Uniquely Tasty Cookbooks

February 5, 2015January 22, 2015 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

If you browse the cookbook section of the library, Amazon, or any bookstore you are liable to run into a wide variety of cookbooks about traditional cuisines and diets that are intended to make you healthier. However, there are also a large number of less expected or strangely specific titles that tend to get lost in the shuffle, such as recipes all featuring nutella or using a waffle iron with unexpected food. Here are some of the most unique and tastily temping or worrying cookbooks that I have seen go by at the circulation desk.

1. Nutella: the 30 Best Recipes edited by Johana Amsilli

2. Will it Waffle?: 53 Unexpected and Irresistible Recipes to Make in a Waffle Iron by Daniel Shumski

3. The Mac + Cheese Cookbook: 50 Simple Recipes from Homeroom, America’s Favorite Mac and Cheese Restaurant by Allison Arevalo and Erin Wade

4. Melt: 100 Amazing Adventures in Grilled Cheese by Shane Kearns

5. Weelicious Lunches: Think Outside the Lunchbox with More than 160 Happier Meals by Catherine McCord

6.Meatloaf: Recipes for Everyone’s Favorite by Maryana Vollstedt

7.Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook: Recipes Inspired by Dr. Seuss! concocted by Georgeanne Brennan and photographed by Frankie Frankeny

8. Muffin Tin Chef: 101 Savory Snacks, Adorable Appetizers, Enticing Entrees & Delicious Desserts by Matt Kadey

9. Fifty Shades of Kale: 50 Fresh and Satisfying Recipes that are Bound to Please by Drew Ramsey, MD & Jennifer Iserloh ; with photographs by Ian McSpadden

10. No Bake Makery: More Than 80 Two-Bite Treats Made with Lovin’ Not an Oven by Cristina Suarez Krumsick

For more unique and tasty reads you might want to check out: The Book Club Cookbook: Recipes and Food for Thought from your Book Club’s Favorite Books and Authors by Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp, The Craft Beer Cookbook: from IPAs and Bocks to Logers and Porters, 100 Artisanal Recipes for Cooking with Beer by Jacquelyn Dodd, Serious Barbecue: Smoke, Char, Baste, and Brush your Way to Great Outdoor Cooking by Adam Perry Lang, with J.J. Goode and Amy Vogler, Cast-Iron Cooking with Sisters on the Fly by Irene Rawlings, Super Seeds: Cooking with Power-Packed Chia, Quinoa, Flax, Hemp & Amaranth by Kim Lutz, Orange is the New Black Presents the Cookbook: Bites, Booze, Secrets, and Stories from Inside the Big House by Jenji Kohan, Tara Herrmann, Hartley Voss, and Alex Regnery, The Book of Burger by Rachael Ray, Thug Kitchen: Eat Like You Give a F*ck, Insanewiches: 101 Ways to Think Outside the Lunchbox by Adrian Fiorino, Fifty Shades of Chicken: a Parody in a Cookbook by FL Fowler, Irish Pub Cooking by Larry Doyle, or Mom ‘n’ Pop’s Apple Pie: 1950’s Cookbook; Over 300 Great Recipes from the Golden Age of American Home Cooking compiled and edited by Barbara Stuart Peterson.

Our Patrons Pick Their Favorite Books of 2014

February 3, 2015January 16, 2015 / Linda / Leave a comment

For the last several years, The Department of Human Services of Cheshire has had a mitten tree in the library’s lobby, requesting the public to donate holiday gifts for needy girls and boys. Our patrons have always been very generous and we thank you very much!

This year, after the gifts were gathered up to be delivered, we turned the mitten tree into ‘what was your favorite book of 2014′ tree.

Here’s what you said:

Children:

A Cheese Colored Camper – Geronimo Stilton
Because of Mr. Terupt – Rob Buyea
Biscuit – Alyssa Satin Capucilli
Daddy Hugs – Karen Katz
Diary of a Wimpy Kid – Jeff Kinney (3)
Dragons – Lucille Recht Penner
Frozen adapted by Sarah Nathan and Sela Roman
Gathering Blue – Lois Lowery (YA)
Humphrey Series – Betty Birney
I Spy series – Jean Marzollo & Walter Wick
I Survived Series – Lauren Tarshis
I’m Too Fond of My Fur – Geronimo Stilton
Isabelle – Lawrence Yep
It’s Hard to be 5 – Jamie Lee Curtis
Junie B., First Grader At Last – Barbara Park
Last Olympian – Rick Riordon (YA)
Little House on the Prairie – Laura Ingalls Wilder
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
Looking for Alaska – John Green (YA)
Miss Daisy is Crazy – Dan Gutman
Molly Moon Series– Georgia Byng
Number the Stars – Lois Lowry
Okay for Now – Gary Schmidt (YA)
One For The Murphys – Lynda Mullaly Hunt (YA)
Out of My Mind – Sharon M. Draper
Polar Express – Chris Van Allsburg
Rainbow Fairy Series – Daisy Meadows
Rangers Apprentice Series – John Flanagan
The BFG – Roald Dahl
The Blood of Olympus – Rick Riordan (YA)
The Fault in Our Stars – John Green (YA)
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien (YA)
The Last Battle – C.S. Lewis
The Lost Warrior – Erin Hunter (Graphic Novel)
The Maze Runner – James Dashner (YA)
The Penultimate Peril – Lemony Snicket
The Secret of the Snow – Thea Stilton
Warriors: Bramble Star’s Storm – Erin Hunter

