Checked Out with Green Hills Public Library District
Welcome to Checked Out! Green Hills Public Library District’s first staff-led podcast. Checked Out is hosted by Sara Shahein, Adult Services Associate, and Tessa Werden, Youth Services Librarian. Join them monthly as they discuss film and television, video games, music, pop culture, and of course books! Listen along when guests join in on the vibrant conversation to discuss their favorite titles, upcoming programs, and how libraries inspire curiosity and strengthen community. Checked Out is available wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Interested in hearing your favorite book, topic, or genre discussed?
Send a recommendation to: ghpl@greenhillslibrary.org
Checked Out with Green Hills Public Library District
Episode 10 - Library Lore
In episode 10 Library Lore, Sara and Tessa are joined by Library Director Jane to talk library history, swap reading recommendations, and rave about summer reading!
Interested in hearing your favorite book, topic, or genre discussed?
Send a recommendation to ghpl@greenhillslibrary.org
Check out what we talked about here:
https://ghs.swanlibraries.net/MyAccount/MyList/80292
Hello everyone, welcome back. This is episode 10, Library Lore. I'm Sarah.
SPEAKER_02:I'm Tessa, and this is Checked Out with Greenhouse Public Library.
SPEAKER_00:Today we're super excited because we have a very special guest in with us. We have our director of our library, Jane. Hello, Jane.
SPEAKER_03:Hello, Sarah. Hello, Tessa. Thank you very much for inviting me.
SPEAKER_00:It's our pleasure to have you here. Before we dive in on this episode, we're going to be talking about a few things with Jane. We'll give you a little intro of Jane and what she does here at the library, as well as her reading habits and a few of her favorite books. And then we're going to switch gears and talk about our summer reading program that we've got going on. I know it's something that, you know, Jane has taken part in for a long time here at the library, something we're all very proud of. So let's dive in. Jane, would you like to tell us a little bit about what you do at the library? Sure.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I am responsible for the day-to-day operations. I establish priorities for the library and support the strategic goals that we have. I'm responsible for the budget, the tax levies, ordinance, I monitor the financial accounts and our investments, and I report to the Library Board of Trustees, who are a board of seven. And they implement board adopted policies and live procedures, and I keep the board informed of operational and staffing and building needs.
SPEAKER_00:And you all did hear that correctly. Jane is British. So you really keep this place running, Jane.
SPEAKER_03:Well, not without the help of all the staff and the board too. It's not something, obviously, that I do on my own. I have a lot of support from the management team and the staff. And the board too have a very supportive board, which is important. So I started working in the library actually on my birthday in uh 2000.
SPEAKER_02:On your birthday?
SPEAKER_03:I did. I started on my birthday in 2000. I started as a part-time patron services associate. And in August of that year, I went to the College of DePage and got my LTA. And that enabled me to move into adult services. I've worked in all the departments: circulation, technical services, adult services, youth services, business services, secretary to the board. And then I became the assistant director of public services in 2011. And then I was responsible for the three public desks, adult, youth, and circulation. Then I left the library, Green Hills Library, in 2014, to go to the Oak Lawn Public Library, where I was the head of customer service. But I came back a year later in 2015 as the library director. So I've been this year will be 10 years as the director.
SPEAKER_00:That's amazing. We're glad to have you back. Glad to be working under your expertise. She couldn't stay away. No, she couldn't. We love having you here.
SPEAKER_03:Although this is not my home library, I don't live in the district. This library has always had a certain something about it that I found very appealing. It's always been very welcoming. The staff have always been very welcoming. It's always been, you know, a fun place to work as well. I think that makes a and Oak Lawn was so different because at that time Green Hills wasn't part of Swan. So it was a big learning curve to go to Oak Lawn that was part of Swan. And you know, like over 70 staff.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:That was a big learning curve.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I think that's what's really interesting about Green Hills, too, is we're like not a big library, but we're also not a small library. We are right in that middle.
SPEAKER_03:You know a little bit what that's like, Tessa, right? Having done an internship at Orland Park. They've like, they're over well over 70 staff.
SPEAKER_02:It's a lot of people.
SPEAKER_03:This is a nice size.
SPEAKER_02:I agree.
