Short and Sweet

 Struggling to focus. Reading short books. Under 200 pages. Why don't magazines count? 😭😭😭

Drowned Country by Emily Tesh

Mopey wild man. Mopey vampire. Mopey fairies. 

Wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.

Heartbreakingly beautiful. 

Excited for her next book.

157 pages

The Hundred Penny Box by Sharon Bell Mathis

Reread, still sad. 

Family history is so important. 

Seniors deserve respect and dignity. 

47 pages

Rage by Stephen King

Controversial, out of print.

Teenage angst, trauma.

Teens also deserve respect and dignity.

Hard to put down, not really scary. 

130 pages

Somebody Give This Heart a Pen by Sophia Thakur

Real, raw writing. 

Love her spoken word poetry.

Give, grieve, grow. 

99 pages 

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

Beautiful Asian fantasy world. 

Fierce queer women. 

I want to try black salt. 

NEED the next book. 

(No, I don't want to wait a month)

Read Harder Task #11

121 pages

Missouri's Mad Doctor McDowell by Victoria Cosner

Why rob graves? For science!

Who doesn't want to preserve their family members? 

He could view his wife across the river, how sweet.

Now I have to visit Hannibal.

142 pages

Don't Know Much About History...

Heavenly Bodies by Paul Koudounaris

In the late 16th century, a new section of the Roman Catacombs were discovered. The Church recognized the skeletons as those of Early Christian martyrs, and sent them to Catholic churches as saints across Germanic Europe. The relics were then richly adorned with jewels and costumes, and the laity came on long pilgrimages to pray at their shrines. While the tradition fell out of practice by the 19th century, many of these relics are still found in churches across Europe. Koudounaris presents this photographic history with his beautiful, and enthralling images. This book is just way too cool!

189 pages


Kinloch: Missouri's First Black City by John A. Wright

Longtime resident John A. Wright has collected photos and interviews to tell the story of Kinloch, located north of St. Louis. Going from wealth and luxury, white flight, school desegregation, as well as church and community life, the book gives an overview of this city's history. While Kinloch itself is in decline, a population shift has retained much of its heritage in nearby Ferguson.

128 pages




An American Plague by Jim Murphy

I wasn't sure I wanted to read a plague history right now, given.... you know. But this book on the 1793 Philadelphia plague felt distant enough that I didn't mind reading it. Although it is technically juvenile nonfiction, this is definitely a book that can be enjoyed by all ages. Murphy is very good at telling the stories of the main doctors and public officials involved in the crisis, as well as the vital role of the Free African Society. The discussion on the various theories of causes for the (pre-germ theory) plague were telling-placing blame on foreigners is certainly not new. This book is an engaging and informative read. I've also read his book, The Great Fire of Chicago, which is also fantastic!

165 pages


Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

You know, for the most part I really liked this one. You see Laura really start to grow up and participate in the social conventions of the era. The sociable! Lunatic fringes! Name cards! I couldn't imagine having to wear a corset. I made the mistake of googling "corset damage" and the images gave me nightmares. The story is quite pleasant until the end. That minstrel show... Yikes.

307 pages



Don't know much Biology...
Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

This book is definitely not to everyone's tastes, but I freakin' loved reading about the history and cultures around fungi, mushrooms, lichens-everything! Did you know fungi were the first to colonize land, forming giant towers as prototaxes? Or that mychorrhizal fungi form vital connections in a forest, swapping nutrients and "feeding" younger and weaker trees? Scientists are testing the chemicals in psilocybin mushrooms for potential treatments for anxiety and depression! And yes, Star Trek collaborated with Paul Stamets, an actual mycologist, to develop Discovery's fictional mycelial network, designed by Lt. Commander... Paul Stamets.

352 pages



Conservation Trails by Teresa Kight/ MO Dept. of Conservation

So many great trails and Conservation Areas to explore in Missouri! While this publication is a bit dated, most of these trails haven't changed much in the past decade or so... It gives me some ideas of places to explore once this whole mess has blown over...

96 pages





A Guide to Missouri's Snakes from the MO Dept. of Conservation

Sneks. Everybody loves snakes, right? No? Only me? ... okay. We have sooo many watersnakes. And unfortunately they get killed for no good reason because folks assume any snake in the water is a cottonmouth. Copperheads are nasty. I remember killing one once with a garden hoe. And baby rat snakes are the cutest thing ever!

59 pages





The Lost Words by Robert MacFarlane

This oversize book focuses on words disappearing from children's lives, pairing poems with pages and pages of colorful paintings. Each poem focuses on a word-bramble, wren, acorn-that may or may not enter children's vocabularies with our increasingly indoor culture.Beautiful poetry. Gorgeous artwork.

128 pages





Don't know much about geography...