Adult:

A Man Called Ove – Frederick Backman
A Week in Winter – Maeve Binchy
All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr
Being Mortal – Atul Gawande (Nonfiction)
Child of Mine – David & Beverly Lewis
Clifton Chronicles – Jeffrey Archer
Daughter of Fortune – Isabel Allende
I Am Malala – Malala Yousafzai (Nonfiction)
Pegasus – Danielle Steel
Ready Player One – Ernest Cline
Sin Undone – Larissa Ione
Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good – Jan Karon
Summerset Abbey – T.J. Brown
The Aviator’s Wife – Melanie Benjamin
The Bible
The Boys in the Boat – Dan Brown (Nonfiction)
The First Phone Call From Heaven – Mitch Albom
The Invention of Wings – Sue Monk Kidd
The Language of Flowers – Vanessa Diffenbaugh
The Leftovers – Tom Perrotta
The Lost Empire of Atlantis – Gavin Menzies (Nonfiction)
The Silkworm – Robert Galbraith
The Spirit of Steamboat – Craig Johnson
The Walk Series – Richard Evans
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – John LeCarre
Vienna Prelude – Bodie Thoene
Written in My Own Heart’s Blood – Diana Gabaldon

If you don’t see your title here, there were a few mittens that we could not decipher.

Book Club Picks – Historical Fiction

January 25, 2015January 16, 2015 / Linda / Leave a comment

Cold winter nights are perfect for settling into a great historical fiction book!

The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro – After receiving a large inheritance from a complete stranger, London socialite and newlywed Grace Monroe searches for the identity of her mysterious benefactor and uncovers the story of a unique woman who inspired one of Paris’ greatest perfumers, which transforms her own life.

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger – Looking back at a tragic event that occurred during his thirteenth year, Frank Drum explores how a complicated web of secrets, adultery, and betrayal shattered his Methodist family and their small 1961 Minnesota community.

The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman – A tale inspired by the tragic first-century massacre of hundreds of Jewish people at Masada presents the stories of a hated daughter, a baker’s wife, a girl disguised as a warrior, and a medicine woman who keep doves and secrets while Roman soldiers draw near.

The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell – Captured and raised by Danes in the ninth century, dispossessed nobleman Uhtred witnesses the unexpected defeat of his adoptive Viking clan by Alfred of Wessex and longs to recover his father’s land.

The House Girl by Tara Conklin – A novel of love, family, and justice follows Lina Sparrow, an ambitious first-year associate in a Manhattan law firm, as she searches for the “perfect plaintiff” to lead a historic class-action lawsuit worth trillions of dollars in reparations for descendants of American slaves.

O, The Oprah Magazine Picks Top Ten Books of 2014

January 20, 2015January 5, 2015 / Linda / Leave a comment

The editors of O, The Oprah Magazine have come up with their list of the top ten books of 2014. How many did you read?

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell – A vast, intricate novel that weaves six narratives and spans from 1984 to the 2030s about a secret war between a cult of soul-decanters and a small group of vigilantes called the Night Shift who try to take them down. An up-all-night story that fluentlymixes the super-natural, sci-fi, horror, social satire, and hearbreaking realism.

Thunderstruck & Other Stories by Elizabeth McCracken – A collection of stories navigates the fragile space between love and loneliness, including the title story in which a family finds their lives irrevocably changed by their teenage daughter’s risky behavior.

The Short & Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs – Presents the life of Robert Peace, an African American who became a brillant biochemistry student at Yale University, but after graduation lived as drug dealer and was brutally murdered at the age of thirty.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel – The sudden death of a Hollywood actor during a production of “King Lear” marks the beginning of the world’s dissolution in a story told at various past and future times from the perspectives of the actor and four of his associates.

The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison – A collection of essays explores empathy, using topics ranging from street violence and incarceration to reality television and literary sentimentality to ask questions about people’s understanding of and relationships with others.

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi – A reimagining of the Snow White story set in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s.

Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast – A graphic memoir by a long-time New Yorker cartoonist celebrates the final years of her aging parents’ lives through four-color cartoons, family photos and documents that reflect the artist’s struggles with caregiver challenges.

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom – Forging a life together after being abandoned by their parents, half sisters Eva and Iris share decades in and out of the spotlight in golden-era Hollywood and mid-twentieth-century Long Island.

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande – A prominent surgeon argues against modern medical practices that extend life at the expense of quality of life while isolating the dying, outlining suggestions for freer, more fulfilling approaches to death that enable more dignified and comfortable choices.

