Each week we look at a collection of a few books on a topic. You can explore the books on your own, or use them as a foundation for building a display in your library! 

(All the book links below lead to Amazon; if you click on one and buy things from Amazon, CMLE may receive a small percentage of Amazon’s profits. Thanks!)

Math. Maybe you hate it, maybe you love it but you definitely can’t avoid it so we here at CMLE are here to make it fun for you. While you may never be a true number whiz you can at least get into the fun history and learning of math and numbers.

 Math with Bad Drawings: Illuminating the Ideas That Shape Our Reality by Ben Orlin

Each week we look at a collection of a few books on a topic. You can explore the books on your own, or use them as a foundation for building a display in your library!

I love trains! There should be more trains! Trains are convenient and cool!! If we could get to have more trains, we could get past the hassle and expense and waste of all driving cars.

Sadly for me, that’s not going to happen. But there are always good train books to enjoy!

(As always: if you click on a link below, you can check out all the info from Amazon.com And if you happen to buy a book, or anything else, in that trip to the store – CMLE gets a small percentage of Amazon’s profits: yay! Thanks in advance!)

 The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery, by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James  (I’m listening to this book right now (yes – as I type!), and it’s interesting. I’m not a true crime fan, but this is an interesting investigation into history.)

“Using unprecedented, dramatically compelling sleuthing techniques, legendary statistician and baseball writer Bill James applies his analytical acumen to crack an unsolved century-old mystery surrounding one of the deadliest serial killers in American history.

Between 1898 and 1912, families across the country were bludgeoned in their sleep with the blunt side of an axe. Jewelry and valuables were left in plain sight, bodies were piled together, faces covered with cloth. Some of these cases, like the infamous Villisca, Iowa, murders, received national attention. But few people believed the crimes were related. And fewer still would realize that all of these families lived within walking distance to a train station.

When celebrated baseball statistician and true crime expert Bill James first learned about these horrors, he began to investigate others that might fit the same pattern. Applying the same know-how he brings to his legendary baseball analysis, he empirically determined which crimes were committed by the same person. Then after sifting through thousands of local newspapers, court transcripts, and public records, he and his daughter Rachel made an astonishing discovery: they learned the true identity of this monstrous criminal. In turn, they uncovered one of the deadliest serial killers in America.

The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins

“EVERY DAY THE SAME
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life–as she sees it–is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

UNTIL TODAY
And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel goes to the police. But is she really as unreliable as they say? Soon she is deeply entangled not only in the investigation but in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?”

Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie “The murderer is with us—on the train now . . .”

Just after midnight, the famous Orient Express is stopped in its tracks by a snowdrift. By morning, the millionaire Samuel Edward Ratchett lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. Without a shred of doubt, one of his fellow passengers is the murderer.

Isolated by the storm, detective Hercule Poirot must find the killer among a dozen of the dead man’s enemies, before the murderer decides to strike again.”

Blood on the Tracks, by Barbara Nickless

“A young woman is found brutally murdered, and the main suspect is the victim’s fiancé, a hideously scarred Iraq War vet known as the Burned Man. But railroad police Special Agent Sydney Rose Parnell, brought in by the Denver Major Crimes unit to help investigate, can’t shake the feeling that larger forces are behind this apparent crime of passion.

In the depths of an icy winter, Parnell and her K9 partner, Clyde―both haunted by their time in Iraq―descend into the underground world of a savage gang of rail riders. There, they uncover a wide-reaching conspiracy and a series of shocking crimes. Crimes that threaten everything Parnell holds dear.

As the search for the truth puts her directly in the path of the killer, Parnell must struggle with a deadly question: Can she fight monsters without becoming one herself?”

  Strangers on a Train, by Patricia Highsmith

“The world of Patricia Highsmith has always been filled with ordinary people, all of whom are capable of very ordinary crimes. This theme was present from the beginning, when her debut novel, Strangers on a Train, galvanized the reading public. Here we encounter Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno, passengers on the same train. But while Guy is a successful architect in the midst of a divorce, Bruno turns out to be a sadistic psychopath who manipulates Guy into swapping murders with him. “Some people are better off dead,” Bruno remarks, “like your wife and my father, for instance.” As Bruno carries out his twisted plan, Guy is trapped in Highsmith’s perilous world, where, under the right circumstances, anybody is capable of murder.

The inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1951 film, Strangers on a Train launched Highsmith on a prolific career of noir fiction, proving her a master at depicting the unsettling forces that tremble beneath the surface of everyday contemporary life.”

Each week we look at a collection of a few books on a topic. You can explore the books on your own, or use them as a foundation for building a display in your library!

Whether you are dreading the sound of your alarm clock or wishing the hours of the day would slow down while you’re on vacation, telling time is an interesting business. Here are some books on the subject:

Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel
“Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that “the longitude problem” was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day—and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Thousands of lives, and the increasing fortunes of nations, hung on a resolution.”

When It’s Six O’Clock in San Francisco: A Trip Through Time Zones, by Cynthia Jaynes Omololu and Randy DuBurke
“A lyrical multicultural picture book that introduces the concept of time zones.
As one little boy is eating breakfast in San Francisco, another kid in London is playing football with his mates, a girl in Harare is eating dinner with her family, and another child in Sydney is calling for a drink of water in the middle of the night. Poetic language and charming vignettes simplify the concept of time zones by providing glimpses into the everyday lives of children around the world.”

