When you come into Art Circle Public Library, be sure to view the art created by the students of Cumberland County Schools hanging in the foyer and across from the Cumberland Room. And don’t forget to vote for your favorite art by the senior high school artists.
Art Circle Public Library is at 3 East St., Crossville. The library is open from 8 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; and 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday. Visit artcirclelibrary.info or call 931-484-6790 for more information.
There will be no concert Wednesday, March 26, due to the death of one of the performers.
Great New Books
The Good Death: A Guide for Supporting Your Loved One Through the End of Life by Suzanne B. O’Brien
O’Brien draws on her work as a hospice nurse and death doula in her compassionate debut guide to end-of-life care. Exploring modern discomfort with death, she argues that scientific advances have “medicalized” dying, eroding its humanity as patients are funneled through a health system that “keeps people breathing at all costs” without accounting for their quality of life or discussing what to expect at the end.
She unpacks how best to navigate that system by detailing the stages of common end-of-life diseases like lung cancer, how to interpret pain cues to keep the patient comfortable, and how to help them formulate advance directives. More broadly, she advises readers on how to assist the dying person in sorting through weighty emotions, reviewing financial arrangements for the funeral, and drawing up a will. Such advice is worthwhile, and O’Brien’s anecdotes about caring for the dying are reassuring.
Caregivers seeking practical and emotional support will find plenty of value.
Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah
The bonds of family, friends, and workers are tested in this coming-of-age tale about three young people. Beautiful Fauzia is magnetically drawn to the handsome, suave Karim, who comes from a well-to-do family. Badar is an uneducated domestic worker in Karim’s household; his family severely neglected him.
Fauzia teaches Badar how to cook and clean the house, and he proves capable until he is falsely accused of theft. This accusation changes his life, but Karim gets him a job at the Tamarind Hotel. At the hotel, Badar meets an attractive woman, a guest who invites him out to dinner. When Badar declines, Karim steps in and takes the guest to one of his favorite restaurants. This begins an affair, another pivotal moment that leads to abrupt changes in the lives of the novel’s three protagonists.
Nobel Prize winner Gurnah is a captivating, enthralling storyteller whose characters are vibrant and sympathetic. The pages fly by quickly in his wonderful new novel.
The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan Henry
In this captivating outing from Henry, a children’s book illustrator searches for her mother, a renowned children’s book author who disappeared decades earlier. Thirty-year-old Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham disappeared from her home on the South Carolina coast in 1927, leaving behind an unpublished sequel to the novel she wrote as a precocious 12-year-old, which made her famous.
In 1952, Bronwyn’s daughter, Clara, gets a mysterious call from Charles Jameson, a Londoner who’s just discovered a satchel in his recently deceased father’s library filled with papers belonging to Bronwyn. Among the materials is a letter stipulating the satchel must be hand-delivered to Clara. She and her asthmatic 8-year-old daughter, Wynnie, arrive in London during the Great Smog, and they accept Charlie’s invitation to stay at his mother’s Lake District home, where the air is clearer.
Clara feels very much at home on the pastoral landscape and finds a romantic spark with Charles. Henry imbues her story with lush descriptions of the landscape and intriguing linguistic puzzles as Clara attempts to decipher Bronwyn’s dictionary of the invented language that was central to her work.
Library Laugh I
What did the judge say when a skunk entered the courtroom? Odor in the court!
Stingy Schobel Says
When you’re using your oven to bake dinner for a crowd, one of the worst things you can do to affect the food and your utility bill is to open the oven door unnecessarily. Ovens use a lot of energy to get hot, and every time you open the door, the temperature drops by about 25 degrees. When you close it, the oven uses more energy to get back up to the programmed temperature.
This also can affect the final outcome of dishes — especially baked treats. Use the oven light instead of opening the door to check on whatever you’re cooking.
Library Laugh II
What is the difference between a fish and a piano? You can’t tuna fish.
Libraries=Information
Does your kitchen or bathroom drain have an unpleasant odor? Instead of dumping chlorine bleach down the drain to neutralize the odor, try this nontoxic solution: regular salt.
Sometimes decomposing organic matter like food scraps can be stuck on the sides of pipes. The salt helps dislodge the stuck-on waste and acts like a mini scrubber for your pipes.
Simply pour about 1/2 to 1 cup of salt down the drain and turn on the tap to try this tip.
Spring Bonus
What is a mouse’s favorite game? Hide-and-squeak.