We can help!
Looking for a book to read over winter break? READsearcher is a new service the Durham Tech Library is offering where we give you personalized book recommendation based on your answers to a few painless questions.
You can find the link on the library homepage under ‘Forms.’ We are excited to offer this new service and look forward to helping all of you find your next book!
Don’t forget to attend the Durham Tech Library Book Club‘s meeting on Thursday, December 3rd. It will be at 3pm in the Schwartz conference room, Building 5. The book we will be discussing is Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.
Station Eleven by
Emily St. John Mandel
Haven’t read it? It’s not too late! The library still has a copy reserved behind the circulation desk for you to check out.
Can’t finish it on time? Come anyway, we’d still love for you to join us!
Check out these books to read over winter break!
This is the first in a new type of blog post from the Durham Tech Library. Each post will allow a staff member to highlight a book they’ve read recently.
This post is brought to you by Stephen Brooks, reference librarian, who read the book Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.
This novel follows several members of an American family, the Berglunds, as well as their close friends and lovers, as complex and troubled relationships unfold over many years. The book follows them through the last decades of the twentieth century and concludes near the beginning of the Obama administration. The Berglunds are the middle class suburban family that the neighbors just love to talk about. Walter, the successful and doting husband, and Patty, the tall ex varsity basketball player who bakes Christmas cookies for each resident of Barrier Street, seem like the perfect couple. But life is not the pretty picture presented to the world. When their precious first born is corrupted by the wanton girl next door, the edges fray on the Berglunds’ family fabric. An old friend emerges, tall, dark and only slightly disheveled and mistakes are made.
The votes are in! The next book that the Durham Tech Library Book Club is reading will be Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. The library has 5 copies of the book waiting behind the circulation desk to be checked out and enjoyed.
The meeting to discuss this book will be December 3rd at 3pm in the Schwartz Conference Room. Join us!
Station Eleven by
Emily St. John Mandel
One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production. Jeevan Chaudhary, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur’s chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside as life disintegrates outside. This novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor’s first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet.
Here are some of the new books we have for check out. So, you know, check them out!
Now that NaNoWriMo has started, here are a few books at the library that can help get the creative juices flowing. Here are tips, tricks, and advice from writers of both fiction and nonfiction. No matter what you are writing about you can find help here. Good luck!
Don’t forget to add the Durham Tech Library as your writing buddy on Nanowrimo.org!
November is known for Thanksgiving and the beginning of the holiday shopping season, but for writers it’s known for something else. November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), when people put their fingers to their keyboards and pound out 50,000 words in one month. That’s about 1,667 words a day.
You can do it, we believe in you!
There are as many ways to write a novel as there are writers, but for those who would like to plot their novel before writing we’ve collected some resources to help.
Writing a whole book in a month is a challenge and we want to support you. That’s why this year at the library we’ve made our own NaNoWriMo account. Search for us (username: Durham Tech Library) and make us your writing buddy! We will send our encouraging messages to our buddies and will answer any research questions you have. Suddenly find yourself needing to know how to build a canoe from a tree? Or what clothing was in fashion in the 15th century? How about first aid for a knife wound? Send us a NaNoMail and ask!
October brings a new crop of books for your education and entertainment. Check them out now!
Today, NASA announced that they’ve found proof of liquid saltwater on Mars. It’s an announcement that makes one day finding living microbes on the surface more likely than ever before. With the movie adaptation of The Martian by Andy Weir coming out soon it seems like a good time check out what science has to say about the red planet, and through fiction discover what our preoccupation with the red planet says about us.
All of the books below are available to check out of the library. This list includes both new and classic science fiction, as well as a guide to all the questions a person might have about space travel.
The Martian by Andy Weir
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive–and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old ‘human error’ are much more likely to kill him first. But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills–and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit–he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him? Now a major motion picture!