We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, a multitype system serving all types of libraries. We are here to help you find new books, for yourself or for your library.
This season we are moving through the state of Minnesota, looking at an interesting fact about each county and giving you a book prompt from that fact. We will share six book suggestions to meet that prompt, to get you started on reading new books. You can also take that prompt and find any other book to meet the challenge!
This week we admire Morrison County. This is one of the counties in CMLE! All of the libraries in this county are members, and it’s great to have them as part of the CMLE family. This county was named after William & Allan Morrison, fur trading brothers. We suggest that you read a book with brothers.
We give you links to each of these books on our show notes page, taking you to Amazon.com. If you click on any of them, and buy anything at all – including a nice book – Amazon will send us a small percent of the profits they made on these sales. Thank you for supporting CMLE!
March On!: The Day My Brother Martin Changed the World, by Christine King Farris, London Ladd (Illustrator)
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, sister remembers the March on Washington.
From Dr. Martin Luther King’s sister, the definitive tribute to the man, the march, and the speech that changed a nation. In celebration of the 45th Anniversary of the MARCH ON WASHINGTON, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s sister presents a personal, stirring account of the remarkable day Dr. King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech and of the man who went on to inspire nation
The Class of 1846: From West Point to Appomattox: Stonewall Jackson, George McClellan, and Their Brothers, by John C. Waugh
No single class of West Point–or possibly any academy–has been so indelibly written into history as the one that graduated form the US Military Academy at West Point in 1846. It fought in three wars, produced 20 generals, and left the nation a lasting legacy of bravery, brilliance, and bloodshed. THE CLASS OF 1846 is the fascinating chronicle of this singular group of men, their training their personalities, and the events in which they made their name and met their fate. In this book, we come to know the Class of 1846 intimately, not only as individuals but as members of a brotherhood linked inseparably by a shared history.
From the day they arrive at West Point to their baptism as soldiers in the Mexican War and in the Indian campaigns of the West…to the day they turn their guns against one another in the bloodiest of all American wars, you will meet: George B. McClellan. Bright, confident, and affable, aristocratic Philadelphian shines as the star of the class. Great things are expected of him; only later would the disappointments set in. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. Taciturn, eccentric, and unprepossessing, western Virginia mountain boy. Tom Jackson is accepted at the last minute only after another candidate drops out. In the first year, he passes by the skin of his teeth. No one expects much at all of “Old Jack.” But he would surprise them at the Point, and he would surprise them even more 20 years later–with deadly consequences. A. P. Hill. At school, George McClellan and A. P. Hill are roommates for a time and best friends always. Even their rivalry for the hand of the lovely Miss Ellen Marcy (who first became engaged to Hill, but married McClellan) could not tear them apart. At Antietam, McClellan and his Union soldiers would bear the brunt of his Confederate roommate’s pounding attack. We’ll also meet: George Pickett, George Henry Gordon, John Gibbon and many more who shaped our nation’s history
The Shock of the Fall, by Nathan Filer
What begins as the story of a lost boy turns into a story of a brave man yearning to understand what happened that night, in the years since, and to his very person.
While on vacation with their parents, Matthew Homes and his older brother snuck out in the middle of the night. Only Matthew came home safely. Ten years later, Matthew tells us, he has found a way to bring his brother back…
Unafraid to look at the shadows of our hearts, Nathan Filer’s rare and brilliant debut shows us the strength that is rooted in resilience and love.
Little Brother (Little Brother #1), by Cory Doctorow
Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.
But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days.
When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.
The Sisters Brothers, by Patrick deWitt
Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn’t share his brother’s appetite for whiskey and killing, he’s never known anything else. But their prey isn’t an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm’s gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living-and whom he does it for.
With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable comic tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters-losers, cheaters, and ne’er-do-wells from all stripes of life-and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love.
The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. As life at the Academy becomes ever more perilous, the tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.
Based on the real story of a reform school that operated for 111 years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers and “should further cement Whitehead as one of his generation’s best” (Entertainment Weekly).
CONCLUSION:
Thanks for joining us! We’ll be back next week with a look at the next county and the next book prompt!