 Okay, good morning, and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Burns, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the Commission's weekly online event, a webinar, where we cover anything that may be of interest to librarians across the state. We do these sessions live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. central time, and they are recorded, whoever, so if you're unable to join us live during one of these shows, that's fine. We watch our years and years for something like that now, recordings that are on our website, and we cover anything that could be anything library related, we'll put it on the show. Booker views, interviews, presentations, mini training sessions, whatever, as long as that's something to do with libraries, we'll have it on the show. We bring in guest speakers. We also have speakers, presenters from the Library Commission, and as we do this morning, we have, I'll just let you guys introduce yourself and do your thing, we have book kits, book club kits that we offer here at the Library Commission, we're going to go through how that process works, and then some of the titles that are in there. Not all of them, I think we're at what, three hundred and forty-eight, so you don't know about all of them, but certain ones we'll go through. Debra, you want to introduce yourself and then I'll, and I'm Debra Drago, that was Debra Drago, I am Def Goble, and I'm Lisa Kelly, and we're all in a book club. So that is the criteria, these aren't just book reviews, these are book reviews that we're reviewing as we've discussed them in a book group, so there's a little different spin on it, and for those of you who are in the state of Nebraska and are in a library or a media center, you are eligible to use our book club kit collection. So here's the rules for use down here, which will explain how it all works. Here's a request form when you found the title that you're interested in. Something I also want to point out here is a book club sharing wiki. Interlibraries who are willing to share their book club kits are all listed here by title and the number, so if you don't have something, or we don't have something, and you're looking for it, it sure makes it easier than interlibrary loaning fifteen copies, so we try to make it as easy as possible. And there is a single alphabetical list here, and then we've broken out the list here, so you've got your discussion questions, and you're good to go. So if you have any questions about it, please just contact us. You can do so in any of the ways we've made available here. And one last thing I do want to point out, we've just added this recent note about what if you have someone in your book group who has a special need with print and is a talking book user? I mean to add these and have not yet, but the Talking Book Library has several of these titles in their collection as well, so you can include those folks in your book club collection, so please keep that in mind. With that, we've got a lot of books to go through, so we'll start with Debra, and give me your title line. I actually belong to two book groups here at the Commission. In one, we generally discuss children's books, and in the other, we discuss adult books, book titles. So I'm going to start with a children's book title called Unwind by Neil Shusterman, which a few years ago was the very first book that was chosen, 2010, 2012. It was chosen as the first one book for Nebraska teens, and they did specify that it was for high school students. Sometimes when you say teens, the younger kids read this, and I'll just start out by telling you, in our book discussion group, there was a very definite thought that children's, younger children should not read this book. What would be the youngest age, though? 15. Yeah, 14, 15 maybe, if the youngest. The story does take place in a future America, where parents can have children between the ages of 13 and 18 unwound, which is basically a euphemism for sentencing them to death, after which their organs are harvested. Abortion is outlawed. This was a compromise between the pro-life and the pro-choice groups after an actual war took place. In this book, the protagonist is 16, Connor, the main protagonist is 16, when his parents decide to have him unwound. Some of the themes in this book, of course, are, okay, the morality of, okay, can you basically sentence your child to death? There is the idea that some people in this book promote that, well, that person is still alive, because each of their parts lives on in another person, but are we our physical parts, or are, you know, what about your soul, your spirituality? Also, another theme, how do you handle children that misbehave or are not perfect? Do you say, ah, okay, I've had it, kid, off you go, that's, you know, you're going to be unwound. Survival is another theme in this book. In this case, several, three of the main protagonists, three of the protagonists, actually run away when they're going to be unwound. And they find a group that works underground that takes them to a place where the kids are living and trying to get to an old enough age where they can maybe, you know, go back into society and live a full life. So there's survival, there's justice. Who can you trust? You don't always know. If you meet somebody and they say they're going to help you, are they really going to help you, or are they going to turn you in? The book would definitely benefit, a reader would definitely benefit from reading this as part of a group, if they are teenagers, to discuss it. There are things that a teacher or an adult could bring to this book, some historical perspective, okay, how does this relate to how the Nazis handled groups that they didn't approve of or they didn't like? The eugenics idea, people weren't perfect. Do you just get rid of them? Do you keep them from having children themselves? Coming of age. They're all different kinds of things that are there to talk about. And as I said, we had a very lively discussion about a number of these topics in that discussion. I'm not normally an attendee in the children's book group discussions, but I wanted to read this one, and yes, it was a very lively discussion. A lot of disagreement. Some, I guess a lot of what you might call the disagreement was, we were disagreeing with the committee that chose