Great mystery series you may have missed

One of the very best British police procedural mystery series around is Barry Maitland's featuring David Brock & Kathy Kolla. If you haven't read any yet, do yourself and favor and start! The first in the series is The Marx Sisters, and you'll probably want to read them in order to avoid spoilers. Have fun!

You can change the world

From the publisher: "Dimes destroyed polio. Five bucks can beat malaria. Give a Little: How Your Small Donations Can Transform Our World not only contains remarkable, inspiring stories of how small donations are making an extraordinary difference in the lives of millions both here in the United States and around the world, but also lays out where and how to start giving . . . today. Together, ordinary Americans have far more transformational power than any government or big foundation. In 2007, giving by American individuals amounted to $229 billion-that is, 82 times the amount the Gates Foundation gave that same year. Simple, inexpensive things-a water filter, a bike, an irrigation pump, a bed net, a goat-cause a ripple effect that lifts a whole family, a town, and, astonishingly, even a nation out of poverty. Inspired by Smith's twenty years in the nonprofit sector, Give a Little shows how easily we can dip into our pockets and, with just a few dollars, change the world."

2010 Eisner Award winners announced

The Eisner Award (formally known as the Will Eisner Comic Industry Award) is given for creative achievement in American comic books. The 2010 award winners have just been announced. Some really amazing works are being produced in the realm of comics and graphic novels - check them out!

Last week for the summer reading program

Don't forget that this is the last week for the library's summer reading activities. Not only will there be a grand finale at the regular times (10:30 on Tues., Wed. or Thurs.) but there will be a special event on Friday. The folks from Underwater Adventures Aquarium (at the Mall of America) are coming to the library with animals! There will be an open house from 10:30 to 12:30 with an educational program from 11:00 - 11:30.- No registration required.

Jane Austen for the digital age

From Maureen Corrigan of NPR: "The Cookbook Collector is about all kinds of appetites — for love, and sex, and God and money, and, of course, food. The story revolves around two sisters: Jess, a beautiful 23-year-old graduate student in philosophy, hops impulsively from passion to passion. In contrast, we're told that Jess's older sister, Emily, is "possessed of a serene rationality." At only 28, Emily is the multimillionaire CEO of a dot-com startup. If that flighty sister vs. level-headed sister premise sounds familiar, it should. Goodman herself has called her latest novel "A Sense and Sensibility for the Digital Age." I confess, if anyone other than Allegra Goodman had made that claim, I very likely would have tossed my review copy away. But Goodman, as she always does, makes a believer out of this skeptic. Goodman says of one of her characters, a brilliant computer programmer, that "he had an acquisitive intelligence, and when he appropriated an idea, he improved it, until his own version ... obliterated its source." Of course, I wouldn't go that insanely far in praising Goodman's update of Austen, but I will say that this homage quickly comes to have a glorious life of its own." Check it out!

From Publishers Weekly: "French's emotionally searing third novel of the Dublin murder squad (after The Likeness) shows the Irish author getting better with each book. In 1985, 19-year old Frank Mackey and his girlfriend, Rosie Daly, made secret plans to elope to England and start a new life together far away from their families, particularly the hard-drinking Mackeys. But when Rosie doesn't meet Frank the night they're meant to leave and he finds a note, Frank assumes she's left him behind. For 22 years, Frank, who becomes an undercover cop, stays away from Faithful Place, his childhood Dublin neighborhood. When his younger sister, Jackie, calls to tell him that someone found Rosie's suitcase hidden in an abandoned house, Frank reluctantly returns. Now everything he thought he knew is turned upside down: did Rosie really leave that night, or did someone stop her before she could?" Check it out!

New from Daniel Silva!

The latest in Daniel Silva's espionage series featuring Israeli art restorer and assassin Gabriel Allon has arrived at the library. In the new book, Allon has severed his ties with the Office to care for his traumatized wife after a violent showdown with Ivan Kharkov. Gabriel is then reluctantly drawn into a case involving a murdered art restorer and discovers unsettling links between the killers and a recently discovered Rembrandt.

The City of Red Wing is seeking your ideas on how to deal with the decline in revenues caused by the reduction in the state's Local Governmental Aid. Please take a moment to fill out the City's suggestion form! Thanks!

