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The Green Knight

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The Green Knight
Format: DVD, Bluray
Who it’s for: Adults

The Green Knight is an adaptation of the Arthurian legend of Sir Gawain. At a Camelot Christmas feast, Sir Gawain, nephew of King Arthur, accepts a challenge from a mysterious visitor. The Green Knight, portrayed in the movie as a kind of half man/half tree monster, wants to know which brave knight of the Round Table will play a game with him, and Gawain, desperate to make a name for himself, volunteers. The game is this: The Green Knight offers up his axe for Gawain to strike him with. Any strike he makes will be returned a year hence, when Gawain brings the axe to him at the Green Chapel. Gawain swiftly decapitates him. No worries about retaliation now, right? Wrong, as the Green Knight picks up his own head, and rides off laughing. To say that Gawain is about to have a long year is an understatement.

Gawain’s journey to the Green Chapel is as fraught with peril as what presumably awaits him there. Along the way to fulfill his destiny he must confront thieves, ghosts, giants, a talking fox, a mysterious lord and lady, and his own demons. This is NOT a fast-paced action film. This a philosophical slow burn, a visually stimulating interpretation of the 14th century chivalric poem, about man’s search for meaning and what makes a true hero, masterfully directed by David Lowery, featuring amazing performances by the cast lead by a soulful Dev Patel as Sir Gawain. If you would like to see something wonderful and strange, check out The Green Knight.

Find The Green Knight in the catalog

A Season on the Wind

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Title: A Season on the Wind by Suzanne Woods Fisher
Format: Book
Who’s It For: Teens and Adults

Penny Weaver remembered Ben Zook from her childhood. She met him in the meadow near his family’s farm. She taught him about birding while visiting her grandmother. Together, they traversed the countryside and spotted an eagle’s nest.  They became friends.  However, decades later, Ben did not remember Penny.

Ben Zook left Stoney Ridge and his Amish faith long ago. He had become a world-renown photographer. One day, Ben returned with his cousin Natalie to rent Penny’s guest house. And they hired Penny’s brother Micah for his keen birding skills. Micah had spotted the elusive White-winged Tern.  Ben wanted Micah to help him to spot it to photograph it. It was actually Micah’s pesky neighbor Trudy Yoder who’d seen the bird.  Could Micah find it?

Penny provided a meal daily for Ben’s father, Zeke Zook.  The poor man suffered from Alzheimer’s and, she suspected, loneliness.  He was gruff to most people, yet he trusted Penny.  Why hadn’t Ben returned home when his mother passed?  Were there unresolved issues between Ben and his father?

An Amish widower named Roy King brought flowers for Penny.  Roy liked Penny, and yet Penny couldn’t get Ben out of her heart and mind.  Micah liked Shelley, Trudy Yoder’s beautiful older sister.  And Trudy liked Micah.  What a pickle!

Penny loved birds and privately kept a collection of drawings of them in her home.  In her last church, she had been told that drawing was prideful. Penny didn’t want to draw attention to herself.  She simply loved birds.  So, when she moved to Stoney Ridge and a new church, she didn’t show her drawings to anyone.  Yet Natalie snooped and found some.  She loved them!  As an interior decorator, she knew she could sell them for Penny.  What if she just took one to look into it for Penny?

A Season on the Wind is a touching tale of wounded hearts, flawed individuals, and restoration.  I enjoyed the context of birding and Micah’s humorous birding notes.  Penny was clearly the heroine, yet the surrounding cast was personable and realistic, with their own issues to overcome too.  If you enjoy an inspirational story of love and faith and character, I recommend this book to you.  

And you can find A Season on the Wind in our catalog.

 

 

 

 

 

Return of the Scot

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Return of the Scot by Eliza Knight
Format: Book
Who’s it for: New for Adults

Duke of Sutherland and war hero Lorne Gordon is ready to return home after ten years of being missing in action as a prisoner of war, but how is a Duke to return home when his title and estate have been sold out from under him? Business maven Jaime Anderson has little sympathy for the Duke presumed dead and is resolute to withhold her newly purchased property from the currently penniless Laird, but can she withhold her heart from the determined Duke despite their bitter past? An unlikely partnership and more than a few sparks might unite these stubborn Scots!