the book for discussion. There were some people in our group that were very adamant that they didn't feel it was appropriate for that. And we had our discussion before The Hunger Games came out, and that has become an enormous hit. And there are elements of the same kind of theme as the young people being the sacrificial rounds for society. And so if your young readers enjoyed The Hunger Games, they probably enjoyed discussing this book too. Or adults would enjoy discussing it. Let's move on to Beth. Okay, I'm going to switch gears to, I think it's at the very top of our list. I guess I'd call this an oldie but a goodie. It's All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. And I had never read it, and I happened to see it on Lisa's desk when we got the kit. And so I suggested that our group here at NLC read the book, and I believe there were participants in that discussion because I hope it was a few years ago that we, well, about two years ago maybe that we talked about it, so my memory is already a bit shaky. But the rest of you are probably familiar with the book, written in 1956 and won the Pulitzer Prize. And it is based, well, the author said not so much, but other people think that it's based quite a bit on the life of Huey Long, who was governor of Louisiana and was assassinated in the 40s. And I think this would be a great book for an adult group discussion because of the themes involved. The quality of the writing is exceptional. It's a little bit confusing at times. It switches focus between a narrator who's a young man who goes to work for, Willie Stark is the name of the Huey Long character. But what I found really fascinating was the character of both Willie and the young man, whose name has gone right out of my head, and I can't remember it, but whatever. As time goes on, you know, there's that old adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And you can see that transition taking place as you read through the book. And the young man who starts out as really just wanting to find out more about Willie kind of becomes more like Willie as time goes on and it costs him. There's a huge cost in his life. The woman he loves really parts waves with him over it. And there's also an element of mystery in it about the young man's own background, which is kind of interesting. So if you're in a book group where people aren't afraid of social political commentary, this would be a great one. Talking about the morality of power and how it corrupts. And your book group was kind of half and half on that one, if I recall. Half-white, half-didn't really like it. Is that correct? Yes. Two of us had already had read it before. We have one male member of our NLC group, and he felt that this was probably the best book we had discussed all year. And he was unfortunately unable to attend the day we talked about it, but he provided us with some notes. That was one of the very detailed notes, which was wonderful. Some people really loved the way he used language, and there were others who said, okay, this whole paragraph is one sentence. It runs on forever. Yeah, I think that is an important... It's not a short book either. It is. Over 600 pages. Is that the only way of school of writing? Indeed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Terrific use of words. So if your group isn't up for a 650-page book, that would be a consideration that there are particular copies don't have discussion questions in the back, but as you can see from the website, they are available. We do have some here. So I would recommend it to a group that's ready to tuck into something a little bit more challenging, but with plenty to talk about. Okay. I'm going to bring the mood down some. We just checked this out to a library, and I was grateful to see it go out. I know that this at home at Midford by Jan Caron has been around for a while. It might be considered Christian fiction or a woman's book, but I know that she has male readers, and it is a series. This is the first in the series, and I wanted to just point out that some of us at work read it one winter together. It had long been on my list to read, and so I got the reader's advisors to read it. And if your book group is really about food, there's a lot of food in this book. And so we all assigned each other a recipe. There was, let me make sure, I made Father Tim's Ham, K-Brot, Russell, Jack's Liver Mush, Sarah Maid, Esther's, Orange Marmalade Cake. And we had the best time, and that was just a one-off. So a book group doesn't have to be something that needs regularly. This was just something that we put together with some staff members. They came to my house, we ate, we talked about the book, and it's rich with characters. And I mean that in quotes and otherwise. There are real characters in this book. And this is a mom-friendly book. If you've got a book group where maybe they object to certain themes, there wouldn't be anything, I think, that would be objectionable in this. Yet I don't think it's worse for the where for being not as dramatic as unwind in terms of its themes. Because there are adult themes in there. There are. It's everyday life. Yes, and the setting definitely becomes a character, the fictional town of Mitford. And if you're thinking, I've already read this, and I know we have a staff member here. I just asked her yesterday, do you reread books? And she said, no. Once I've read it, I've read it. So maybe you've got a lot of people who've read this book, but I think it's worth a revisit. Because you always pick up something new when you reread a book, and I'm obviously your rereader. So don't let that influence you. That would be trouble. And just Jan Caron has a cookbook. It's owned by 28 libraries in Nebraska. So if you feel you want to get the real recipes, we can ILL that for you. So food is your thing and character conversations are something I'd recommend this book. And even though you've read it, take another look at it. And then once you love the characters, there's nine books in the series, and that's always a jam too. So Ed Holman and Mithford is one of my recommendations. We had a great time eating and talking. OK, Deborah. OK, I'm going to talk about one more children's book. It's called Cotalker, a novel about the Navajo Marines of World War II. It's by Joseph Bouchak, who is actually part