Tomorrow, July 8, at noon in the Cumberland Room, performers from the Playhouse will entertain you with selections from “Shrek The Musical.” Don’t miss this treat for all ages.
Come join us next Wednesday, July 15, at noon in the Cumberland Room when the Rugby Cornet Band will perform traditional brass band selections in 1880s fashion.
Great New Books
Pretty Dead Things by Kelsey Cox. Is there anything more cutthroat than a small-town Texas beauty pageant? Anhalt’s Lone Star Princess competition always brings out the worst in people, but this go-round will dredge up devastating secrets, too.
It’s been 25 years since Ingrid Whitmore’s twin sister disappeared on Sherman Ranch, the property now hosting the pageant. Returning to Anhalt now means facing her memories and reckoning with Isabelle’s true fate. Her former high-school classmates — Melanie, Cat, and Kennedy Claire — are rehashing old feelings while fostering new grudges as their daughters sign up to compete.
Sarah Lynn, the boldest of the teens, is determined to win and keep her friends. When a storm traps them all at Sherman Ranch on pageant night, more than the power goes down for the count.
Lots of figurative backstabbing, a few literal deaths, and the diverting characters parade their messes across the page for the reader’s judging. There’s no shortage of options for who’ll be crowned killer in the end.
Helpless by Jessica Knoll. Unreliable narrator Faye Heron has a past riddled with traumas and desires that she must confront when returning to the college campus where she left behind her first love, Henry Spalding.
After college, Faye achieved success in Hollywood — in no small part by writing an episode of a television show about her destructive relationship.
When Faye and Henry meet again at the funeral of one of their professors, he drugs and kidnaps her, and the plot unfolds at his secluded cabin.
Country People by Daniel Mason. Miles Krzelewski, 14 years into working on what should have been a two-year dissertation, moves with his family from Northern California to rural Vermont when his wife Kate, a highly successful, oft-touted-as-genius academic, is offered a year-long visiting professorship at a prestigious New England university.
Adjusting to his new life in the countryside, Miles meets a series of eccentric locals who make him question everything he takes for granted about the physical realities of his world. It’s a wickedly funny, whimsical, and tender portrait of a man caught between his real-life responsibilities and an imagined world that comes to life below him.
With conversational yet erudite prose full of laugh-out-loud observational humor and surprising tenderness, this novel explores themes of parenthood, marriage, belief, storytelling, and the vastness of American life and offers a sincere look into how secrets grow between two people, not through deliberate concealment but through the passive act of remaining silent.
Library Laugh I
Did you hear the rumor about butter? Well, I’m not going to go spreading it.
Stingy Schobel Says
Hydrogen peroxide is a common first-aid antiseptic because it helps oxidize and break down bacteria and debris in minor cuts and scrapes. It then decomposes into water and oxygen, leaving no harmful residue behind when used appropriately.
Beyond the medicine cabinet, it’s also a useful household cleaner. You can help disinfect cutting boards by spraying them with hydrogen peroxide, letting it sit briefly, then rinsing thoroughly.
It can also be used to help reduce surface bacteria on fruits and vegetables: Lightly mist produce, let it sit for a few minutes, then rinse well with water before eating.
Library Laugh II
What did the janitor say when he jumped out of the closet? Supplies!
Libraries=Information
Memory foam mattresses and toppers are made from petroleum-based polyurethane foam, but they are not simply “melted down” like recyclable plastics; because the material is a thermoset, recycling requires breaking it down mechanically rather than melting it.
The good news is that they are still widely recyclable in practice, and the foam can be processed into new products like carpet padding, insulation and industrial cushioning.
Many manufacturers and retailers now offer take-back programs for old mattresses, sometimes for free or a small fee, and there are nationwide recycling networks, such as the Mattress Recycling Council’s “Bye Bye Mattress” program, that collect and divert them from landfills.
Summer Heat Wave Bonus
What happens when a snowman has a tantrum? He has a meltdown.