Not knowing much about Owls, I turned to the ICPL catalog and found a fantastic new book:   The Complete Book of North American Owls by Dr. James R. Duncan.

This man really knows and loves his owls.  The first 47 pages are an introduction to all things owl, from well known adaptations like silent flight and the ability to rotate their heads 180 degrees to each side – and what this adaptation has to do with their eyeballs – to the lesser known but no less amazing ability to rotate one of their three front facing talons almost like a thumb so that they can grip prey with two talons in front and two in back to increase their grip strength.

The second half of the book is a guide to the 46 species of owls living in North and Central America.  Between 3 and 6 pages are devoted to each species. Each essay discusses the species specific nesting habits, hunting techniques, courtship rituals, and calls.  A range map and chart containing length (height), weight, wing chord length, and tail length is included.

For me the best part of this book is the collection of photographs of each species.  Owls in flight, in their habitats, hunting,  or just glaring back at the photographer, these images are amazing.

The book is full of great trivia facts too:  One of the worlds largest owls (now extinct) was 42″ tall and weighed 20 pounds!  And the Great Horned Owl can grip prey with a force of between 300 to 3,000 psi. (A human grip averages about 20 psi.)

The only thing that could make this book any better, would be an included CD with owl calls, but there’s always The Owl Pages for that.

I never thought I would need to know these things, but suddenly last week there was a 3-week-old kitten in my house, and he was very hungry. Of course, I was able to look things up online and find some quick help, but I still wanted a book. A lot of what I was finding was from forums, and while that was good and helpful, I also wanted information that wasn’t so anecdotal. Lucky for me, the Library has many books on kittens in general, and also this little gem: Hand Raising the Orphaned Kitten. Absolutely perfect.

This is just one of those instances where you need something that is very specific and maybe a little unusual, and the Library has that exact thing. Found a baby squirrel? No problem. Your old VW broke down? Fix it. Want to know if that weed your child ate in the backyard is bad for him? Get here quick (and maybe plant something that he can eat)!!

Yes, the Internet is easy and full of information. Sometimes, though, the information you need is important enough that you want a thorough, research-backed book by a knowledgeable author. When that’s the case, the chances are good that the Library will have just what you need.

And…does anyone have any good cat names?

Born in the 60’s, no one around her understood what she was going through, and her parents and teachers could not understand why she was sometimes unable to remember things from one moment to the next. When help was sought for her, she was at separate times diagnosed with anorexia, bulimia, depression, alcoholism, and schizophrenia. The irony is that many of the diagnoses were correct. They simply all belonged to different personalities, or alters. Julia is a teenager who believes that she receives messages from license plates and television antennae. Katie is a three year old little girl. Ken is a gay man. Hayley is a responsible and gregarious middle-aged woman who fought for and won their independence. The only thing all of these different people have in common is the body of Kim Noble and love for her daughter, Aimee.

With the help of a patient and pioneering therapist, Patricia came to understand what was happening to her, although some of her alters still do not. Eventually, she turned to painting as a way of expressing herself and communicating with her alters. Now, Kim Noble is a successful artist, with fourteen of her alters contributing works.

Kim’s story is a vivid and fascinating glimpse into the mysteries of the human mind. She discusses what it is like living with her condition, how she learned to deal with the blackouts, the confusion, and the consequences of other personalities’ actions. She describes what it was like to realize that she was only one of possibly hundreds of people living in the same body, and that Patricia herself wasn’t even the main one. Rich in detail, the story is intensely personal, yet warm and even humorous. Patricia tells their story with a sensitivity and deftness that leaves the reader in awe of the strength and resilience of the human mind.

I’m just a few chapters into Stuart MacBride’s Birthdays for the Dead, a gritty little tale of a serial killer who has abducted 12 young girls who are 12 years old. With each girl, he waits one year after the abduction, then starts sending the parents photographs that document the torture and eventual death of their child–one photo each year. Investigators are just beginning to find the bodies of some of the victims of the ‘Birthday Killer’ when a 13th girl goes missing. Even more harrowing is that one of the investigators, Det. Constable Ash Harrison, has a daughter who went missing years ago; he has already received five pictures from the Birthday Killer, but Harrison continues to tell people that she ran away so that he can stay on the case. Each time a body is found, his tension is palpable as he prays–begs–for it not to be his daughter. There’s a small amount of relief provided by the new forensic psychologist Harrison has been partnered with; Alice McDonald is young and has keen insight, but is also a bit neurotic and has some odd issues to deal with. Overall, though, this is a proper Scottish thriller, violent and a bit grimy, with some dark humor thrown in.