Native American, although he is not Navajo. But he did go down to Arizona, and he met with a number of Navajo people and got their perspective and basically their permission to write this story. It is a historical novel. He did not write it as a nonfiction book, but it is a novel about how Navajo boys were sent to boarding school, where, of course, the native language is forbidden, the native dress is forbidden, native culture is forbidden. But when World War II came along, the Marines came calling to say, hey, we need people who know the Navajo language because that was a code that the Japanese could not break. OK, so the story follows one main character, Ned Begay, as he is sent off to boarding school as a child to learn English and be assimilated into American culture. That's a big thing that we talked about, how you do assimilate other cultures, how over the centuries the millennium, when one group of people moves into another area, how do the cultures mix? How does one subsume the other? It happens. We also talked about discrimination because their culture was being discriminated against. And of course, Indians did have problems with alcohol. So for example, they were barred from a number of bars, saloons, pubs, whatever you want to call them. And in fact, how even after they served in World War II, they put their lives on the line, they were patriotic. They gave a lot to the war effort, but when they came home, they faced the same discrimination. One thing that I really loved and pointed out when we discussed this book is the pace and the rhythm of the story. I could hear a Native American storyteller telling this story. The rhythm of the words. It was really, really, I really enjoyed it. You didn't listen to it. No, I read it, but I still got that. You could hear a deal. And the way it set up, the main character is telling this story to his grandchildren. So you get that storytelling effect. And have you read any of the novels of Tony Hillerman? Yes. And they say it in Navajo people. And there is something about their speech and attitude toward life where they don't talk quickly, quiet, polite people, I would say. And yeah, you can pick up that. You can hear their speech as you're reading the words. So that's a great thing for children to get, students to get. And also, I think this is just another, again, it's a wonderful way to pick up history. It reinforces what they're learning in school, possibly about World War II or about the treatment of Native Americans. And it's told from the perspective of one of the people who's participating. So, and it hits all of the, you know, the big events in the Pacific during the war. So I really recommend this book. I thought it was great. All right. Okay, moving on from serious to the, not ridiculous, but very funny. Many of you have probably read Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe by Fanny Flag. So, did you want to? Oh, yeah, I am. I'm working at you. Okay. And while she's finding that spot, something I didn't mention about all the Kingsman is a movie, of course, was made of it. So if you can find it on Blockbuster or one of those Netflix fans or some other way to get the movie, we've done that a few times in our book where we've read the book and also seen the movie. And I don't necessarily recommend that. But it does make for, you would want everyone to do both. I think it doesn't work very well if someone only watches a movie and doesn't also read the book. But you do, it does add a bit of flavor to the discussion sometimes because you can then kind of critique how the movie maker dealt with the book. Not always well. Anyway, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe has been out for a while too. It's not really old, but it was written in 1987 by Fanny Flag, who's a former actress. And I have not followed up to see if you can find any of the movies or TV shows that she was ever in, but Internet Movie Database. Yeah. But she's a very good writer. And this one is the story of the inhabitants of Whistlestop, Alabama, which is close to Birmingham. I doubt if it's a real place. I think she just made it up. And it spans a long time period between the 1920s and the 1980s. And the premise of the book is two women who meet in a nursing home. One of them being a middle-aged menopausal, Evelyn Crouch, who's there visiting her mother-in-law. She's 48 years old. And another woman named Nini Threadgood, who's 86 years old. And they almost accidentally meet one another sort of out in the lobby. And then they bond. And Evelyn, when she keeps coming back to visit her mother-in-law, always makes a point of trying to see. She's really there to visit Nini after a while, because her mother-in-law's not so much fun to visit. But that's how it starts out. But the story that's told, it does change point of view from Nini and Evelyn talking together and Nini being the narrator. And then you get more of an author point of view where you're just getting the story. But it's really the story of two women who almost grow up together. One's named Izzy Threadgood. There's a very prominent family in town, the Threadgood family. And lots of kids, they also have other relatives. Extended family kind of come to live with them from time to time. And one of them is a young woman named Ruth Jamison. And Izzy and Ruth bond instantly. Ruth is a few years older than Izzy. Izzy is a free spirit who just can't be tamed and just kind of does what she likes. Ruth is a much quieter, beautiful young woman. They really bond. And I mean really bond. And I think that is a thing if you have people in your group who might have difficulties with same sex relationship, it's never overt in the book at all. But it's something that's there. And what I found really interesting is everybody in the community knows about it. They eventually do team up. Without spoiling the story for you, there's a bad husband of Ruth's who is abusing her. And he factors into the story. There's an element of mystery relating to that, which I'm not going to tell you anymore about. But it is really interesting. But this book is also funny, very funny. It's got recipes in the back. Lisa was mentioning food. And I've included a recipe here, which you'll need. And this one, our NLC book group we read this a long, long time ago when we were a group with a different membership. Lisa