2009 Kansas Reads: The virgin of the small plains by Nancy Pickard.
Nancy will be at the library for a program during the month of January. Look for more details coming soon!
Jerry Barlow will perform at the LibraryJerry Barlow, Celtic Fingerstyle guitarist will perform at the Library on November 20th from 7-8pm. This is a free program for adults sponsored by the Friend’s of the Grant County Library. The concert will be held in the Cooper Clark meeting room. Seating is limited and may be reserved by calling 356-1433. You may visit his website at: http://www.jerrybarlow.com for more information and a demo of his music.
New Adult Program!
You are invited to come to the Grant County Library for a special kick off for a new “Books Sandwiched In” program for adults. A sandwich and dessert lunch will be provided by the Friend’s of the Library group as the Library hosts Christian-Fiction author Terrye Robins on Thursday, October 23rd at 12:oopm. This teacher-turned-author will be speaking and giving brief reviews of her fun mystery novels, Trouble in paradise and Revenge in paradise, which will be available for purchase. Both novels are getting rave reviews from readers all over Kansas and beyond. The stories begin in a charming town called Paradise and extend to beautiful Hawaii. The main character Allison Kane, is a teacher by day and a detective by night. Her quirky aunt Edith keeps readers laughing with her antics. Full of suspense, adventure, and good clean fun, both novels are appropriate for anyone 13 years old and up. Check out Terrye’s website at www.terryerobins.com for more information. Don’t delay! Reserve your spot today by calling (620) 356-1433.
State Library of Kansas Audiobooks, music and more!
Using the State Library of Kansas Digital Catalog is easy! If you need help there is a quick guided tour created by OverDrive, the company that provides this downloadable service. The guide walks you through the basics, from getting started to downloading to burn a CD. In just a few minutes, event the newest user can be enjoying a downloaded title.
The State Library of Kansas is proud to announce the arrival of Digital Video and MP3 Audiobooks in addition to WMA Audiobooks, Digital eBooks and Digital Music. Our new MP3 Audiobooks will play on virtually any MP3 player available including iPod and Zune! You can browse and search hundreds of great titles and download them to your computer, transfer them to a portable device, or burn to a CD for your reading and listening pleasure anywhere, anytime. Try it, it’s easy!
Loan policies: Audio & eBooks- 14 days
Music- 14 days
Video- 7 days
Kansas Talking Book ServicesEnjoy the reading experience. Kansas Talking Book Services provides reading materials, decriptive videos, and equipment for the visually impaired. For more information, call: 1-800-362-0699. Or visit the website: www.kslib.info/talking.
Focus on ChiltonLibraryChiltonLibrary provides exclusive photographs, diagnostics designed by instructors, step-by-step repair procedures, Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) maintenance schedules, wiring diagrams, recalls and Technical Service Bulletins (TSBs) for automobiles and light trucks in one easy-to-use web site. Since the Grant County Library subscribes to ChiltonLibrary, you are now equipped with decades of data to maintain your vehicle. Phone the Library for informaton or stop by for a demonstration. Access the databases by visiting this site, Click on:
1. Grant County Library Catalog (listed under Library Links )
2. Account Login
3. Type in your Library card number and last name as directed
4. The Swiftnet catalog search and databases will open, click on “Gale Chilton Online Auto Repair Manuals“ to access.
You may also access through the website for the State Library of Kansas at www.kslib.info. The site will open to a find bar in a yellow box. Underneath the find bar is “Explore Our Resources“. Click on it to open the available databases. Chilton’s is under “Specialized Information“.
Seven Popular Research Databases Available FreeKan-ed, Kansas State Library and the Regents Library Database Consortium Bring Databases to Kansas Schools, Libraries, Homes and Hospitals.
The databases will be available, beginning in August, are as follows:
The Ebsco package which includes Novelist, Ultra Online Package, Middle Online Package, Primary Online Package and includes K-12 specific products such as; Encyclopedia of Animals, ERIC, Health Source: Consumer Edition, MAS Ultra School Edition, Middle Search Plus, Newspaper Source, Primary Search, Professional Development Collection, and TOPICsearch.
Available on the Kansas Library website: www.kslib.info. Find information by subject, or click on “explore our resources”.