Yellowstone: A Journey Through America's Wild Heart by David Quammen

Quammen combines tales of his adventures in America's first national park with breathtaking images of wildlife and the landscape. The nature photography is phenomenal! I enjoyed reading about the history of the park and challenges it faces today. I've never been able to visit, but I definitely want to take a road trip now...

222 pages

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

I've been recommended this book many times. Then DBRL chose it for the One Read... and I caved. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed it! It follows the story of Count Alexander Rostov, who is sentenced to house arrest by the Bolsheviks in the Metropol. Across from the Bolshoi, the Metropol is a grand hotel (I've been there, it's huge) yet I'm sure it would feel tiny after 40-ish years. I enjoyed how the Count watched the passage of early Soviet history. The author definitely did his research, which I appreciated. The hype around this novel is not over exaggerated!

462 pages

 
Don't know what a slide rule is for...
Me neither, dude. I had to look it up. Makes me real grateful for calculators.

This song is now stuck in your head!
That, or you're trying to look up the reference.
You're welcome.

What a wonderful world this would be.

Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to the Show-Me State's Most Spirited Spots

  Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to the Show-Me State's Most Spirited Spots

by Jason Offutt

Pages: 198

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

The author covers all kinds of haunted and spooky spots around the state of Missouri. He draws from personal interviews, folklore and the history of an area to relate the tales. Then he takes the reader along as he visits these spirited spots. An entertaining read for someone looking for folklore and a travel guide for those wanting to go ghost-hunting. It is a down-side of being a library staff person that I had to wait until all the Halloween books were off our popular display. So, I end up reading spooky stories around Christmas and in January. Oh well, the nights are still long and dark and perfect to read a spooky tale or two. 

Civil War Ghosts of Southwest Missouri

 Civil War Ghosts of Southwest Missouri
by Lisa Livingston-Martin
Pages: 128
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This book not only offers legends and folktales about ghosts but more detail about the Civil War in Southwest Missouri than I had studied in any of my history classes in school or college. Even if you are not interested in ghosts, IF you are interested in the Civil War this book is a good source of history. The author travels to spots that are supposedly haunted by spirits from Civil War times, mostly union or confederate soldiers who died in the area during the war. I even talked my husband into reading this because of his interest in the civil war. He is totally not interested in ghost stories and doesn't even like to watch scary movies or Grimm or Supernatural, but he read it for the history.

Missouri’s Mad Doctor McDowell: Confederates, Cadavers and Macabre Medicine. By Victoria Cosner & Lorelei Shannon.

Missouri’s Mad Doctor McDowell: Confederates, Cadavers and Macabre Medicine. By Victoria Cosner & Lorelei Shannon. 2015. The History Press. ISBN-13: 9781467118880 (paperback).

Meet St. Louis’ eccentric surgeon, Dr. Joseph Nash McDowell (1805-1868): A man who held undying grudges and took his medical oath seriously. Warm and kind to his students, the doctor inspired such loyalty among them that they gladly accompanied him in his grave robbing escapades; such activities that would generate angry mobs outside of McDowell Medical College. He once sicced his pet bear on one such mob; the bear yawned and the mob fled.

Enhanced with photographs, illustrations and appendices, readers won’t be able to set down this engaging 144-page narrative about a doctor who sought to preserve his dead loved ones by encasing them in copper-lined cylinders filled with alcohol, and who took to wearing body armor in the streets of St. Louis. This was a great find in Barnes & Noble's regional section and can also be found in our Missouriana collection.

144 pages

 MOBIUS

Missouri's Mad Doctor McDowell: Confederates, Cadavers and Macabre Medicine

Missouri's Mad Doctor McDowell: Confederates, Cadavers and Macabre Medicine
by Victoria Cosnor
Pages: 144
Rating: 4 out of 5

Dr. Joseph Nash McDowell of St. Louis was known as many things: a brilliant surgeon and teacher, a grave robber and and husband and father. Some people say he was an amazing man while others wanted to kill him. His experiments and anatomy classes led to advances in medical science but at what cost? Was he really a mad scientist and did he really experiment on his family's corpses? You'll have to read this book to find out.

Blood River Rising by Victoria Pope Hubbell

Blood River Rising by Victoria Pope Hubbell

"Some day, something will happen to you, and regardless of the outcome here on earth, you'll know what you felt and saw and heard. And you'll agree with me that something else [God] is there with you.
"Both Crismon and Dad were wounded that day."

Part oral history, part the author's musings and recollections of sessions with 86-year-old Hadley Thompson, Blood River Rising details a little-known feud that took place in Miller County, Missouri, in the 1920s. When the Crismons first move next door to the Thompsons--the family of the aforementioned Hadley Thompson--it seems as if their relationship will be the normal neighborly sort. But when tensions rise because of the presence of the Ku Klux Klan, life will be forever altered for the two families.

236 pages.