A great historical mystery you may have missed

Divorced and down on his luck, Gaius Petreius Ruso has made the rash decision to seek his fortune in an inclement outpost of the Roman Empire, namely Britannia. In a moment of weakness, after a straight thirtysix- hour shift at the army hospital, he succumbs to compassion and rescues an injured slave girl, Tilla, from the hands of her abusive owner. Now he has a new problem: a slave who won’t talk and can’t cook, and drags trouble in her wake. Before he knows it, Ruso is caught in the middle of an investigation into the deaths of prostitutes working out of the local bar. Now Ruso must summon all his forensic knowledge to find a killer who may be after him next. With a gift for comic timing and historical detail, Ruth Downie has conjured an ancient world as raucous and real as our own.

MnLink problem fixed...

and you can now place requests via MnLink as normal.

Temporary MnLink problems

Placing requests via MnLink is not currently working for people with library cards from a SELCO library (including Red Wing Public Library). Technical staff from both the state and SELCO are working on the issue and hope to have it resolved soon. We will post the news as soon as it is working.

Chocolate or Vanilla? This simple choice is all it takes to get started with Meanwhile, the wildly inventive creation of comics mastermind Jason Shiga, of whom Scott McCloud said “Crazy + Genius = Shiga.” Jimmy, whose every move is under your control, finds himself in a mad scientist’s lab, where he’s given a choice between three amazing objects: a mind-reading device, a time-travel machine, or the Killitron 3000 (which is as ominous as it sounds). Down each of these paths there are puzzles, mysterious clues, and shocking revelations. It’s up to the reader to lead Jimmy to success or disaster. Meanwhile is a wholly original story of invention, discovery, and saving the world, told through a system of tabs that take you forward, backward, upside down, and right side up again. Each read creates a new adventure! Check it out!

And the winners are (part 2)...

As part of their Hot Reads for Cold Nights program, the Friends of the Library are sponsoring three contests this year (prizes will be awarded). The second, in February, was to write a haiku about books, reading or libraries. The judges have reviewed the entries and selected the winners:

First Place :
“A cat in my lap
an open book in my hands
my journey begins”

Second Place:
“Reading takes me where
I aim to be - out of the
gloom of winter's days”

Congratulations to our winning poets!

March's contest consists of writing a short title for a mystery set in Red Wing. Good luck!

Used book sale

Don't forget that the Friends of the Library used book sale will be at the library this Saturday from 9am - 3pm downstairs in the Foot Room. Great selection, great prices, great cause - come check it out!

Sparks flew when gold digger Dr. Zeo Zoe Wilkins and Jesse James, Jr.—the son of America’s most legendary outlaw—crossed paths. The Love Pirate and the Bandit's Son, by author Laura James, grippingly tells the resulting tale of sex, deceit, money, and murder. Reviewers love it: "A mesmerizing book, brilliantly researched and compellingly written, The Love Pirate is classic American crime: a toxic brew of love, lies, mystery and murder" and "A ruthless mixture of sex and greed ending inevitably in bloody violence, told in an engaging and intelligent narrative style." Check it out!

From some authors, a book titled How to Raise the Perfect Dog might be seen as boastful or promising more than they could deliver. But from Cesar Millan, host of the National Geographic show of Dog Whisperer, it is simply a statement of fact. If you have a dog, or are thinking of getting one, this is the book for you!

If you love fantasy but aren't sure what to read after Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, then we have just the thing for you. Our list of 25 Great Fantasy Books has some old favorites and some new, some standalone books and some series, some traditional fantasy and some gritty urban fantasy, but all of them have one thing in common - they're great reads! And once you've read everything on this list, come talk to us - we have plenty more suggestions where those came from!

If you like Twilight...

From School Library Journal: "Grace, 17, loves the peace and tranquility of the woods behind her home. It is here during the cold winter months that she gets to see her wolf-the one with the yellow eyes. Grace is sure that he saved her from an attack by other wolves when she was nine. Over the ensuing years he has returned each season, watching her with those haunting eyes as if longing for something to happen. When a teen is killed by wolves, a hunting party decides to retaliate. Grace races through the woods and discovers a wounded boy shivering on her back porch. One look at his yellow eyes and she knows that this is her wolf in human form. Fate has finally brought Sam and Grace together, and as their love grows and intensifies, so does the reality of what awaits them. It is only a matter of time before the winter cold changes him back into a wolf, and this time he might stay that way forever. A must-have that will give Bella and Edward a run for their money."

The World is Blue

Explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society, oceanographer Sylvia Earle (in 1998, named Time Magazine's first "Hero for the Planet") adds blue to the green movement by explaining the importance of the earth's ocean to the health of its life. It's been called a Silent Spring for our era. This eloquent, urgent, fascinating book reveals how just 50 years of swift and dangerous oceanic change threatens the very existence of life on Earth. Fortunately, there is reason for hope, but what we do—or fail to do—in the next ten years may well resonate for the next ten thousand. The ultimate goal, Earle argues passionately and persuasively, is to find responsible, renewable strategies that safeguard the natural systems that sustain us.

Let's Party!