SPEAKER_03:You know, you you really know all the staff. You know a lot of the patrons.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's definitely nice too, because we're able to collaborate with each other a lot more and also like just get to know each other, build that camaraderie. I know people from patron services, from youth services. Like we have connections. We see each other a lot more than we would if we were a larger staff. So it's it's nice to have this size for sure.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Kind of along the lines of loving working at Green Hills, what would you say is your favorite part of your job specifically?
SPEAKER_03:I really love everything about what I do here, but I do think the interacting with the staff and the patrons. Some of these patrons I've known since first started here. I've had visits from college students who were in my story times when I was in youth, don't always remember them. And they say, Do you remember me? I was in your story time. Gosh, that's such a long time ago, you know? So I think really for me the favorite part of this is working with the patrons, which I don't get to do quite so much now because it's more of an administrative role. But I do like to come out into the library, meet the patrons, chat to them, just being with the people, helping people find what they want, connecting them with things that they need.
SPEAKER_00:I really like that part of the job. We can definitely tell you are very committed to serving patrons and staff, and it's it's wonderful to see to have someone that is so dedicated to their position and the community that they serve. So thank you.
SPEAKER_03:I can't imagine doing it any other way, you know. It's just not me. I really like helping people, connecting them with things that they need, just sometimes just chatting to them. Yeah, you know?
SPEAKER_00:Switching gears a little bit, but continuing on things that you enjoy. What is one of your favorite resources that we have at the library?
SPEAKER_03:Because I don't really work at the public desks anymore. I don't really go to those things a lot. But um when you say resources, are you what is depends what somebody's looking for, right? I mean, I feel like we have so many resources to offer. One of the things that I'm proud of that we offer is tutor.com. I started that back in the day with a previous library director. The guy that was started it with us from tutor.com is no longer there anymore, but in New York. Um, and I'm really that's a resource that I think is great, not just for the young people, but when I went back to college, I used Tutor.com, especially when it came to math. So I think that's a great resource. So another resource that I do use a lot for my reading is fantastic fiction. I don't know if people n know it, but it's my favorite go-to one. And you can you can register so that it keeps the authors that you like, like your favourite authors, so they'll tell you when they have a new one coming out or something like that. You can pull up your list and see. But I realize that you're only allowed to have a certain number of authors that you follow, because I went to add one and I was told that I have too many. It's like you're at your limit. They cut you off. Like, well, I gotta drop somebody and put this person, that doesn't seem fair. But and I will often when I was doing reader's advisory, that was a resource I would just pull up because I know I would find what I'm looking for, and it was quick.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know that I've ever used that.
SPEAKER_00:I've never used it, but I have heard of it in a few of the novelist like RA trainings that I've done. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:When I was working the desks I used, I used novelist more.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But now that I'm not out there so much for my own, I tend to go to fantastic fiction. But it's similar, you know, novelist has reader likes. Yeah. Yeah. And um fantastic fiction has reader lights too. So if you put in an author at the bottom, it'll say people who looked at this author also checked out this.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. They're asking you to cut down those favorite authors that you've got, Jane. You gotta tell us some of those people that are on that list.
SPEAKER_03:Uh so many. I didn't cut any of the authors. I just ended up starting a book for myself where I have all the authors that I like written down, and I use that to go back and see. You know, if I'm trying to think of something to read, what's an author I haven't read for a while? I can go back and look, oh, I I could check that out. So I didn't cut anybody. That's hard. That's I can't do that.
SPEAKER_02:Before we dive more into the specifics and some recommendations that you have, you want to just give us an overview of kind of what genres you like to read and where you find yourself going most often.
SPEAKER_03:So probably my favorite genre is historical fiction. Um, and I especially like books that are part of a series. I like to follow a character, see how they develop. It's interesting. I started a series many years ago by Elizabeth George, and the books were not that long. Her recent books have been like the eight, nine hundred pages, and the characters have developed. This is not an author series that you can, in my opinion, pick up in the middle of book 18 or something. Yeah. You know, you just don't have the history of the characters. So I like historical fiction. I also like mysteries. But when I was in high school in England, I really liked Charles Dickens, the classics. I like Dickens, I like Jane Austen, uh, you know, I like those. My two favourite Dickens are Oliver Twist and the old curiosity shop. So I liked Dickens for a while and the classics. Since Sarah started the Staff Book Club, my horizons have definitely broadened. I'm now reading books I never thought I would read and enjoy.
SPEAKER_02:You've gone all over the place. She read Dark Matter.
SPEAKER_03:The right.