was a member of that group at that time that we would meet in one another's homes. And this one happened to be at my home. And there are recipes for fried green tomatoes in this book. So if you borrow our coffee, you get the recipes and some discussion questions. And I made them. We must have met in the summertime when my tomatoes were producing green tomatoes. And I made the recipe. So we did do that in those days. We would make food kind of themed, and which Lisa still does with her group. So that adds just an element of fun. But if you're looking for something that's not too taxing, it's a pretty short read. There are elements of sadness in it. There's a lot of humor, as I said. And it does jump back forth in time. I've also seen the movie. And Kathy Bates played the role of Evelyn, the menopausal, rather overweight person. And Jessica Tandy played Ninny Threadgood. So both stellar actors to portray those people. So I would highly recommend it, especially our book group. We sometimes, for the summer, we have kind of our trashy read. It's not trash at all, but it's just fun and not too taxing. But still plenty to discuss. Lots of themes about how women were treated, how they were accepted or not under those circumstances. It takes place during the Depression. A lot of it during the Depression. So you have the hobos who would come to the back of the restaurant to get food. So these women would help anyone. They were frowned upon by some people. And they also employed Black people and would serve them food, and so on, which was something you didn't do in Alabama in the 20s. So there's lots of other themes that could be discussed as well as just enjoying a good read. And I think we're to reread. Yeah, I reread it for this. I'll be an advocate for rereading. Yeah, I knew it a lot. Yeah, and I know there are those of you out there who don't. But maybe give one a try again. And we have quite a few copies, I think. Yeah, oops. Yeah, we had, I think, oops. Well, shoot. Never mind. OK. We have 10 copies of Fried Green Tomatoes. And you probably have some more in your own collection so you could add those. OK, I'm going to change the mood way a lot here. You're familiar with Steve Larson, the Swedish author who just blew the mystery reader world apart with his millennium trilogy. And we've got all three of them. And because I'm a series reader, I insist you read them in order. You can't not read these. You really do have to read them in order. Clearly, we have the most of the first, not as much as the second and then only a single copy of the third. So if you do get hooked, we've got them all. And there are some people who say, I'm not going to read a book while it's hot. So here's your chance. Now the excitement has died down. And the person who picked this from my book group was very anxious. She said, you know, it is a genre book. It's a mystery book. And I said, but I think it's a lot more than that. And we had a really excellent discussion about this. Some people had already read it. I reread it for the book group. And it is written by a gentleman who died in 2004 who was a journalist. And the main character in the book is a journalist. So you can't help but seeing some autobiographical elements in the book. It's unfortunate because he was wildly popular. And now this is all there's going to be. So that is difficult. Well, there is another book that there's litigation over who's going to make the money. And all these books were published posthumously as well. Obviously, there's two main characters. Elizabeth Sallander is a character who will stay with you forever. She is heavily tattooed and is the girl with the dragon tattoo, obviously. And I have seen both the Swedish and the American movies. You've got two options in this one if you want to watch movies. And I can't help seeing the Swedish actress who portrayed it now because she was so compelling and such a wonderful actress. I do see her now as I'm rereading this, but it is violent. It is sexually explicit. Certainly the scenes of violence are disturbing and difficult. So something to consider. My group reads tough, gritty novels all the time. So this wasn't anything that put anybody off. And one of the English professors in our group talked about the symbolism of the tattoos and how that was very warrior-esque and that Elizabeth was really a warrior and brought out literary elements of quite serious decisions. I thought, this is just a mystery. But we had a really compelling discussion about this. And I think that's the beauty of a book group. You're reading a book for fun, for pleasure, and this certainly would fall into that category because it's a mystery. And a lot of everyone in my book group is a mystery rear. And so that's why it felt like we were cheating. We really brought out a lot of elements that I would never have caught on my own. And so to bring out a book that I would consider trash or interesting. It's called, it's called Babes at 4-0-1, and Patrick, it's called Babes at 4-0-1. I would just consider that talking about a book is really, really enhances it. And this would be one I would recommend for a book group if your book group can tolerate the very, very graphic and violent themes in this book. And then you get hooked and you can pick the second and the third. And so for those of you who skipped it when it was hot, here it is, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Well, and they are page-turners. I'd almost call them combination thriller mysteries because there's just so much going on. There's many themes, there's lots of themes. And the other thing that I really appreciated was the European sensibility of relationships in this book that Americans can be a little jolted by. There are casual sexual relationships outside of marriage in this book. And how that's really nothing to a European sensibility, perhaps, I don't know. None of the characters is living a happy family. And I see that in many of the Scandinavian histories that I've read. Yeah, you still cheer for these characters. Elizabeth will stay with me for the rest of my life and I think that they're memorable. Yeah, one thing that occurred is just how Elizabeth grew up, which may come to explain why she is the way she is to a large extent. And I'm currently listening to one called The Orchardest. It's a new book, which