Do you need another reason to go the library in September?

Published 2:00 pm Sunday, September 1, 2019

September continues to distinguish itself as one of the busiest months of the year. There will be a regularly scheduled library board meeting at noon on Sept. 9. These meetings are open to the public and you are most welcome to attend. The library foundation will present their annual fundraiser on Sept. 19 this year and there will be more details about this program at the end of this article.

The library will be closed on Sept. 2 for Labor Day.

Community Storytime every Thursdays at 10 a.m. for the tiny people (from 2-5 years old) and their grownups.

Programming for Young Adults happens on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 5-7 p.m. For details on what is being offered on a particular day check the Google calendar or sign up for our e-newsletter, delivered fresh to your email address every Monday afternoon.

Consider subscribing to our e-newsletter, liking us on Facebook or checking the Google calendar attached to our webpage (tiftonlibrary.org). You can always call the library at 229-386-7148 for more information as well.

What’s new to read?

If you are looking for a thriller of a beach book to close the season with, you could do worse than Michele Campbell’s new book “A Stranger on the Beach.” It has made a number of “Most anticipated book…” lists and Booklist has given it a rave review. Caroline Stark’s beach house was everything a beach house should be and was meant to showcase her perfect life and family. Except life wasn’t as perfect as Caroline was pretending it was. Her husband is lying to her, money is leaking out of the accounts and a strange man stands on the beach and watches her house.

What lengths would you go to in order to get your child into an elite school? “The Gifted School” tells the story of four families who move to Crystal, Colorado to build a good life. They become friends, become involved in the community and develop bonds that withstand the strain of jobs, raising children, and marriage. But, when a new school comes to town, with stringent standards for admission, the competition becomes too much for the little group to bear. Bruce Holsinger is the author of “The Gifted School.”

Have you ever read a book and wanted to meet and interact with a character in the story so badly you could hardly stand it? Charley Southerland has never had this problem. He has been able to bring literary characters to life ever since he learned to read. Sometimes this has been a problem. But now, the city is overrun with literary characters up to no good, and Charley has nothing to do with it.  So there is someone else out there with Charley’s power and Charley and his long suffering brother Rob needs to stop them before the world come to the final The End. “The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep” is by H. G. Parry.

“My Italian Bulldozer” has a sequel! Alexander McCall Smith has written the second Paul Stuart novel, entitled “The Second-Worst Restaurant in France.” Paul is again attempting to write another bestselling cookbook and it is not going well. When his rather unconventional cousin invites him to join her at the house she has rented in the French countryside, near a quaint and picturesque village, Paul jumps at the chance. Life becomes even more chaotic than it ever was at home, full of drama, bizarre characters and terrible food just begging for Paul’s expert touch.

“Call Your Daughter Home” follows three Southern women through the years just before the Great Depression. It is recommended for people who loved The Secret Lives of Bees and Where the Crawdads Sing. Gertrude, Retta and Annie come from different socio-economic groups, face very different obstacles and seemingly have nothing in common. But, together they fight against the injustice they see in their community. Deb Spera is the author of this first novel.

This book will be your best friend if you ever take on an abandoned kitten to raise or if you are interested in helping curb the exploding population of semi-feral cats threatening native wildlife in many areas. “Tiny but Mighty: Kitten Lady’s Guide to Saving the Most Vulnerable Felines” has advice on how to trap cats, how to care for the tiniest kittens, when to wean, how to socialize, box train and how to nurse sick babies. If you love kitten pictures, Hannah Shaw has written this book is for you.

Larry Nassar will most likely spend the rest of his life behind bars for molesting hundreds of gymnasts, many of them on the United States Olympic team. How did he get away with so much for so long? Abigail Pesta, an award winning journalist has written “The Girls: An All American Town, a Predatory Doctor, and the Untold Story of the Gymnasts Who Brought Him Down” documenting Nassar’s start as a doctor in a small town who treated girls that trained at a local gym. Because he abused almost all the girls he saw, the girls all thought what he was doing to them was legitimate treatment and that somehow their parents all knew and approved. It took years before a combination of Nassar’s victims, their parents and the authorities finally ended his career.

Jia Tolentino has written “Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion,” a collection of nine essays about the incentives that shape us, and about how hard it is to see ourselves clearly through a culture that revolves around the self. Ms. Tolentino is a staff writer at The New Yorker.

“How to be an Antiracist” is written for people who want to move beyond a simple awareness of racism in the world to actively contributing to a just and equitable society. The author, Ibram X. Kendi is a New York Times bestselling author and the founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. He won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2016.

Did you know?

The Tifton-Tift County Public Library Foundation’s 2019 fundraiser is a concert by Little Texas. There is an extensive article about Little Texas on Wikipedia, but I have excerpted some material from their website for your information.

“As part of the Young Country movement of the early ‘90s, Little Texas was responsible for shaking up the country music world with a new, energetic sound that fused the look and attitude of modern rock music with traditional country themes and styles, bringing a much appreciated bolt of life into the genre. For their efforts, country fans the world over richly rewarded the band, buying up over 7 million of their albums, while critics showered them with 3 Grammy nominations plus honors from both the Academy of Country Music (Vocal Group Of The Year) and the Country Music Association (Album Of The Year).”

The last paragraph of the article reads. “This year, Little Texas is breaking new sonic ground with the release of their 8th album, “Young For A Long Time.” Undoubtedly the band has never sounded more confident, as the chorus of the titular lead off track proudly declares, “Don’t you know by now we’ve got this down / That Friday night fire still hasn’t gone out / We got a rock solid life and a rock n’ roll state of mind / We were born to run / So sit down, son / We’ll show you just how it’s done / ‘Cause we’ve been young for a long time.” The musicianship has only improved with age as well with Porter Howell truly coming into his own as the band’s lead vocalist in addition to his dazzling lead guitar work, and backed by the always solid playing of drummer Del Gray.

““Young For A Long Time” pretty much runs the gamut of everything we’ve ever done, plus takes us down some new roads as well.” Propes continues, “The vocals are there, the guitar work is there, the party songs are there, the ‘make you cry’ love songs, the songs about Texas. We even dive off into swamp rock and torch music, so each song has a totally different fuel behind it.”

General admission tickets are $35 and are available online at https://www.purplepass.com/#187182/ or at the ticket office on the night of the concert.

For $70 you can have VIP access to the band and there are a number of other sponsorship levels available with various benefits, but time is running out on these offers. For more details, please call the library.

The concert will be at the Tifton Theatre for the Performing Arts this year – a new venue for us! Doors will open at 6:30 p.m., with the performance to start at 7:30 p.m. Money raised by the Foundation pays for a significant portion of our summer reading program, the library’s participation in the Georgia Download Destination, which provides our patrons with a collection of ebooks, magazines and audiobooks for download to digital devices. It also funds our subscription to Universal Class, a collection of almost 600 courses on everything from Algebra to Zoology with classes in Babysitting, Flower Design and QuickBooks in between. What we do would not be possible without this support.

We were very excited to hear that the Tifton-Tift County Public Library has been selected as the beneficiary of the Community Bag Program! Each time the $2.50 reusable Community Bag is purchased at Harveys (2201 US Highway 41 North, Tifton GA) during the month of September we will receive a $1 donation!  Help the library, save the environment, and support a local business all while grocery shopping. It’s easy and greatly appreciated.