SPEAKER_02:She read some fairies. Yes. The Gods. Yeah, was that a fairy? It was like Jisel.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. There we go. We just read the one that um The Drop.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, the drop. The drop. Yeah. That one like had a little bit of the elements that you like, that mystery. Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_03:I like Dennis Lane. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:I think that you have like a good mix. It might seem like there's not much that Tessa and I can grab on to that we would have in common, but like you do series a lot with fantasy. I do. And I do a lot of like character-driven things, like romance. It's very much focused on characters. So there's like a little bit there that we have overlapping historical fiction, though I can't say that.
SPEAKER_03:Does um Tessie, you read more science fiction or fantasy, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Which our previous guest, Patrick, he I think he made you read uh The Tainted Cup, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yes. And now I'm reading the sequel to that.
SPEAKER_02:I have to read the sequel still. I haven't I haven't started it yet. I have it though.
SPEAKER_03:That's another long one, you know? Yeah. A lot of pages. But again, the you know, the two main characters come back, so you have that history. Yeah. It's set in a different slightly different place. It's kind of a locked room mystery almost.
SPEAKER_02:So Yeah. Yeah. I was surprised when you liked it. Well, I guess I don't really know, but I didn't think you read a lot of like sci-fi and fantasy.
SPEAKER_03:I don't.
SPEAKER_02:But it makes sense to me that you would like that because of the mystery element and like the character dynamic. Yeah. It's very like Sherlock and Watson kind of a vibe there. But yeah, I haven't started a drop of corruption, but Tanger Cup is really good. And the covers are really pretty.
SPEAKER_03:They are. They're they're very different, aren't they? Because the books don't really have a cover.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it doesn't have a dust jacket. It's like one of those, you know? Where it's like just the hard cover.
SPEAKER_00:I kind of like those. They remind me of like older books. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because dust jackets were not always a thing.
SPEAKER_00:She's had that like hard cover situation.
SPEAKER_02:Oh. I'm trying to like historical fiction. I don't dislike it. I just don't ever reach for it. I will say that I have read The Great Alone by Kristen Hanna. That one was good. She's on my list. That one was good. And I have the Nightingale, but I've been told that it's gonna make me cry, so I have to wait for an appropriate time. My list of three. Perfect, perfect. That's really the only historical fiction author I like know.
SPEAKER_03:I think that they're making the Nightingale into a movie.
SPEAKER_02:That would make sense. I think it just passed um like a certain year anniversary because they came out with a special edition of it that is in fact very pretty. And I don't think it has a dust jacket, actually. I didn't buy that one. I just have the regular one. I'll read it first, then we'll see.
SPEAKER_00:I don't have too much of a background in historical fiction. I've read a few last year. A notable one for me was The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali. And I really liked it. It takes place in Lydon, and I was like really into it.
SPEAKER_03:What is the time period of that?
SPEAKER_00:So it is 1953. So like around the time of their revolution situation. And it follows these two young people that meet in a bookstore and end up having some sort of a relationship and they're pulled apart and pushed together. And we kind of see how the turmoil of everything that's happening around them impacts them and their families. So it was nice to see that. It also gave me more context on that time period that I didn't really know a lot about, which is nice with historical fiction because you get that sort of nonfiction element in it and you learn more about people, location, what's going on through like a fictionalized lens. So it was nice to have that for sure.
SPEAKER_03:That sounds interesting. That's the thing about historical fiction too. You find maybe an era that you particularly like. I like World War I, World War II, which is like the Nightingale with Kristen Hanna, but I also like the Victorian era too. I just read a book by Alex Hay called The Queen of Fives, and it's sort of a mystery and a sci-fi.
SPEAKER_02:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You're telling me about that. It's uh like a con artist, really. And that was quite a interesting premise, which I'm not sure I would have picked up something like that. But since book club and being more introduced into like fantasy and that, I wouldn't call it sci-fi, but maybe a little bit of fantasy was good. Quick read.
SPEAKER_00:We both like a good con. I do.
SPEAKER_02:I'm thinking of the portrait thief. Oh, yeah, yeah, that one's good. That one's like not historical fiction, but it feels like it in some ways. It's um about this group of unlikely friends, I guess, that are stealing art from museums and bringing it back to the countries that it actually belongs to, since so many different art pieces are in museums that they procured them in weird ways long ago and now they're just there. And so, in a way, you kind of get some history with that because before they do these heists, they will like tell you why or where it belongs and like what era and stuff it's from. But yeah, there's a lot of a lot of conning there. It reminds me of the movie Now You See Me. Have you seen that movie? Doesn't it feel that way? It does feel that way, very much so. Do you know that movie, Jane? Now you see me. It's like a group of magicians that do crazy things. It's like weirdly so good.