The databases are available to anyone in Kansas. Outside of the state, a Kansas Library card is needed, you may apply for a temporary card on the site. Homework Kansas is also available on the Kansas State Library site. It has been changed to include tutors for 4th grade through adult learners, including college students. You also may access through the State Library site without a Kansas Library card if you are in the state of Kansas.
Videos at the LibraryAny patron 18 years or older with a library card in good standing can check out up to 5 movies at a time: VHS tapes for two weeks and DVDs for a week. We have movies for every age….from babies to adults!
New videos at the library:
History Channel’s Haunted Histories Collection Volume 2
Nova’s Bugs!
Outlaw Trail
Crusade
Believe in Me
Autumn Hearts
Picture This
Jumper
Disney’s Camp Rock
and many more… come in and see!
NEW! Perpetual Book SaleCheck out our new ongoing Book Sale in the Adult Department. Gently used books, videos and audiobooks will be sold for 50 cents a piece. Please pay at the front desk. The displays are located in the hallway across from the copy machines. Check them often! The materials will be replaced every two weeks! Don’t forget to check out the Book Sales in the Children’s Department and Young Adult Department, movies too! Remember teachers… books to build your class libraries are free!
New at the Library!“Check out ” what’s new at the Grant County Library. Call 356-1433 to reserve, or access your patron account online and reserve. The library will call you when your materials are available to pick up at the front desk. Reserves will be held for three days, if you don’t pick them up, they will move to the next person on the list.
Julian Trent, you have been found guilty by this court of perpetrating a violent and unprovoked attack on an innocent family including a charge of attempted murder. You have shown little or no remorse for your actions and I consider you a danger to society. When defense lawyer Geoffrey Mason hears the judge’s ruling at London’s Old Bailey, he quietly hopes that a substantial sentence will be handed down to his arrogant young client. That Julian Trent only receives eight years seems all too lenient. Little does Mason realize that he’ll be looking Trent in the eyes again much sooner than that. Setting aside his barrister’s gown and wig, Mason heads to Sandown racetrack to don his colorful racing silks. As an amateur jockey, he fulfills his true passion by pounding the turf in the heat of a steeplechase. Yet when a fellow rider is brutally murdered a pitchfork driven through his chest Mason’s racing hobby soon becomes too close to his work. The prime suspect is one of their brethren, champion jockey Steve Mitchell, and the evidence against him seems overwhelming. Mason is reluctant to heed Mitchell’s plea for legal help but he soon finds himself at the center of a sinister web of violence, threats and intimidation. Mason is left fighting a battle of right and wrong, and more immediately, a battle of life and death his own.
This unclassifiable debut from the son of legendary thriller author John le Carré is simultaneously a cautionary tale about the absurdity of war; a sardonic science fiction romp through Armageddon; a conspiracy-fueled mystery replete with ninjas, mimes and cannibal dogs; and a horrifying glimpse of a Lovecraftian near-future. Go Away bombs have erased entire sections of reality from the face of the Earth. A nameless soldier and his heroic best friend witness firsthand the unimaginable aftermath outside the Livable Zone, finding that the world has unraveled and is home to an assortment of nightmarish mutations. With the fate of humankind in the balance, the pair become involved in an unlikely and potentially catastrophic love triangle. Readers who prefer linear, conventional plotlines may find Harkaway overly verbose and frustratingly tangential, but those intrigued by works that blur genre boundaries will find this wildly original hybrid a challenging and entertaining entry in the post-apocalyptic canon.
Shors’ sophomore effort (following Beneath a Marble Sky), set on an island in the South Pacific during three weeks in 1942, features achingly lyrical prose, even in depicting the horrors of war. After a U.S. hospital ship is torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese, a handful of survivors struggle for survival on a remote island. They include the captain and an officer; a Japanese prisoner, Akira, and two ship’s nurses he saved (one of them the captain’s wife); and the ship’s engineer, who saves a Fijian stowaway, Ratu. Akira, a college professor pressed into service, is haunted by what he saw, did, and didn’t do at Nanking. Jake, the engineer, is a black farmer who sees in Ratu the son he never had. Ratu adds a colorful combination of winsome bravado, humor and childish fear; each main character is similarly well-rounded, excepting the single-minded traitor among them, unsuspected by his fellow castaways. Shors pays satisfying attention to class and race dynamics, as well as the tension between wartime enemies. The survivors’ dignity, quiet strength and fellowship make this a magical read.
