My tangled reading web

Usually I come up with a blog post theme by looking at what I've been reading and figuring out some way that they can be wrangled into a category.  Problem is, in the last several weeks, I've been reading such a random assortment of books that I can't come up with any theme.  I'm a little bit worried that my book suggestions this week are so disjointed that no matter who you are, you are bound to be offended by one of them.  So:  I decided to draw a chart showing how I stumbled across my reading choices:

Am I the only one with such a random process of finding the next book to read?  Tell me how you chose your latest stack of books.

Summertime Fun!

School is almost out and with it comes summer vacation season. I am sure we have a few readers for whom summer break means fantastical European tours (!), but I would be willing to bet that for most, summer vacation involves sticking much closer to home. Lucky for us we live in such a beautiful place, with such beautiful places to explore!

I grew up camping. The tent-in-the-woods-no-bathroom kind of camping. I have lots of wonderful memories of our weekends in the woods - Rock collecting, river swimming, marshmallow stick hunting. My few bad memories all have one thing in common - RAIN. Waking up in a wet tent is the worst! Maybe this is why I prefer cabining as an adult...

Whatever your outdoor style may be, hiking, camping, cabining, or glamping, we have books to get you in the mood.

Not ready to go outside quite yet? Curl up with a movie!

Celebrating Dairy Life

by Marina

Jersey calf picture from flickr

I’ll admit it. I’m one of those people that’s swayed by a pretty face. Especially when there are big brown eyes involved. Every year I take a trip to the Evergreen State Fair, step foot in the dairy barn and "ooohhh" and "awwwww" over all the pretty babies (and their moms).

Not that I want you to think that I was randomly thinking of cows (although, sometimes . . . uh, well), there is a reason for my sharing. Besides the fact that it gives me the excuse to post a random cute calf photo. June is National Dairy Month! And I’ve put together a booklist of several books I’ve read (or intend to read) that pertain to life on a dairy farm or various guides for owning and running a small scale dairy herd (cows or goats) and what to do with what they produce--milk! I’ve also thrown in a few fiction titles that showcase life on a dairy farm (for better or for worse).

Everyday Heroes

by Marina

Recently I listened to Frozen in Time: an epic story of survival and a modern quest for lost heroes of World War II by Mitchell Zuckoff. This book is the true story of three different planes and their crews that crashed on Greenland in November 1942. The book recaps the survival of a B-17 crew for 148 days and the teams of people sent by plane, dogsled and motor sled to rescue them. It is also the modern day rescue mission of the downed Grumman Duck flight team, lost and frozen in the ice and snow of Greenland since setting out on THEIR mission to rescue the B-17 crew in 1942. The men who survived living on the block of ice known as Greenland and their intrepid, relentless rescuers are definitely heroes in my book.

Speaking of heroes, tomorrow is the start of Sno-Isle’s Explore Summer reading program for kids and teens. The theme for children is “Every Hero Has a Story” and I've put together a booklist of items that tell the stories of the every day heroes and heroines around us, both human and animal, past and present.

Who are your heroes? Sing their praises or share their stories in the comments!

Why everyone's listening to books!

There is no denying the rising popularity of audiobooks. Seems like everyone’s listening. Sno-Isle libraries offer free digital downloads through Overdrive, Hoopla and 3M. Overdrive alone offers over 13,000 titles.

A gifted narrator brings the story to life. The right voice for the right book is essential. I particularly enjoy listening to books where the characters have an accent.

Angela’s Ashes: a memoir is read by author Frank McCourt. McCourt  tells the story of his Irish childhood in a lilting Irish brogue.













The Help written by Kathryn Stockett is the story of a young woman who writes a book from the view point of several black maids. Spoken by several narrators with varying southern dialects.

Doc by Mary Doria Russell is a fictionalized account of Doc Holliday's life. Read by Mark Bramhall –you can practically smell the whiskey in his voice. 

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows is written in letters between London and the people of Guernsey Island in 1946.  The five narrators capture the essence of the residents of Guernsey Island.

Samurai and Shoguns in Manga

One of the things I have really enjoyed about reading and looking at graphic novels is learning about different cultures.  I have gone back and read many of the long standing manga series.  Luckily, several are being reissued in omnibuses. 