SPEAKER_00:It reminds me more of Now You See Me Too with that like card scene for some reason. They have to like pass like a card around. It's like something that they stole that's as thin as like a regular card. And they have to pass it around before they get caught, and they're like surrounded by like security guards and it's like a bunch of sleight of hand.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Oh wow. That sounds fun.
SPEAKER_00:It's a fun movie for sure. Fun franchise. They are. They are good. I think they're making a third one. Are they?
SPEAKER_02:I think so. I will be there to watch it. I'm devastated that the second one is not called Now You Don't. Oh, nice. The first one is Now You See Me. And the second one's Now You See Me. Now You See Me Too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Oh no, Tessa's Tessa's suggestion is much better, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Now you don't. Whatever. They should have asked me. They should have hired you.
SPEAKER_03:She has a second career coming up.
SPEAKER_02:Going more mystery. Sarah and I usually read more thriller, I would say. Because mystery in my head, I'm thinking like Agatha Christie. We read more like thriller. Do you do you go that way with it sometimes? Or do you try to stick like no, no, thrillers too.
SPEAKER_03:Thrillers, mysteries. Really, you know, you say I'm kind of all over the place. I am really, I really probably read anything. Contemporary fiction, mysteries, historical fiction, thrillers. I I don't gravitate to sci-fi particularly, but I will pretty much read anything that catches my attention. So I do like thrillers as well. And I think sometimes it's hard to know whether a mystery is a when you're cataloguing, yeah. Is it a mystery or is it a thriller? What does the CIP data tell you? Truly. And then sometimes you're like, ah, I don't know, it could be either.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Stay tuned, Jane. I've got something I'm working on for that. I got you.
SPEAKER_03:I know because I feel like um, you know, over the years you have all these different people doing collection development. I did collection development, I did cataloguing, and I see that some people have catalogued something in Thriller that I put in mysteries. And then we were always doing projects to try and get those authors in the same place. Pick a genre, stick with it, yeah, put that person there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Do you have a mystery recommendation for us, Jay?
SPEAKER_03:Probably Louise Penny is like a go-to author, a standing author. And what's nice now is I feel like a lot of times Patrick will say, Oh, I think an author you like has a book coming out, or you know, um, but Louise Penny, they made very brief, I don't even know if you want to call it a movie. Like they took the first book and made it into what was going to be a series. It never really took off. I'm not sure why. I don't know. The books are excellent. They're set in Canada, so there's a lot of, you know, scenery and in French Quebec. So I do like Louise Penny. I've met her and um had signed book by her. I met her at a conference, like and there was an author segment.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that's so cool.
SPEAKER_03:And she, you know, they sit on the stage with their chairs and they talk or whatever. And then when it was all over, she got up, came and sat on the stage, like on the edge of the stage, and people were just walking up. Having a conversation with her. It was like she was your next door neighbor.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's so nice. That's amazing. Not a lot of authors will do that anymore.
SPEAKER_03:It's not mystery. I think it I think it's shelved in just ordinary fiction. But to me, they're kind of mysteries, I guess, thrillers, whatever. His name is um Mark Billingham. And I've met him too. He's a British guy, and he's actually a stand-up comedian. Ooh. And got into writing these like thriller mysteries.
SPEAKER_00:So I'm sure he's got some punchy one-liners in his work.
SPEAKER_03:For sure.
SPEAKER_02:There's um Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club.
SPEAKER_03:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I am so sorry. I did not like that book. Have you read to it?
SPEAKER_03:No, I feel it's on my list. I have a a lot of a to-read list. Oh yeah. So do we. It's never ended. It's not a pile, it's just a list. It's not actually to be read at the moment. But he's on the list, but you didn't like it, Tessa?
SPEAKER_02:I just I couldn't connect to anything that was like any of the characters or what they were saying, but I've also heard people say the exact opposite and that they love the characters. So I don't know. Maybe it shouldn't work for me. But I tried more than once because I think I tried physically and audio.
SPEAKER_03:Do you think it's anything to do with um the ages of these people that you don't like resonate with them quite the same? Because they are older people.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. The whole like premise is that they're in um like a retirement home.