also has a young woman in it who has been terribly abused as a child and becomes a very interesting person as an adult. So, yeah, there are more serious themes. It's not just a thriller. Yeah. It's not just for the sex and violence. And his trilogy has sold more than 20 million copies in 41 countries. So this isn't a flash in the pan. It's not serious literature. It's not gonna wanna feel it, sir. But if you have mystery readers, here's a dark side option. Well, my husband and I listened to them and I have to tell this story, I'll do it fast. We were driving on a road trip to visit family and we got almost to the end of the second book and we were nearly at our destination and we started driving around because we didn't wanna get to my sister's house before we finished listening to book two. Yeah. And you have movie combinations here too, obviously. You've got three Swedish movies for all of these and just the American version for the first. But boy, there's lots of compare and contrast there as well. Except you can't put your hands over your eyes in the Swedish version because I had to read the subtitles. Exactly. You have to see it all. I knew it was gonna happen. Okay, Deborah, what have you got next? Okay. The next book is Molokai. And actually, this wasn't read by our group but it was a runner up for the One Book, One Lincoln here a few years ago. And I've talked about this book with a number of different people. The novel follows a Hawaiian girl who comes down with leprosy when she is only seven years old and she is banished. She's actually arrested and banished in 1892 to a segregated community on the island of Molokai and she's lived there for over 50 years until she was cured and curled because she'd been arrested so she had to be curled. It follows her life there. She arrives as a seven-year-old. They do have something of a school there. The book lets you in bit by bit on how a community works. They're cut off from the world but you've got all different kinds of people here. You have people here who are sent. There's a young man just out of college diagnosed with leprosy up to this community colony that he's sent. Older people, her uncle is sent there. The book really talks about how people can adjust to that type of world. If you're just one day, hey, your life ends and you're sent off to this other community, can you create a new life for yourself or not? Some people can't handle it and there are suicides, there are other things that go on but they create basically a town. So they have a post office, they have a store, they do work if they want to, if they can't. So you get that sense of community, how people that are just thrown together just on the basis of sharing the same disease, how they managed to create a life for themselves. Can they form relationships? Can they survive together? It talks a lot about, it shows how there are selfless people. There was a religious community that did set up a hospital there and take care of the people. There were people who worked to find a cure for this disease. And then of course the government plays a big part in this. The government is the entity that, people who make up the government, is the entity that has sent the people there, that's keeping the people there, that is supposed to be supporting the people but is not really spending all that much money on them. And I've discussed this with people. I think back to working at the after state developmental center where back in the late 60s, early 70s, an Omaha television station did a documentary and found that actually, at BSDC the state was spending less money per person than was being spent per animal at the Henry Dorley Zoo. They raised their own food, they did a lot of selling of their own clothes and all these things happened at BSDC too. However, again, the government stepped in, the Rachel, the protagonist finds love, has a child, government says, that child's gonna get leprosy if it stays there. They forced her to give the child up for adoption. How do you live with that? Lots and lots of things to talk about. Very sad things, but you know, she survived. She overcome so much and eventually she is pulled. What happened to her family? This disease broke up a lot of families, created a lot of tensions, blame, guilt, what happens to those who are left behind? What happens if a mother loses one child, has a child arrested because of leprosy and is afraid that another child might have it, what do you do? You stick around for the police to arrest the next one, the inspectors to arrest the next one or do you take off and hide that child? Lots of things to talk about. Sadness, bits of joy too, and history. Okay. All right, yeah. Well, I could say, and now for something completely different and that's because it's hard to even tell people what this book is about. I wanna talk about Life of Pi by Ann Martell. Good luck, who's a Canadian author and the basic premise of the book is a young teenage boy, a 16-year-old boy who grows up in India up to that age. He and his parents and brother are, well, the family has a zoo and they have to sell those. Basically they decide to immigrate to Canada and they're on a ship, a Japanese freighter with all the animals. Big storm comes along, ship sinks. Pi ends up in a lifeboat with some of the zoo animals, most prominently, a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. So how do you describe this book? If you haven't heard about it before, it was another one that when we got the kit book on it here, I hadn't read it so I suggested that our book group read it. And you may have found out that there's a movie showing in theaters right now. The movie about it just came out and I have to say, without having told you anything more about the book, that I think the producer, the movie, Ang Lee, has done a pretty good job of portraying the spirit of the book. This book is a spiritual journey. It's, again, it's the adult Pi so they tell you right at the beginning this story has a quote-unquote happy ending. He survives that voyage in the lifeboat with the tiger. And the author, it's one of these where the, there's a preface where the author, who is obviously Jan Martel, it is fiction, of course. So here's an author who sort of between books, his last book, Dizzled and Died, he's looking for ideas, he goes to India, meets up with someone