The Edo period of Japanese history is the topic of many manga series.  Edo was the seat of the shogunate rulers. It was on the site of the future Tokyo.  It is also know as the Tokugawa period for it's founder.  The era ran from 1603–1867.  This was also a time where merchants and their cities gained power. It was a very difficult time to be a peasant. The Shogunate tried for strict isolation, but European influence was already being felt including Christianity.  To find out more about this era, try the subject Tokugawa in our catalog or our history resource World History in Context.

Warriors who worked for the shogunate and the daimyos were samurai and followed the way of Bushido.  Samurai on their own were ronin.  Many of the characters in the manga are ronin.

Our manga covers the whole range of  the era. Characters can be from real life like in Miyamoto Musashi in Vagabond.  They can be hero like Ogami Itto in Lone wolf and cub or on the wrong side of the law like Akitsu Masanosuke in House of five leaves. Ooku is alternative history where women rule, but follow the true history of the shoguns. Usagi Yojimbo, the rabbit ronin is pure fantasy.



Be sure to check our other new graphic novel lists under Books then Booklists.

Posted by Becky

Baking Bread

by Jackie

I have a confession to make. I... don't really go in for New Year's resolutions. In my mind it really just seems like a set up for failure. At least for me. However, this year, I seem to have subconsciously made one: I haven't purchased bread since January. I've been making it all myself. It wasn't something I intentionally set out to do, but it's been far less of a hassle than I would have imagined. I find that I really only bake once every 10 days or so. Most of the time I fall back on the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day recipes because, well, it's so easy and makes a decent loaf. Although their 1.5 pound loaves are laughably small. I generally up them to two pounds so the loaf lasts longer and I bake less. We find the recipe for the American soft-crusted loaf the most practical, but we've enjoyed everything we've made. The pumpernickel was fun to make since it required coffee for that signature color.

I thought that I was a little weird, but then I looked into the most popular search terms in the library's catalog and it turns out I'm not alone. Bread making was one of the most popular searches Sno-Isle patrons were looking for in 2014. Specifically, "bread" was the third most searched term and "bread machine recipes" the sixth. They were searched for over 15,000 times! We decided to make a list for all of you searching to make your own bread:



I can now lose a shameful amount of time on the King Arthur Flour website (the English Muffin Toasting Bread is amazing for those Midwestern transplants like me who miss that spongy texture) or thumbing through their books.

Wild yeast sourdough success!

But it's the sourdoughs that I really wanted to tackle. All the rest have just been practice. I've been interested in wild yeast starters for a couple years in concept, but other than one failed technicolor disaster, I hadn't fully committed. Wild yeast starters are where you mix an equal amount of flour and water and wait for the mix to become active and bubbly while it sits on your counter for a week or so (you have to feed it occasionally with more flour and water). Sourdough is intimidating. It seems that every book and baker you consult has an entirely different method. I've checked out innumerable books that promise the only way to create authentic sourdough is with complicated sounding brams and sponges, cultures and proofs, pineapple juice, or insulated heating boxes. One loaf of bread by any of these methods will take 3-5 days. That is just completely not a practical timeline for me.

There had to be another way. I really didn't think that the ancient Egyptians were as fussy as, say, The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I finally, improbably, stumbled across a more relaxed approach to the starter in a book called (and this may give you an inkling to how many books I checked out searching for a realistic sourdough approach) Build Your Own Earth Oven : a low-cost, wood-fired mud oven, simple sourdough bread, perfect loaves. I have no intention of building an earth oven, just to make that clear. And then, still not happy about the steps from starter to loaf, I broke down and checked my go-to source: The Joy of Cooking. Yep. It was there on my bookshelf in the kitchen the whole time; see the above photo for proof!

I like to think that I went through all of the practical research so you don't have to. Michael Pollan's Cooked also has a really interesting section (to the bread-inclined academics among us) about yeast and fermentation in bread.

Moroccan Tuna Sandwiches for two!

I used the baguette featured above to make these Moroccan Tuna Sandwiches (based on the amazing one you can get from Sam's Moroccan Sandwich Shop in Seattle). The boule was used for toast and less interesting sandwiches.

Let's see if I can make this bread baking habit last through the heat of summer!

What's your experience with bread making? Do you have a favorite recipe, technique, or book?