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Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island

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Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island

By Earl Swift

Format: Book

Who it’s for: Adults

I love to learn about the history around Southern Maryland and am fascinated with the islands that are just off our coast.  Many of these islands maintain some of the customs and even language of another time.  Chesapeake Requiem is a very interesting read about Tangier Island off the coast of Virginia and Maryland.

Swift, the author, spent an entire year living on the island with the locals.  He goes in depth on the climate and geographical circumstances that created Tangier Island and continue geographical changes as well as the history of its people from the island’s “discovery.”   This is a fascinating history of the people and how the island was settled.  I loved reading the stories of the families on the island.

The islanders rely on crabbing as their way of life and are often at odds with the laws and climate change scientists on the role the Chesapeake Bay plays in their lives.  The Chesapeake Bay has been encroaching on the island for hundreds of years.  The land has significantly reduced in size and even graves are submerged in many feet of water with gravestones washing on shore.  The island’s inhabitants are aging and many of the young people are leaving for the mainland for jobs and education.  The way of life on the island is threatened by the shrinking population and the shrinking island.  One day soon, the island will be reclaimed by the Chesapeake Bay.

This is a great read and I highly recommend it!  Find it here.

Varina

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Varina by Charles Frazier
Format:  MP3 Audiobook
Who it’s for:  Adults

This book, written by the author of Cold Mountain, is the story of Varina Howell Davis, the wife of the only president of the Confederate States of America.  At 17, Varina Howell marries Jefferson Davis who is 19 years her senior.  Years after their marriage (based on an arrangement rather than love), Davis becomes the president of the Confederacy.  The book transports you to a time in our nation’s history when the Confederacy rises and then takes a catastrophic fall.

As an older woman, Varina reflects upon her young married life, her life as the wife of a politician, and her life as a young mother who grieves the loss of several of her children who died at young ages.  She explains in detail her escape from Richmond with her surviving children, as Union soldiers pursued her for being the wife of the treasonous Confederate president.   Varina details the resulting captivity of herself and her children, and what her life was like during the imprisonment of her husband.  Through Varina’s story, the reader is able to see the harsh reality of what life would have been like at the end of the Civil War.

I listened to Varina through our library’s Overdrive app.  Although I felt like the very beginning of the book took some time to get into, I quickly found myself wanting to listen continuously, in order to see what would happen to Varina and her family next.  When the book was finished, I felt compelled to research many of the events and characters mentioned in the story and their significance in our nation’s history.  I would highly recommend the book.  You can find Varina in book, book on CD, ebook and audio book form.

Find it in the catalog.

A Gentleman in Moscow

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A Gentleman in Moscow
By Amor Towles
Who it’s for: Adults

Count Alexander Rostov appears before a Bolshevik tribunal in 1922 Moscow and is sentenced to house arrest. He will live out the rest of his days at the luxurious Hotel Metropol. If he sets foot outside the hotel, he will be shot on sight. Moved from his luxurious suite to a former storage room at the top of the hotel, the Count notes: “If a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.” And so Rostov sets about mastering his circumstances. The hotel is home to restaurants, a cocktail bar, and a barbershop, but also to a multitude of empty rooms, secret passages, and more that the Count explores with Nina, a nine year old girl living in the hotel temporarily.

Over the next 32 years, we follow the Count through his life at the hotel, including a love affair, a family life of sorts, and a new career. He maintains his aristocratic flair, but is not too proud to learn from those with whom he spends time. The novel also provides a view of the changes occurring in Russia in these years. An old friend of the Count weaves in and out of the story to describe the changing political environment, and the narrator describes physical changes happening outside the walls of the Metropol. The chilling events and atmosphere of Stalinist Russia are not the main focus of the novel, but they lurk in the background and certainly impact the Count and his friends (some more harshly than others).

Philosophical, witty, and lyrical, A Gentleman in Moscow is highly recommended. This isn’t a quick, action heavy read, but one full of memorable quotations and moments meant to be savored. Recommended for fans of Anthony Doerr, Kristin Hannah, and Muriel Barbery.

Find it in the catalog

Francis Scott Key’s Star-Spangled Banner

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Francis Scott Key’s Star-Spangled Banner by Monica Kulling/Richard Walz
Format: Book
Who it’s for: Kids

Looking for a good book to help your young reader understand why we sing the Star-Spangled Banner? The story behind our national anthem is a suspenseful one worth knowing and sharing, especially as our most patriotic holiday approaches. In this Early Reader, author Monica Kulling delivers just enough detail about the relationships among England, France and the United States in the early 1800’s, inviting readers on an exciting historical adventure. I’ll even admit that it served as a simplified refresher for me! I knew that Francis Scott Key was inspired to write the Star-Spangled Banner when he witnessed a battle aboard a ship, but was a little fuzzy on the events that landed him on the ship in the first place. It’s crystal clear now, thanks to Kulling’s storytelling. I also appreciated the way Mr. Key’s strengths and weaknesses were conveyed, creating a relatable character for young readers. It’s a pleasing read that won’t disappoint!
Find it in the catalog.

I Am a Story

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Submitted by Ms. Karen!

Stories are all around us, but how did they start? Who told them, and how did they tell them? We love stories because they make us feel all the feels: happy, sad, excited, even angry. I Am a Story, written and illustrated by Dan Yaccarino, tells the story of Story, told by storytellers in the dark around campfires, told in paintings on cave walls, inked with woodblocks, typed on a laptop. Story has been spoken and danced on stage, kept in all sorts of libraries private and public, even dispensed from vending machines! This book is just the right start to the history of Story for your youngest readers, with great pictures to show how stories and information lived and continue to live all around us. See this book listed in our catalog

Horses

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Submitted by Ms. Sue!

In Horses by Seymour Simon we learn about their evolution and the more than 300 hundred breeds. This non-fiction book aimed at elementary ages 6-12 provides us with facts about horses from tens of thousands or years ago throughout history. During the Ice Age people made cave drawings of horses. Five thousand years ago people tamed and herded them on the plains of Europe and Asia. During the Babylonian, Greek, and Roman civilizations, people trained horses to draw war chariots. Medieval knights carried their armor upon horses into battle. The cowboys and Native Americans of the western plains rode them and are part of American history. Mr. Simon provides the basic facts, physical traits, interactions among themselves, and the various breeds from the past to the present. The clear and simple text and stunning photographs in this book help us learn that horses have been an essential part of human lives. We can learn all about their strength, speed, foals, and breeds. Horses need food, water, shelter, grooming, and exercise, just like people. In return they give us companionship and trust. They continue to capture our imaginations and it appears that they will be with us in one way or another throughout time. See this book listed in our catalog