Eliza Knight’s first book of the Scots of Honor series is one more Highland romance to add to a historical romance lover’s “to be read” shelf. Family secrets, mysterious disappearances, and less than tactful proposals aren’t the only plot points to enjoy. Jaime and Lorne’s strong personalities and dialects make this prickly and utterly Scottish pair well-matched for their entertaining banter and slowly built tension. Cheeky cousins, blunt butlers, and detestable siblings are also in store for this novel that can be read alone or with the accompanying novels in the series.  Fans of Highland romances from authors like Lyndsay Sands and Lori Ann Bailey may enjoy this quick, lightly sensual read and it’s following novels in the trilogy. Find Return of the Scot by Eliza Knight and other authors in our catalog.

 

A Spindle Splintered

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A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow
Format: Book
Who It’s for:  Adults

“Sleeping Beauty is the worst fairy tale, pretty much any way you slice it.” According to Zinnia Gray. It’s her twenty first birthday and  most likely she will not have any more birthdays. Zinnia has a rare condition that no one, who was ever diagnosed with it, has ever lived past 21. On her twenty first birthday, her best friend Charm surprises her with a party, where she surprisingly, indeed has a spinning wheel. But when Zinnia touches it and pricks her finger…she actually does find herself falling through some sort of time warp of worlds along with other sleeping beauties. When she stops falling past a thousand other girls reaching for the spindles point, she hears one say, “help!” That’s when she stops falling. Zinnia looks up to see her, this ridiculously beautiful princess who says to her “from whence have you come?” At which point she passes out.
Zinnia is definitely  not in the same world where she was.
Fairytales as we know them are challenged through this narrative of a classic story and a multi-universe, time traveling event with a very different ending.

Find A Spindle Splintered in the catalog!

Rabbits

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Rabbits by Terry Miles
Format: Book
Who it’s for: Adults

There’s a game being played – an ancient and dangerous game – but the vast majority of us have no idea it exists. If you’ve ever noticed a strange coincidence – you check your clock twice in a day, and both times it’s 4:44 – or a discrepancy – you see a famous work of art in a museum, but were sure the house in the painting had 2 windows, not 3 – you probably experienced a brief moment of déjà vu, maybe the Mandela effect, then moved on with your life. People who obsess over these connections, and investigate these conspiracies, are playing the game, which is called Rabbits.

K is one of these people. In fact, K’s a bit of an expert on Rabbits, which is played in numbered iterations. K’s approached by mysterious billionaire Alan Scarpio, rumored winner of the sixth iteration. Scarpio tells K there’s a problem with the game, they need to fix it, and the world as we know it is at stake if they can’t. Within the next few days Scarpio is reported missing, and K is thrust deep into the latest iteration of the increasingly deadly game of Rabbits. Follow the clues to save the world with K in this unique and fast-paced thriller.

Find Rabbits in the catalog

Beautiful World, Where Are You

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Title of the novel, Beautiful World Where Are You.Title: Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
Format: Novel
Audience: Late Teens and Adults

Sally Rooney’s third novel is as much a Sally Rooney novel as she intends it to be – one where the author does not shy away from being who she is, nor does she pretend to be someone she is not. Beautiful World, Where Are You is a dialectical relationship to her prior works, and in following two critically acclaimed publications, Rooney has solved the burden of success insofar as by writing about the burden of success.

Readers who enjoyed Conversations with Friends and Normal People will certainly find fulfillment in Rooney’s newest work. Part epistolary, part an exploration of ideas, and part a telling of young love, this novel is a jostle of fascinating concepts that attempt to tackle both issues on a grander scale, and ones that hit too close to home. Set around four individuals who, while still young, feel life catching up to them, and whose relationships with one another are tangled together, all approach life in different ways, and it is their understanding of what they know they want compared to what they are unsure or, more possibly, unaware of, that spurs on the decisions they make, and the ramifications that follow.

From the dialogue that does not falter, to the prose that flows seamlessly from page to page, to the discussions of the environment we live in and the future we are to construct, Rooney has created a wonderful work that truly does ask the reader the question, where is this beautiful world?

 

Find Beautiful World, Where Are You in print via the catalog.

Find Beautiful World, Where Are You online via an eAudiobook and an eBook.