Art Circle Public Library: What's Happening

Regular Hours

*The Library begins shutdown
15 minutes before close*

*Public Internet & WiFi services shutdown
15 minutes before close*

Telephone

(931) 484-6790  Library

(931) 456-2006  Archives

(931)  484-2350 Public Fax

(931)  707-8956 Business Fax

Address

Art Circle Public Library

3 East Street

Crossville, TN  38555

Library News Article for March 4

Concerts are back! Come join us tomorrow, Wednesday, March 5 at noon in the Cumberland Room for Phil ‘N the Blanks featuring Phil Ciancio on sax, vocalist Terri Utsey and special guest, Norm Suydam.

Wednesday, March 12 at noon in the Cumberland Room, the Glade Dixieland Band will perform for your listening pleasure.

Great New Books

Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Adichie portrays four women united by culture, geopolitics, immigration, sexism, trauma, and longing. Chiamaka is a freelance travel writer stymied by COVID-19. Her wealthy family is in Nigeria, while she's in the U.S. "flooded by regret" as she reflects on her relationships with men and how they failed to live up to her dream of a "merging of souls." Her closest friend, successful lawyer Zikora, is desperate to have a child and baffled by her inability to find a husband. Brainy and tough banker Omelogor, Chiamaka's ""closest cousin,"" battles her way to the epicenter of power in Abuja, where she turns corruption into a force for good. She then changes course, enrolls in grad school in the U.S., and launches an acidly funny sex advice website, For Men Only. Adichie electrifies her depictions of each character with stinging details and lacerating social critiques to striking, hilarious, and heartbreaking effect, the latter reaching a crescendo in the particularly riveting tale of Kadiatou. After horrific suffering, Kadiatou finds contentment working as Chiamaka's housekeeper and then as a hotel maid, until an international "VIP" rapes her and nearly destroys her life, a crime Adichie based, with outrage and empathy, on a true-life story. Every aspect of this transfixing, intimate, and astute group portrait is ablaze with scorching insights into the maddening absurdities and injustices that continue to plague women's lives.

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Sub-Antarctic noir meets a love letter to the rapidly disappearing wild world in McConaghy's latest. Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of a remote island near Antarctica, home to the Shearwater research base and the world's largest seed bank. Rising seas have been threatening the island, and readers meet the Salts as they are considering evacuating the island with their precious seeds. When a woman named Rowan washes up on shore, the Salts take her in and nurse her back to health. As Rowan recovers, she gets to know the family: Raff, Dominic's oldest son, is doing his best to channel his grief and rage from tragic heartbreak; Fen, his 17-year-old sister, is such a water creature that she lives among the seals; and Orly, the youngest boy, is consumed with love for the natural world. Rowan shares pieces of her past with the Salts, but unraveling the island's mysteries brings them both closer to hidden truths. As the seas rise to swallow the island, a race against time tests each person's love and loyalty.

One Good Thing by Georgia Hunter

This is a stirring novel of bravery and sacrifice in WWII Italy. Esti and Lili, two 20-something Jewish women, resist fascism and anti-Semitism by forging IDs and helping to shelter orphaned refugee children. When Esti is badly beaten by a pro-Mussolini gang, she urges Lili to take Esti's three-year-old son, Theo, and run. Avoiding trains, where they would risk arrest, Lili and Theo trek mostly on foot across Italy. In Rome, she meets Thomas, an escaped American POW disguised in a German uniform, and helps him search for his regiment. Thomas and Theo take to each other immediately, and Lili slowly realizes she's in love with the American. All along, she writes letters to Esti and to her own father, Massimo, who has fled to Switzerland. Lili and Massimo reunite, but she never hears back from Esti, who is rumored to have been sent to Auschwitz. Hunter movingly depicts the bond between Lili and the precocious Theo, and ends the novel on a hopeful note without flinching from the war's horrors.

Library Laugh I

What do you call it when a cat stops? A paws!

Stingy Schobel Says

What’s the first thing you should do when you buy a new house? Plant a tree. Besides the fact that trees can provide shade, help keep your house cool in the summer and add beauty to your yard, they also increase the value of your home. A mature tree can add up to $10,000 in extra value to your home. And since a tree can take about 10 years to mature, doing it early makes it a good financial move and an ecological one, too. Plant a tree that’s appropriate for your growing region, and ask your local nursery for the “fast-growing” variety.

Library Laugh II

What do you get when you cross a Doberman with a bird? A Doberman fincher!

Libraries=Information

Did you know that honey does not have an expiration date? That’s because the acid in honey makes it naturally antibacterial, so it is impossible for microorganisms and bacteria to grow in it. In fact, scientists have found honey in Egyptian tombs that is thousands of years old, and it was still perfectly edible. Honey can naturally crystalize and change color, which can impact the taste and aroma, but it’s still perfectly fine to eat.

Swinging into Spring Bonus

Why do cats eat fur balls? Because they love a good gag.