The Dean’s Watch by Elizabeth Goudge
“The setting is a remote mid-nineteenth-century town in England and its grand cathedral. The cathedral Dean, Adam Ayscough, holds a deep love for his parishioners and townspeople, but he is held captive by an irrational shyness and intimidating manner. The Dean and Isaac Peabody, an obscure watchmaker who does not think he or God have anything in common, strike up an unlikely friendship.”

About Time: A First Look at Time and Clocks, by Bruce Koscielniak
“There was a time when time itself was undefined—no one knew the difference between a minute, an hour, or a day. Then people started creating tools to measure time. First they used the big stuff around them—the sun, the moon, water. Soon after, using the knowledge they got from their natural time-telling tools, people began to build clocks—huge clocks unlike the ones we use today. They also used their knowledge of the sun and moon to create calendars made up of months and years.
Now, centuries later, we have clocks all around us.”

The 13 Clocks by James Thurber
“How can anyone describe this book? It isn’t a parable, a fairy story, or a poem, but rather a mixture of all three. It is beautiful and it is comic. It is philosophical and it is cheery.”

Welcome to the world of butterflies and moths and all of the wonderful books about these beautiful creatures and all about those who collect love and study them. The world of lepidoptery is full of fascinating stories, obsessive collectors, crime and adventure. So dig in, get yourself a field guide and be prepared to become an amateur lepidopterist yourself.

(All the book links below lead to Amazon; if you click on one and buy things from Amazon, CMLE may receive a small percentage of Amazon’s profits. Thanks!)

  Famous Butterfly Species:From Yellowtail to Viceroy by Prodigy Wizard Books 

“Butterflies are really fascinating. This book is a collection of some of the most interesting facts about them. Through this book, kids will learn how the butterflies came to life and the stages it accomplishes before it earns its wings. This book will be a great tool for teachers and parents who want to introduce the science of butterflies to kids.”

 The Dangerous World of Butterflies: The Startling World of Criminals, Collectors and Conservationists by Peter Laufer

“Turning from the Iraq War, author and journalist Laufer (Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq) decided to focus on the presumably innocuous business of butterflies. There, he found yet more violence, corruption and unanswered questions, resulting in another compelling all-angles examination. Fluttering across the globe for at least 40 million years, Lepidoptera face increasing threats in modern times, largely from habitat loss and pesticides. Amateur and professional butterfly experts weigh in on everything from art to conservation, breeding and butterfly sex to development and wing colors, as well as the meaning of their fascination for humans. Lepidopterology contains a surprising stack of unsolved mysteries, including the process of metamorphosis: what goes on in the chrysalis, in which every cell of the caterpillar’s body liquefies before reconstituting into a butterfly, might as well be magic. Laufer also finds controversy in commercial breeding and discovers “worldwide criminal operations” in butterfly poaching and smuggling (in which driving species to near extinction is a standard practice for pushing up specimen prices). In casual prose, Laufer delivers an absorbing science lesson for fans of the colorful bugs. ”

 Butterfly People: An American Encounter with the Beauty of the World by William R. Leach 

“From one of our most highly regarded historians, here is an original and engrossing chronicle of nineteenth-century America’s infatuation with butterflies, and the story of the naturalists who unveiled the mysteries of their existence.
A product of William Leach’s lifelong love of butterflies, this engaging and elegantly illustrated history shows how Americans from all walks of life passionately pursued butterflies, and how through their discoveries and observations they transformed the character of natural history. Leach focuses on the correspondence and scientific writings of half a dozen pioneering lepidopterists who traveled across the country and throughout the world, collecting and studying unknown and exotic species. In a book as full of life as the subjects themselves and foregrounding a collecting culture now on the brink of vanishing, Leach reveals how the beauty of butterflies led Americans into a deeper understanding of the natural world. He shows, too, that the country’s enthusiasm for butterflies occurred at the very moment that another form of beauty—the technological and industrial objects being displayed at world’s fairs and commercial shows—was emerging, and that Americans’ attraction to this new beauty would eventually, and at great cost, take precedence over nature in general and butterflies in particular.”

The Butterflies of North America: Titian Peale’s Lost Manuscript by American Museum of Natural History 

“The American artist and naturalist Titian Ramsay Peale II (1799–1885) had a passion for butterflies, and throughout his long life he wrote and illustrated an ambitious and comprehensive manuscript. The book, along with a companion volume on caterpillars, was never published, and it resides today in the Rare Book Collection of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Now Peale’s color plates, lovingly prepared for the printer by the artist more than 100 years ago, will be published for the first time in this beautiful volume. At last, Peale’s life work, equivalent in scope and beauty to Audubon’s Birds of North America, will be available to a wide audience. The book includes a foreword by Ellen V. Futter and text by Kenneth Haltman and David A. Grimaldi that describes the art and science Peale brought to his extraordinary work.”

Gardening for Butterflies: How You Can Attract and Protect Beautiful, Beneficial Insects by The Xerces Society

“Welcome the world’s most exquisite visitors to your garden! Gardening for Butterflies, by the experts at the Xerces Society, introduces you to a variety of colorful garden guests who need our help, and shows you how to design a habitat where they will thrive. This optimistic call to arms is packed with everything you need to create a beautiful, beneficial, butterfly-filled garden. Gardeners will learn why butterflies matter, why they are in danger, and what simple steps we can take to make a difference. You’ll learn how to choose the right plants, how to design a butterfly-friendly garden, and how to create a garden that flutters and flourishes with life.”

Thanks for reading with us this week!! We will have another bouquet of books next week.

You can also always get book suggestions by joining our book group podcast: Reading With Libraries. Join us! Stream it here! Download it to your own app! Read books! Drink themed beverages! Have fun with us!!