who knew the family and says, if you wanna write a good book and hear a story that will make you believe in God, go back to Canada, go to Montreal and visit this man, Pi. So that's how it gets started. And then the rest of the book is Pi telling the story. And there are actually some elements of humor in it, particularly at the beginning about, his real name is Tussine. His parents named him for a swimming pool. That's the French, he was in a, there was a small French colony in India and that's where he grew up, Pondicherry, and I'm probably not saying that correctly, but you have the typical thing of a child getting sent to school with a name like Tussine, well, what do you think the kids call him? It's the pissing boy, and how he manages to take charge of his own name and get people to start calling him Pi, which he relates to the mathematical sign for Pi. This boy embraces religion at a young age and not just one. So there's some humor about how he learns while still living in India about four different religions. He's, of course, born Hindu. Well, I shouldn't say, of course, Hindu he embraces Islam, Christianity and Buddhism, all unbeknownst to his parents. So there are some funny moments where the clerics all discover one another, that they're sort of competing for this boy and also the parents find out what's been going on. So then moving into the bulk of the story is in some detail, and I found this part, somewhat pretty believable, actually, about how one lines up on a lifeboat that's large enough that you can imagine someone surviving on it. There are supplies on the boat, but just how he manages to live with this Bengal tiger. And there is a rather violent episode earlier on where Pi's father shows him why he should never trust the tiger. Don't ever believe that this tiger is ever going to be your friend. This is when they're still back at the zoo. And he has to remember that, and just how he deals with being with the tiger. But of course, the whole thing is really a metaphor for a spiritual journey. And, you know, without, again, giving away too much, there are really two possible stories as to what happened on that lifeboat. And it's, if you, any, either of you've read it, please jump in and give your views on it. I recommend it, but it's really hard to tell somebody what this book is about. It was an odd discussion in my book, and I scratched my head trying to remember how it even went because I couldn't read it for much. Well, it's a parable. It really is. I mean, even the characters, who is the tiger really? So if you have literal readers in your group, they're going to get very upset about that. Oh yes, oh yes. I mean, you're not meant to believe that something like this could ever happen. That you're meant to think about what it all represents in a spiritual way. You'll have very contrasting opinions in your group on this, I do believe. I'm going to move along. So we've got a lot of books to get through. If you're interested in reading a Nebraska author, and you all might recall that Mary Piper was an NLA keynote speaker a couple years ago, three, four years ago in Grand Island, you'll notice that I've got a Nebraska mark. So if it's got a setting or a Nebraska author, I will try to make note of that. This book was chosen as a nonfiction selection for our book group. And the reason I want to highlight this is because with so many people in my book group who recognize the schools or the people, and it really enhanced the discussion, and you very well, no matter where you live, may know some of the folks or the circumstances. Lincoln is a refugee relocation center, and Mary brings to light her role that she creates for herself as a cultural broker. For example, all the credit card things that come in the mail to you to fill out. A person from a different culture wouldn't necessarily understand the concept of junk mail. That was one example that she brought up in the book and teaching young refugees to drive when they're out of their element. I think it adds an element to have an opportunity to see the author, and she certainly does enough appearances. She's often been at the book festival, another book that she wrote that was autobiographical. We also read another of her book and revealed a lot about herself. And then people would say, I especially like the story that you told, and she said, well, how do you know that? Well, you wrote about it, so she has, she's a revealing person. I really endlessly like hearing her. And so she's written lots of books. This one enlightened me to cultural sensitivity in a way that I think I would never have learned except for reading it from Mary. Now, you may not live in a cultural diverse community, but we certainly do here in Lincoln and have lots of languages and lots of cultures here. And this was a real eye-opener. And certainly we had some great discussions. It was life-changing to me in a way to awaken me. I didn't volunteer for anything, but I became more aware. So if you're looking for a non-fiction title, this is not going to be, this is gonna be very enlightening, I think for your group. The next one I'm going to talk about is the number one ladies detective agency by Alexander McCall Smith. And I'm going white this time. It is a mystery, you have your detective, but it's a lot more than that. Precious Ramat's way is the person who starts the detective agency in Botswana. And really, okay, she's starting a new life. She's starting a new life because her father has died, she's divorced, a lot of things going on. So she's moving to a new town. She's just becoming a detective. So there's just that newness, okay? But there's also the oldness. She brings along all the lies, sayings from her father. She relies very heavily upon a book written by a gentleman on how to be a private detective. But she just solves so many problems through common sense. It's a very nice, light introduction to the people and customs of Botswana. I really recommend that you listen to the audio version to get the pronunciations of a lot of the names and the courtesy titles that they call each other. It's not Mr. or Mrs. It's for women, it's ma ma ma. There's two M's and an A and for men, it's two R's and an A. So you roll those R's if you can. So there's a lot of information about traditions, the courtesy's that they show each other, the