The 100 best thrillers ever

NPR is conducting a listener poll to determine the 100 best thrillers ever written. With the assistance of a panel of thriller writers and critics, they have narrowed the list to 182. Go to the website and vote - the results will be announced on August 2. Or just go to get some suggestions for exciting reads!

It's 1988 and Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have only just met. They both know that the next day, after college graduation, they must go their separate ways. But after only one day together, they cannot stop thinking about one another. As the years go by, Dex and Em begin to lead separate lives—lives very different from the people they once dreamed they'd become. And yet, unable to let go of that special something that grabbed onto them that first night, an extraordinary relationship develops between the two.
Over twenty years, snapshots of that relationship are revealed on the same day—July 15th—of each year. Dex and Em face squabbles and fights, hopes and missed opportunities, laughter and tears. And as the true meaning of this one crucial day is revealed, they must come to grips with the nature of love and life itself. As a reviewer said, "You’d be hard pressed to find a sharper, sweeter romantic comedy this year than the story of Dex and Em." Check it out!

Great fantasy book you may have missed!

In this stunning debut, author Scott Lynch delivers the wonderfully thrilling tale of an audacious criminal and his band of confidence tricksters. Set in a fantastic city pulsing with the lives of decadent nobles and daring thieves, here is a story of adventure, loyalty, and survival that is one part “Robin Hood,” one part Ocean’s Eleven, and entirely enthralling.… An orphan’s life is harsh–and often short–in the island city of Camorr, built on the ruins of a mysterious alien race. But born with a quick wit and a gift for thieving, Locke Lamora has dodged both death and slavery, only to fall into the hands of an eyeless priest known as Chains–a man who is neither blind nor a priest. A con artist of extraordinary talent, Chains passes his skills on to his carefully selected “family” of orphans–a group known as the Gentlemen Bastards. Under his tutelage, Locke grows to lead the Bastards, delightedly pulling off one outrageous confidence game after another. Soon he is infamous as the Thorn of Camorr, and no wealthy noble is safe from his sting. Passing themselves off as petty thieves, the brilliant Locke and his tightly knit band of light-fingered brothers have fooled even the criminal underworld’s most feared ruler, Capa Barsavi. But there is someone in the shadows more powerful–and more ambitious–than Locke has yet imagined. Known as the Gray King, he is slowly killing Capa Barsavi’s most trusted men–and using Locke as a pawn in his plot to take control of Camorr’s underworld. With a bloody coup under way threatening to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the Gray King at his own brutal game–or die trying.…

Newly arrived at the library:


No Greater Love (Rotten Tomatoes rating 83%)







The Road (Rotten Tomatoes rating 75%)








Avatar (Rotten Tomatoes rating 83%)

Just a reminder that our next Read-A-Likes Book Club meeting is scheduled for Monday, July 12 between 12pm and 1pm. We'll be discussing Lee Child and authors people who like Lee Child's works might enjoy. See our Read-A-Likes Book Club page for details. A brochure with suggested read-a-likes for Lee Child is available in the library at the reference desk. No registration required.

"I was the Miracle Boy, once upon a time. Later on, the Milford Mute. The Golden Boy. The Young Ghost. The Kid. The Boxman. The Lock Artist. That was all me. But you can call me Mike." Marked by tragedy, traumatized at the age of eight, Michael, now eighteen, is no ordinary young man. Besides not uttering a single word in ten years, he discovers the one thing he can somehow do better than anyone else. Whether it's a locked door without a key, a padlock with no combination, or even an eight-hundred pound safe ... he can open them all. It's an unforgivable talent. A talent that will make young Michael a hot commodity with the wrong people and, whether he likes it or not, push him ever close to a life of crime. Until he finally sees his chance to escape, and with one desperate gamble risks everything to come back home to the only person he ever loved, and to unlock the secret that has kept him silent for so long." Check it out!

Weekend alert!

SELCO, the regional library consortium that Red Wing Public Library is a member of, will be making some improvements to their Internet service this weekend. This means that during the testing and changeover, beginning at 6:00 pm on Saturday evening, the catalog, databases or even our website (which is hosted by SELCO) may be unavailable for a short time (but no longer, we hope!)

Each year, the English Department at San Jose State University sponsors the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Entrants are competing to see who can write the worst opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels. There are several subcategories (e.g. detective fiction, romance, etc) but the Grand Prize this year went to Molly Ringle for the following entry:

"For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss--a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil." Chek out their website - it's good for lots of laughs!