.  They denounced corruption in the church hierarchy at Rome.  Despite intense persecution, this group spread throughout Europe and became known as the Huguenots.  Some of their ideals were promoted by leaders in the Reformation Period and have become part of modern Christian doctrine today.  (IR 285.4 MAR)  BP

Identical twins Marion and Shiva Stone enter the world with their mother dying at childbirth and their father abandoning them. Born of a secret union between a British surgeon and an Indian nun serving at Missing, a mission hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the twins grow up with the nurturing family of Missing, where they develop an extraordinary gift for medicine. The twins’ close bond eventually shatters, and Missing, insulated from political unrest on the outside, finds it seeping through the gates. An intimate feel for Addis Ababa Continue Reading

Are you one of those people who think Google is the most fascinating and powerful tool of the Internet? Most would agree that it is amazing how we can Google just about any word or phrase and get an astonishing amount of information to sort and sift through. But did you know that Google can also be a great resource when looking for family history? Check out the book Google Your Family Tree, written by Daniel Lynch. This book explains in simple and easy-to-understand directions the most effective ways to research your Continue Reading

The Civil War is coming to an end, and recently freed slaves Britt Johnson and wife, Mary, head west with their three children to start a new life. They leave the Confederate South to settle in the North Texas plains near Indian Territory occupied by the Comanche and the Kiowa. Soon after establishing themselves in Elm Creek, Mary dreams of starting a school and Britt is eager to develop a freighting business. Life abruptly changes when a raiding party of Kiowa and Comanche descends upon the settlement. Britt, away to get supplies, Continue Reading

The death of wealthy widow Mrs. Ferrars has the quaint English village of King’s Abbot talking; word spreads fast and nobody knows more than Caroline Sheppard, sister of village doctor James Sheppard.  However, with the murder of Roger Ackroyd the following day, more than idle speculation is needed. To solve these mysterious deaths will take the mind of a great detective, and who should be living next door to the doctor and his sister but Hercule Poirot, the renowned Belgian detective. With everyone under suspicion, the Continue Reading

Annabelle Granger inherits her grandmother’s matchmaking business and is trying to make a success of it, but all she seems to attract are old people looking for love. The one client she needs to give her that needed boost is Heath Champion, successful sports agent and the most eligible bachelor in Chicago. Arrogant and abrasive, Heath has it all, handsome looks, sex appeal, money; but the one thing he doesn’t have is a perfect wife to match his “perfect” life. Annabelle has to compete against the rich Portia Powers of Power Matches Continue Reading

An ugly murder is central to this compelling historical, but the focus is on one appealing family, the Strouds, in the backwater town of Ellis, Colo. Soon after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government rounded up all the Japanese residents of the West Coast and shipped them off to “internment camps” for the duration of the war. The major discomforts and petty indignities these (mostly) American citizens had to endure are viewed through the clear eyes of a young girl who lives on a nearby farm, Rennie Stroud. Continue Reading

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone. Continue Reading

Sedaris’s sixth book assembles essays on trying to make coffee when the water is shut off, associations in the French countryside, buying drugs in a mobile home in rural North Carolina, having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a fellow passenger on a plane, armoring windows with LP covers to protect the house from neurotic songbirds, lancing a boil from his backside, and venturing to Japan to quit smoking. Little, Brown and Company issued a first-run hardcover release of 100,000 copies.