Catherine McLeod is an investigative reporter for the Journal, one of Denver’s major newpapers. Her relentless pursuit of the truth has earned her both accolades and enmity. But her recent coverage of the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes filing to reclaim twenty-seven mission acres of their ancestral lands has made her a target for assassination. After narrowly escaping an assailant’s bullet in her own home, Catherine is convinced by her ex-husband to stay at his family’s ranch in the mountains outside of Denver until the gunman is caught. Unwilling to stop working, she continues to follow the land-claim story-only to uncover an unsettling conspiracy. And as Catherine unravels the truth, she discovers some startling facts about her own heritage, making her would-be killer all the more desperate to find her…
With a Plan for Reducing U.S. Oil Dependency It’s never too late to top your personal best. Now eighty years old, T. Boone Pickens is a legendary figure in the business world. Known as the “Oracle of Oil” because of his uncanny ability to predict the direction of fuel prices, he built Mesa Petroleum, one of the largest independent oil companies in the United States, from a $2,500 investment. In the 1980s, Pickens became a household name when he executed a series of unsolicited buyout bids for undervalued oil companies, in the process reinventing the notion of shareholders’ rights. Even his failures were successful in that they forced risk-averse managers to reconsider the way they did business. When Pickens left Mesa at age sixty-eight after a spectacular downward spiral in the company’s profits, many counted him out. Indeed, what followed for him was a painful divorce, clinical depression, a temporary inability to predict the movement of energy prices, and the loss of 90 percent of his investing capital. But Pickens was far from out. From that personal and professional nadir, Pickens staged one of the most impressive comebacks in the industry, turning his investment fund’s remaining $3 million into $8 billion in profit in just a few years. That made him, at age seventy-seven, the world’s second-highest-paid hedge fund manager. But he wasn’t done yet. Today, Pickens is making some of the world’s most colossal energy bets. If he has his way, most of America’s cars will eventually run on natural gas, and vast swaths of the nation’s prairie land will become places where wind can be harnessed for power generation. Currently no less bold than he was decades ago when he single-handedly transformed America’s oil industry, Pickens is staking billions on the conviction that he knows what’s coming. In this book, he spells out that future in detail, not only presenting a comprehensive plan for American energy independence but also providing a fascinating glimpse into key resources such as water—yet another area where he is putting billions on the line. From a businessman who is extraordinarily humble yet is considered one of the world’s most visionary,The First Billion Is the Hardestis both a riveting account of a life spent pulling off improbable triumphs and a report back from the front of the global energy and natural-resource wars—of vital interest to anyone who has a stake in America’s future.
Mackenzie Allen Philips’ youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his “Great Sadness,” Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack’s world forever. In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant “The Shack” wrestles with the timeless question, “Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?” The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You’ll want everyone you know to read this book!
Thoughtful investigative report about a central issue of the 2008 presidential race - Asks and answers the core questions: Should we close the border? Is a fence or wall the answer? Is the U.S. government capable of fully securing the border? - Examines the border in human terms through a cast of colorful characters - Reviews the political, economic, social, and cultural aspects - Discusses NAFTA, immigration policy, border security, and other local, regional, national, and international issues More than 250 million people cross the U.S.- Mexican border legally each year, and as many as 10 million do so illegally, making the border–la frontera to Mexicans–the most traversed national boundary on the planet. In an age of terrorism and economic uncertainty, that border is already one of the most hotly debated issues in American politics and is certain to play a prominent role in the 2008 campaign for president. In 2007, David Danelo spent three months traveling the 1,952 miles that separate the United States and Mexico, beginning at Boca Chica, Texas, and traveling to the westernmost limit at Border Field State Park in California–a journey that took him across four states and two countries through a world of rivers and canals, mountains and deserts, highways and dirt roads, fences and border towns. Here the border isn’t just an abstraction thrown around in political debates in Washington; it’s a physical reality, infinitely more complex than most politicians believe. Danelo’s reporting digs beneath the debate and attempts to explain the border and related issues–from legal and illegal immigration to NAFTA and border fences–as they are experienced by the people who live and work there: businessmen, smugglers, Minutemen, migrants, humanitarians, border patrol agents, government officials, and everyday people in the U.S. and Mexico. The divide is great, as Danelo makes clear, but so is the opportunity. Refreshing in the new perspectives it offers and captivating in its depiction of this vibrant, if troubled, region, The Border is an essential starting point for understanding this vital topic.