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay – A cultural examination of the ways in which the media influences self-perception, and discusses how society still needs to do better.

Celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with Knowledge and Service

January 18, 2015January 5, 2015 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

January 19, 2015 is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. In 1994 Congress designated MLK day as a day of service. The MLK Day of Service is the only federal holiday observed as a national day of service. It calls for Americans to work together in order to provide solutions to our most pressing national problems. To learn more about the day check out the official website here.

The titles below include children’s books about Dr. King, fiction and nonfiction books about ordinary people who stand up for what’s right, and stories about helping others and giving back. Then there is a list of books about volunteering, to help choose what avenues we each might want to take in volunteering or service. No matter the day, helping out in the community is rewarding for the volunteer and those it helps. So even if you cannot participate on the designated day, maybe a book can help in finding something you can be passionate about or enjoy while serving the community.

People Who Made a Difference:

1. Child of the Civil Rights Movement by Paula Young Shelton. A daughter of civil rights activist Andrew Young describes her experiences of growing up in the Deep South at the height of the movement, sharing her witness to the efforts of her father, family friend Martin Luther King, Jr. and

thousands of others who participated in the historic march from Selma to Montgomery.

2. March On!: The Day My Brother Martin Changed the World by Christine King Farris.Having led thousands in a march for civil rights to the foot of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. made the most of the historical moment by giving a speech that would forever inspire people to continue to fight for change in the years ahead.

3. Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges. Provides the first-hand factual account of the six-year-old student who made history by having been one of the first black children to attend an all-white, segregated school in the 1960s.

4.Sit-in: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney. A picture book celebration of the
50th anniversary of the momentous Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in, when four college students staged a peaceful protest that became a defining moment in the struggle for racial equality and the growing Civil Rights Movement.

More books on civil rights and how individuals affect change include:The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles, I Am Rosa Parks by Rosa Parks, Heroes for Civil Rightsby David A. Adler, Ida B. Wells: Mother of the Civil Rights Movement by Dennis Brindell Fradin and Judith Bloom Fradin, Freedom Riders: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Movementby Ann Bausum, My Country, ’tis of Thee: How One Song Reveals the History of Civil Rights by Claire Rudolf Murphy, Miles to Go for Freedom: Segregation and Civil Rights in the Jim Crow Yearsby Linda Barrett, The Girl From the Tar Paper School: Barbara Rose Johns and the Advent of the Civil Rights Movement by Teri Kanefield, and Free at Last?: The Civil Rights Movement and the People Who Made Itby Fred Powledge.

Inspiration to Serve:

1. 50 Ways to Save our Children: Small, Medium & Big Ways You Can Change a Child’s Lifeby Cheryl Saban.Describes how to make a difference in a child’s life, including collecting toys for homeless shelters, donating books to schools and libraries, volunteer work, charitable donations, and starting a scholarship fund.

2. Teens With The Courage to Give: Young People who Triumphed over Tragedy and Volunteered to Make a Difference by Jackie Waldman. Thirty young people tell their stories of overcoming hardship to become volunteers in this inspiring look at a national trend among teenagers.

3. Our Day to End Poverty: 24 Ways You Can Make a Difference by Shannon Daley-Harris and Jeffrey Keenan, with Karen Speerstra.Imagine ending poverty at home and around the globe in our own lifetimes. Imagine your actions combining with others; actions to make poverty history. With originality and imagination, this book invites us to look at our very ordinary days, from waking up in the morning to going to bed in the evening, and to begin to think about poverty in new and creative ways. “Our Day to End Poverty” is organized into 24 “hour/chapter” segments. Each chapter connects with your day, from breakfast to bedtime, relating these steps to ending poverty to our daily routines. Some times a problem gets to be so big, we feel there is nothing we can do about it. “Our Day to End Poverty” reminds us that if we all do just a little, a lot can get done.

4. Giving: How Each of us Can Change the World by Bill Clinton. Compiling anecdotes about the diverse charitable efforts of the famous and non-so-famous, the former president looks at the positive influence of such work in every corner of the world and examines the profound benefits of working for the good of others for all humankind.

Looking for more inspiration? Try checking out The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change by Adam Braun, Give a Little: How Your Small Donations Can Transform Our World by Wendy Smith, Immersion Travel USA: The Best and Most Meaningful Volunteering, Living, and Learning Excursions by Sheryl Kayne, Green Volunteers: The World Guide to Voluntary Work in Nature Conservation edited by Fabio Asuneda, Volunteering: The Ultimate Teen Guide by Kathlyn Gay, In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving by Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy with Sally Jenkins, The Busy Family’s Guide to Volunteering: Do Good, Have Fun, Make a Difference as a Family! by Jenny Friedman, Volunteer Vacations: Short-term Adventures that will Benefit You and Others by Bill McMillon, Doug Cutchins, and Anne Geissinger, or Volunteering: A How-to Guide by Audrey Borus.