01/11: Basin City Branch Service Interruptions / Interrupciones de servicio en las sucursal de Basin City
Due to water outage, the Basin City Branch will close today. Find us online 24/7 at Midcolumbialibraries.org. / Debido a interrupciones con el servicio de agua, la sucursal de Basin City estará cerrada. Encuentranos en línea 24/7 en Midcolumbialibraries.org.
Spook Central
Horror has always been a hit-or-miss genre for me. Body horror and gore deter me, but I've always loved a story that thrills with monsters, haunted houses or other common tropes of the horror and suspense genres. As a result, very few of these titles contain visceral descriptions of gore, but they all lean into chilling and frightening themes.
“I delight in what I fear.” - Shirley…
<p>I can’t say enough good things about this book. Like her long-missing mother, the protagonist is a literal monster… but Shesheshen displays more humanity than many of the “normal humans” she meets throughout the story. She even struggles with the feelings of affection she develops for one of these people: Does she actually love this human woman, or are her feelings rooted in a monstrous, biological urge? Oddly cozy in spite of its grotesque elements, Wiswell’s story asks readers to consider the nature of love, family, and identity and he wraps his questions in a scintillating origin story.</p>
<p>This YA title stands up just as well to adult audiences as it does to teens, and one of the ways it does so is by incorporating recognizable themes from U.S. history, as well as a variety of languages, into a supernatural set of tales. Following the winding branches of one indigenous family tree, “Man-Made Monsters” combines the family's generational stories with tropes and creatures from classic horror, bringing them together in an eerie homage to the Native American tribes of the southeast.</p>
<p>Published more than a quarter-century before Bram Stoker’s "Dracula," Carmilla is often considered one of the earliest examples of vampires in popular literature. My take on it is less forgiving than many; I can’t help but ask why a deep and loving friendship between two young women is portrayed as such a danger to one’s health and livelihood, but I still enjoyed the story a great deal. Frankly, my disagreement with Le Fanu’s sentiments on female connection kept me just as engaged with the text as any other reader.</p>
<p>This is book is an award-winning gothic horror, set in 1950s Mexico. It's centered on a young woman who receives a panicked letter from her newly married cousin, which then prompts her to visit. But over the course of her stay with her new in-laws, Noemí discovers that the family her cousin married into consider themselves the keepers of many things, including their luxurious - if dated - mansion, their rigid traditions, and the terrible secret they’ve guarded for generations. (An utterly gorgeous and memorable read from cover to cover—horror steeped in the historical flair and racial tensions of mid-century Mexico. To this day, I still can’t get over this story’s twist.)</p>
Herstory
These non-fiction titles focus on the ways women have influenced cultural developments and events. Expect many (but not all) of these titles to be written with attitude.
<p>Rome’s history is often told through the achievements of its citizens. The chroniclers of the empire were men, and their focus rarely wandered from the accomplishments of other men. But what of the women who helped Rome become the vast, storied empire we recognize from history books today? Emma Southton sheds light on a variety of Roman women (from those who were seen as the epitome of Roman womanhood to those who were considered villainous, to those left entirely unnamed in the histories), and she does so with no small amount of wit and charm.</p>
<p>For fear of the political support she would garner, the story of Ona Judge was kept from the public for decades after she escaped from the presidential mansion in 1796. She refused over and over again to be brought back into slavery, proud of her state-recognized freedom in New Hampshire, despite repeated attempts by the Washington family to “reclaim” her to Virginia. Slavery ruined the lives of far too many in early America, but Ona Judge proved that its long arm was not unstoppable. This is the story of just one woman, but it is an incredible one.</p>
<p>Listen, sheep aren’t really my thing, but I love animals and I’m always ready to hear about those that survive near-extinction. Jane Cooper, who took up shepherding for love of wool textiles, found herself the guardian of a “lost flock," the last group of an ancient, primitive sheep breed. This book tells the story of how she rose to the challenge of not just saving the Orkney Boreray, but setting them up to become one Scotland’s most sustainable breeds.</p>
<p>This book depicts the cultural development of North American Indigenous tribes, from the early civilizations that congregated along the Mississippi to the various, distinct tribes that ranged the continent in early U.S. history, to the cultural touchstones and figures we recognize from media today. While it may not seem distinctly focused on "herstory," this book made the list because uniquely, it there is no small amount of focus on the role and power of women in Native American societies as they developed over the millennia. </p>