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Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Halloween edition of American Libraries Dewey Decimal podcast

The podcast, Dewey Decimal has a fantastic episode (episode #31) about the haunted library in Peoria, IL. 

Listen to the podcast and decide for yourself--supernatural events or urban legend? 

Multiple library directors have met untimely ends. Some say the land that library is built upon is cursed land.

Some staff members claim to have heard unusual experiences while working at the library--falling books, temperature changes, lights coming on and off on their own. One maintenance worker saw an entity enter an elevator.

The current director considers the ghost stories "local lore."


The podcast also features Mary Roach, who wrote Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, and John B. Kachuba, Ghosthunting Illinois.

https://soundcloud.com/dewey-decibel-703453552

Monday, October 29, 2018

Forest of Memory by Mary Robinette Kowal

Katya is an Authenticities and Antiquities dealer in the far future where the details of life are recorded on Captures. She collects items before this time for their nostalgic value, ordinary things like typewriters and dictionaries. 

She relies on her A.I. like many would really one a friend. That is why she find herself so unaccountably alone when her A.I. goes off-line.

Most of the novelette is Katya's experience of being kidnapped for three days by a strange masked man. He shows no empathy toward her during the three days she is "off line," but mysteriously he allows her to live to tell her tale.

This is one of the stories that leaves readers hunger for more, yet Kowal keeps some things shrouded in mystery.

This is a captivating SF/fantasy tale about how we construct memories and how we survive is both puzzling and thought-provoking.

Saturday, October 20, 2018

Playwright Lauren Gunderson

The most widely produced playwright in the United States is Lauren Gunderson. She has written I and You, The Silent Sky, The Revolutionists. We are Denmark and many other plays. 


She writes about smart, funny women trying to make their mark in the world. The Silent Sky is about Henrietta Swan Leavitt, one of the first female astronomers.

If you're looking for a STEM inspired drama, try Lauren Gunderson.

American Theatre keeps tabs on the most produced playwrights of the year.  For more playwrights on their list,

https://www.americantheatre.org/2017/09/21/the-top-20-most-produced-playwrights-of-the-2017-18-season/

Thursday, October 18, 2018

Great openings to novels

From Leif Enger's Virgil Wander


"Now I think the picture was unspooling all along and I just failed to notice. The obvious really isn't so--at least it wasn't to me, a Midwestern male cruising a medium altitude, aspiring vaguely to decency, contributing to PBS, moderated in all things including romantic forays, and doing unto others more or less reciprocally.

If I were to pinpoint when the world began reorganizing itself--that is, when my seeing of it began to shift--it would be the day a stranger named Rune blew into our bad luck town of Greenstone, Minnesota, like a spark from the boreal gloom." 

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

The City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab

Perfect for Halloween, The City of Ghosts is the story of Cass who nearly drowned. Ever since, she has the ability to pull back the Veil between the living and the dead. Things are already spooky but they are about to get a lot spookier in this middle grade novel. 
 

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