interactions between people and how you can talk about how it affects the pace of the book. It is very slow-paced books. So if people like that, they'll really enjoy these. And I've also had discussions with people on how it compares to the TV series that was done of this particular book. And I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed the TV series. I did too. Yeah, I saw two of them too. So I'll let you move on. And that is the first in a series. And I have had a discussion with someone who said, skip the first, get right to the second. She didn't like the first, so. But then I'm... The first one gives you a lot of the background. I think it's the tone. Yeah, that's the tone. So read the first, but that's three. And her gentle admirer, are they ever going to get married? Yes. That's a continuing theme. Yes. Okay, then, what have you got? Okay, I have one nonfiction book. Again, it's not brand new, but it's called Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kitter. And Deborah actually recommended this for our NLC book group some years back. Came out in 2004, and she can probably tell as much as I can about it. I just found this one of the best books I've ever read. It's very inspiring. It's about a real person, of course, Dr. Paul Farmer, who grew up in a, I think fairly unconventional, but rather privileged family. They were able to send him to, I think it was Harvard, to become a doctor. But he doesn't go the traditional route. He decides that he's gonna devote his life to helping out with the health of people in countries that are not as privileged of ours. Haiti is the one that's really featured most prominently in this book. So, and Tracy Kitter, the author, he has written other books, and he's a very gifted writer. And so it's also the story of Tracy going and being with Paul, following him around to some extent as he does his work in Haiti. I don't think either the biographer or Paul Farmer or big fans of U.S. foreign policy when it comes to countries like Haiti or Cuba and their medical problems, there's an element of that in it. And I didn't take a lot of notes on this, but I just remember it being, just coming away, thinking, wow, this is one of the best books I've ever read. So Debra, please jump in. Oh, please jump in. Oh, I think we did have a good discussion on it. There were some people who were really interested in how he managed to get around. Oh, yes, the way he gets money. Yes, the mending and stuff. He still had a cross appointment at Harvard, and I think he would almost hold him hostage. I won't work for you anymore, unless you allow me to go off and spend half of the year doing these other things. And how he got equipment and medicine. Yeah, Paul is not a play well with others kind of guy. There's also stuff about his own personal life with the women in his life and so on. He is so focused, obsessed with his life that it would be very difficult to be a romantic partner or a spouse of someone like him. It catalogs as a 610, which is a perfect segue to my next title. Have I slowed you down any? Okay, excellent. My book group had one of those, we all love the discussions about this book, My Own Country by Abraham Bergeis, who was the writer of Cutting for Stone, the one book, One Lincoln, last year. And many of you have read that. I preferred this book, although they make nice companion reads. Our mental health director in my book group chose this. He's been curious about Indian, Indian, or this is actually an, or he is Indian, Abraham Bergeis, born in Ethiopia. Born in India in a Christian parent. Christian part of India. Yes, anyway, he went to the Iowa Writers Workshop and is a physician. So he, this also catalogs, I believe, as a medical book. And certainly nothing that would come to my attention unless someone in my book group would have picked it. We loved him, we loved his ethics, we loved, we were just passionate about how he treated the early AIDS epidemic. He was in a Southern hospital in Tennessee. So not only were they working against a lot of difficulty about home sexuality and what AIDS was, he was the sort of, he is the sort of doctor you would want for your own self. And he has, I put a Ted video on here where you can see him talking. And once you've read this book and discussed it, you will want to see him and hear what he has to say. We gushed, like you gushed over this. So if you read Cutting for Stone, this is an excellent companion book. Don't let it slip by, we had an excellent discussion. Okay, well, I'm finishing up with another nonfiction book. It's called In A Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson. I've read this one. Yeah, if you want, if you like nonfiction that's written tongue in cheek with a really good sense of humor, read Bill Bryson, read anything by Bill Bryson. This particular one is basically a travel log of Australia but it's the off the beaten path, not necessarily where most tourists would get to. He does give you background history but then he also tells you about the people he meets. He tells, you know, talks about his adventures. Definitely, definitely tongue in cheek. Australia is a very challenging country, what with all of its extremes and climate and poisonous animals, dangerous animals, yes. But we had fun. Actually, for that particular discussion, we read, we tried a different book by Bill Bryson, or several of us read different books, not all the same book. We did all read one of his, a shark history of nearly everything together, so. I'm gonna insert some of you call and you're looking for a light book. We just finished a heavy book. This would be a light book. You'll laugh out loud. Yes, yes. Okay, let's wrap up here. Finding new? Do you want to? Yeah, go ahead. It's not a light book, it's a mystery. It's fairly new. Lots of cultural stuff to talk about, role of women in Saudi Arabia. So, check it out. And lastly, wow. I have Sandhills Ballad, and you may have heard about this author, Ladette Randolph. I know we don't have very many copies of this, but for those, we were really critical, my book group about how she treated the Sandhills, and if she was accurate, because everybody in my book group had a connection to the Sandhills. I knew if she was making up something, but she had spent a lot of time with her grandparents in the Sandhills, and she did quite