As for the science fiction, I’m not reading but watching…I’m a bit of a latecomer, but I’ve just gotten into the Dr. Who series that began in 2005. I know!! I’ve had many people tell me to watch it, and so now I am, and it’s far better than what I imagined. Having grown up in the 70s and 80s, watching a few episodes from the original series, I was totally hesitant to watch it again. Then I saw Torchwood (SO good!) and made the commitment. I’m only a couple episodes in, and am very happy I have more than 80 to go.

This goes back a bit, to the days when I was fascinated with the planets. When I was 8 or so, I received a book about the beings that inhabit different planets. As it turns out, this book was fiction. I didn’t realize that, and was amazed and delighted that the book gave me numerical call signs to actually make contact with the planets–yes, really!! I spent many hours in my room, on the floor facing the window, with my walkie-talkie in hand, patiently tapping out (in Morse code, of course) these call signs. Hours. To no avail. No matter, though, I moved on…I had a period of fascination with Mars, and ordered as many books from the Weekly Reader as I could get my hands on. Then movies about space and aliens and time travel and the future. Books about string theory (started, rarely finished) and the cosmos. Pictures from the Hubble.

As it currently stands, I have a really hard time grasping some (most) of the basic principles, but I am still fascinated by it all. Is the universe expanding? What happened before the Big Bang? What is at the bottom/on the other side of a black hole (a thing we know exists not because we see it, but by the disappearance of everything else around it, that is crazy!)? Do all points in time really exist at the same time, all the time, and if so, can I somehow go back to the 23-year-old me and say ‘hey, maybe don’t take in 8 cats’? And most importantly, the question that comes to my mind whenever I read something about some distant star, why are we just now seeing the light from something that happened millions of years ago, and does the thing even exist anymore?? I don’t understand Einstein’s theories, I can’t really visualize multiple dimensions, and light years are mind-boggling. I just can’t.

Imagine my pleasure upon discovering The Universe: an illustrated history of astronomy. Pictures! Concise explanations! A fold-out timeline! 100 brief and interesting tidbits about astronomy explained for someone like me. If you’re like me, and you desperately want to ponder the mysterious stars and expanse of space and matter, but just can’t quite manage it on your own, you’ll want this book. Or, if you’re a little more advanced than I, but want something beautiful and very interesting to read, you just might want it as well.

Fiction–The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson. From the media release: “an exquisitely crafted novel that carries the reader on an adventuresome journey into the depths of totalitarian North Korea and into the most intimate spaces of the human heart.”

General Nonfiction–Devil in the Grove : Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King. From the media release: “a richly detailed chronicle of racial injustice in the Florida town of Groveland in 1949, involving four black men falsely accused of rape and drawing a civil rights crusader, and eventual Supreme Court justice, into the legal battle.”

History–Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall. From the media release: “a balanced, deeply researched history of how, as French colonial rule faltered, a succession of American leaders moved step by step down a road toward full-blown war.”

Biography–The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tim Reiss. From the media release: “a compelling story of a forgotten swashbuckling hero of mixed race whose bold exploits were captured by his son, Alexander Dumas, in famous 19th century novels.”

Poetry–Stag’s Leap by Sharon Olds. From the media release: “a book of unflinching poems on the author’s divorce that examine love, sorrow and the limits of self-knowledge.”

101 Fabulous Small Quilts from That Patchwork Place is a great collection of quilts.  There is a wide range of beautiful designs, with full color photos and easy to follow instructions.   But there are some important things missing in the book itself.

The introduction and back cover mention quilt designers by name, yet there is no name index.  There is a table of contents, but it contains only the names of the quilts, and not even in alphabetical order.  The arrangement of the book, if there is one, I just can’t grasp.  Logical groupings such as stars, strips or applique would have been very helpful, or at the very least a thumbnail next to the title in the table of contents.

As it is, the only way to find something in this book if you don’t know the name of the quilt is to flip page by page through it.  Which I’m sure is something most quilters will love doing, as this really is a book of eye candy for quilters.  As a Librarian who also quilts, I find it frustrating that a book with such potential fell so short.

That’s not to say I won’t be buying myself a copy.  It’s too beautiful a book not to.

Park is half-Korean and tries to fly under the radar in his own world of music and comics.  Eleanor, with her wild red hair, is new in school, wears weird clothes and comes from a broken family.  The two characters–and the reader–fall in love over the course of a school-year in 1986.  Like any romance, there are complications, but they’re blips.  The real problem is Eleanor’s alcoholic, time-bomb of a step-father.  Eleanor and Park make the most of the time that they have–but there’s never enough time when you’re young.

If I haven’t convinced you, John Green loved it and recommended it during his Reddit AMA.  I honestly don’t think I’ve cared about a fictional relationship as much as I did in “Eleanor & Park.”  I recommend this book to everyone–young, old, everything in-between–who has been in love, is in love or wants love.