This Saturday, March 20, at 9:30am, we will have our final Winter Saturdays Family Story Time of the year. The theme is Let's Party! and includes stories, songs, rhymes and a take home craft. Come on down for a fun time and dress up if you like! Older siblings welcome and no registration is required.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

And while you're thinking about the Irish, why not stop by and check out a book from a best -selling Irish author such as Cecelia Ahern, Maeve Binchy, Roddy Doyle, Tana French, Marian Keyes or Colm Toibin (just to name a few!)

Healing Hearts

An inspiring, surprising, sometimes shocking, and ultimately deeply informative memoir of the high-stakes, high-pressured life of a female heart surgeon. Dr. Kathy Magliato is one of the few female heart surgeons practicing in the world today. She is also a member of an even more exclusive group-those surgeons specially trained to perform heart transplants. Healing Hearts is the story of the making of a surgeon who is also a wife and mother. Dr. Magliato takes us into her highly demanding, physically intense, male-dominated world and shows us how she masterfully works to save patients' lives every day.

Kids (and grown-ups!) in search of a great new fantasy series need look no further. Kirkus Reviews summed up Skulduggery Pleasant best: "A high-intensity tale shot through with spectacular magic battles, savage mayhem, cool outfits, monsters, hidden doors, over-the-top names, narrow escapes, evil schemes and behavior heroic, ambiguous and really, really bad. When the murder of a favorite uncle touches off a frantic search for a fabled superweapon known as the Scepter of the Ancients, 12-year-old Stephanie is abruptly pitched out of her mundane life. She hooks up with Skulduggery Pleasant-a walking, wisecracking, nattily dressed, fire-throwing skeleton detective-and similar unlikely allies to fight a genially sadistic sorcerer out to conquer the world and to bring back the bad old gods."

New DVDs

Newly arrived at the library:


Gigante (Rotten Tomatoes rating 92%)







Away We Go (Rotten Tomatoes rating 62%)








The Cove (Rotten Tomatoes rating 96%)

If you liked The Secret Life of Bees, then you should read Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by first time author Beth Hoffman. When twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt's mother dies, CeeCee is left to fend for herself. To the rescue comes her previously unknown great-aunt, Tootie Caldwell. In her vintage Packard convertible, Tootie whisks CeeCee away to Savannah's perfumed world of prosperity and Southern eccentricity, a world that seems to be run entirely by women. Laugh-out-loud funny and deeply touching, Beth Hoffman's sparkling debut is, as Kristin Hannah says, "packed full of Southern charm, strong women, wacky humor, and good old-fashioned heart." It is a novel that explores the indomitable strengths of female friendship and gives us the story of a young girl who loses one mother and finds many others.

March madness of another kind

In honor of March Madness (basketball style) the folks at Suvudu (the Spectra/Del Rey/Bantam/Ballatine website) have created March Madness (fantasy and science fiction style). They selected 32 of the best known and toughest characters in all of fantasy, horror and science fiction, and then put them in brackets for you to vote on. Embrace your inner geek and go vote! (my money's on Cthulhu...)

The eagerly awaited conclusion to Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy is at the library! In The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, "Lisbeth Salander—the heart of Larsson’s two previous novels—is under close supervision in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She’s fighting for her life in more ways than one: when she’s well enough, she’ll stand trial for three murders. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will have to prove her innocence, and to identify the corrupt politicians who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse. And, on her own, she will plot her revenge—against the man who tried to kill her and the government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life."

The U.S. version won't be released until May 25 - but we have it at the library now! Get your request in soon - it's sure to be in very high demand!

New music at the library

Newly arrived CDs include:

Here We Go Again by Demi Lovato






Heartbeat Radio by Sondre Lerche






Day and Age by The Killers






Revolution by Miranda Lambert





Raditude by Weezer

This Saturday, February 20, at 9:30am, we will have the second to last of our Winter Saturdays Family Story Times. The theme is I Want and includes stories, songs, rhymes and a take home craft. The final story hour will be presented the March 20. Older siblings welcome and no registration is required.

The Three Weissmanns of Westport

From Library Journal: 'Drawing on Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, Catherine Schine has written a witty update in which a late-life divorce exiles Betty Weissmann and her adult daughters, Annie and Miranda, from a luxurious life in New York to a shabby beach cottage in Westport, CT. While beautifully preserving the essence of the plot, Schine skillfully manages to parallel the original novel in clever 21st-century ways—the trip to London becomes a holiday in Palm Springs; the scoundrel Willoughby becomes a wannabe actor. Austen lovers and those who enjoyed updates like Paula Marantz Cohen's Jane Austen in Boca and Jane Austen in Scarsdale should appreciate this novel."

From the publisher: "By turns heart-tugging and hilarious, Myron Uhlberg’s memoir, Hands of My Father tells the story of growing up as the hearing son of deaf parents—and his life in a world that he found unaccountably beautiful, even as he longed to escape it. From the beaches of Coney Island to Ebbets Field, where he watches his father’s hero Jackie Robinson play ball, from the branch library above the local Chinese restaurant where the odor of chow mein rose from the pages of the books he devoured to the hospital ward where he visits his polio-afflicted friend, this is a memoir filled with stories about growing up not just as the child of two deaf people but as a book-loving, mischief-making, tree-climbing kid during the remarkably eventful period that spanned the Depression, the War, and the early fifties."