well. The interesting aspect of this book discussion was, I didn't like any of the characters, and one of my book members invited her to the discussion. So, we had the author right there in the room with us, and all I wanted to do was say, I hated every character that you created. I didn't like them, and she was okay with that. It was a really interesting thing to tell the author what you thought of a book in a book club. So, this has a Nebraska affiliation, obviously. If you're a book festival person, Lydette often frequents there, so if you like to meet the author, you would have opportunity to do so. There you go. I think we were just a couple of minutes before. Any questions or? Any questions, comments, thoughts on any of the books? You can type it into your go-to webinar questions section at your interface. Nothing came in during the session. Okay. One just sat and listened. Okay. Taking notes, maybe? Yeah. Well, I'll just throw in. Lisa mentioned she, with series, she always says, you have to read first one first. We had this discussion in one of our book group meetings on whether you should read everything in order or not. And a few of us did say, you know, if we had read the very first book in this series, we would not have read any of the others. Oh, yeah. However, we came in on book number four, and we loved it. So we went back to the first one and started reading. There was one that we read long ago called Ms. Succus and the Library Murders, which I just, it just hated it. And I have not gone back. Although I keep, people keep telling me how much better the subsequent books are. We had someone pick the fourth book in a series of James Patterson series, pick the four. And I said, you made me read four books. She looked at me as though I know I did a lot. I had to read the first three. Well, don't try and compare with the Dragon Tattoo. You absolutely have to read those in order. Yes, you do have to read those in order. I think you can depend on the series and hopefully if someone's recommending the fourth, they should know you don't have to read the first three to know what's going on. But for someone like you who doesn't care if they tell you that, that's going to be an issue. I know. We have people who won't reread, people who have to read in order, people who have to finish a book. Beth is a reformed, has to finish a book. Yeah. Well, I'm a reformed. I used to be the champion, I had actually read to the end every book that we discussed. She finished everything. And now I'm terrible. She's a clever. Well, if you're not enjoying it, do you have to put yourself through the pain? Well, none of my sisters-in-law is an avid reader. I mean, she's like our Sally. She has a house filled with books. She will collect an entire series and wait till it's over before she will begin reading so that she can read the book. You know, just sort of hibernate for a week and read all five or all six or whatever. Well, we are passionate about book clubs. Call us if you need help picking anything. We will do our best to help you and be in touch with us and by all means avail yourself to our ever-growing collection and thank you for your morning. Yeah, we do have a couple of comments. Excellent, ladies. I've enjoyed this from Susie Dunn. Oh, thank you. And Laura Hassey Stanton says, there are so many good books to choose from. I hope I can get a book discussion group started in Santa. Oh, okay. It's simple. And we have a, and a couple of slides where we talked about how to start a book group. Yes. And back at our recordings. Yeah. So our call us, call us because really we all have some tips and tricks that will help. Yeah, and ours started out pre-reeling but it's now we at least attempt to alternate fiction and nonfiction. And we go around Robin as who gets to pick what the next read is going to be. Yeah. And in some book groups the librarian picks. So there's no right or wrong but we would be happy to share with you some opinions if you want to get started. Thank you. All right, great. Thank you very much, guys. If you would just search End Compass Live, we can bring up the website. Oh, yes. It'll come up when you just do the first group. So, oh, wait, we do have a comment from Susie. I read Sandhills Bowed last winter and gave it as a gift. Although I'm not from the Sandhills, my spouse is and at the time I did wonder about the authenticity the way the book jumped bugged me once in a while but all in all a good read. It jumped around I guess. I just hated the characters. I hated them all. And that ruins it for me. If I can't find a word to share with you. That is difficult to, yeah. Okay. You're not enjoying yourself, absolutely. Okay. Is that what you wanted? Yeah, yeah. Okay, great. Thank you very much. As I said, this was recorded and when we put up the recording the link to the book club kits page will be there as well. We also have in our delicious account, it's like a link to the wiki, the sharing wiki is that still get used by people. There's a wiki out there for libraries to share information about doing book club kits so they might have a set of books. So that'll be out there as well for you to get more information about doing this. Yeah, great. So thank you very much for attending this week. I hope you'll join us next week when we're actually gonna be learning about Access Nebraska as opposed to Nebraska Access. Access Nebraska is the Department of Health and Human Services website. And we are bringing in Stacy Schenk who's from there. She's gonna be remoting in to talk to us and go over their new website. They've actually, I guess redesigned it recently so we're gonna see all the kind of resources you can find on there to help your parents get information and help from Health and Human Services. So sign up for that, join us next week to learn about Access Nebraska. And if you are a Facebook user, we are on, in addition to having our webpage, Friend Compass Live, where you can find out all our shows. We have a Facebook page as well. So if you go here and like our Facebook page, you'll see notifications here of upcoming shows when recordings are available. Reminders that as I did this morning, join us right now to join in to whatever show we happen to have going on now. So thank you very much and we'll see you next week. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.