SPEAKER_00:I think that was it for me. I did it on audio and it like took me a minute to like get into it. And then when I was, I was like, I don't think that I am a chance to be.
SPEAKER_03:You don't really care. You know, it's not you're not vested in these characters. They don't mean the same to you as maybe they mean to somebody older reading them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, there was also like a certain amount of levity to like what they were saying, and almost like trying. People probably do think it's funny. I don't know. I have like a very weird relationship with comedic things. I don't often think they're funny. I don't know. There's something about it. I don't do well with like comedy movies, can't watch a stand-up act save my life. Something about it because I know it's supposed to be funny. I don't find it funny. And maybe that also got me there because I know that there is definitely some like lighter moments that I remember, or like one-liners. I'm like, okay, well, I don't know. That's a me thing. That's a me problem. All right, Jane. We've talked around them a lot, but we asked you to come here with uh three book recommendations.
SPEAKER_03:All right.
SPEAKER_02:Let us know what you got.
SPEAKER_03:So I ended up with two books by the same author because I just you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you like what you like.
SPEAKER_03:Right. But I'm thinking to myself, maybe is it the same author? It could be classed as one book, and then I get to tell you an extra Tell us as many as you want.
SPEAKER_02:You go for it.
SPEAKER_03:So I guess my favorite book of all time, and one I would recommend, and that's Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I seen the movie several times. I first read the book when I was in high school in England, and I really didn't know anything about American history, the Civil War, slavery. You know, it was just wasn't something that I knew anything about, but I just loved the characters, Scarlett O'Hara, Rhett Butler, you know, the love story, the beautiful costumes. I didn't I didn't really take into account the opposite side to that. Just like an interesting fact about Margaret Mitchell. She refused to write a sequel to Scarlett O'Hara, but there is a sequel to it. And I I I can't remember the name of the author. It might be Alexander Ripley, I'm not sure. But they did wr somebody did write like a sequel to it. I think it's just called Scarlet, like what happened afterwards. And also, um she was actually hit by a speeding drunk driver as she was crossing the street to go to the movies. She got hit by this car, and she never regained consciousness and died five days later. So this was really her only Wow. But so my three favourites then. The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah, which we already talked about, two sisters who embark on their own dangerous path towards survival, love and freedom in German occupied wartime France. The sisters both went uh in opposite directions, so it's a a good story. Um, and then the women, which is a story about the nurses in Vietnam, which I feel is something that uh people don't when they think about the Vietnam War, they think about the soldiers, they don't really think about the nurses, or they never really come up very much in in um history. And they struggled uh when the war was over and the soldiers were coming back, everybody had a hard time, but they were getting um I can't think of the word, they were getting benefits from and they the nurses really had to fight for to get the same benefits as the as the soldiers did. And then I mentioned Elizabeth George, um uh really anything by her, but you have to start at the beginning. And they made a TV series of that called Inspector Lindley, and I think it's on Acorn, Apple, Britt Box, you can find it, and they're good mystery.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. So this was not one of my original recommendations that I had, but after you talked about Gone with the Wind and how you read that in high school and it just remained one of your favorites for so long. One for me was The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I read that in high school. I don't even remember why I picked it up. I think that I was just going through like a sad girl era or something, and we were reading, yeah, we were reading, I think, Virginia Wolf in school. And so I was like, okay, let's do Sylvia Plath too. And it just really stuck with me. I, you know, read it at a very formative time in my life, and the prose is so good in it, and the story is so compelling, and it's something that will always stick with me. And I do recommend the audiobook. It's narrated by, I think, is it Maggie Gyllenhaal? Yep. Yep. And she does a fantastic job with it. So that is one of my favorites and one of my recs for today.
SPEAKER_03:I do think audiobooks, I listen to audiobooks back and forth to work, and I think the narrator can really make or break whether or not you can go with, you know, keep going with it, right? For sure. But I do like audiobooks, and I like it when the narrator has that ability to change their voices to the characters. So sometimes you know as soon as they start speaking who the character is. I listened to all the Harry Potter books on audio, and I can't remember his first name, but his last name is Dale. Something dead. He was a Jim Dale. Jim Dale, and he read all of them. And he did such a great job on the voices.
SPEAKER_00:Very good.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, really good.
SPEAKER_00:That was one of my first experiences with audio with an audiobook, and it's was amazing.
SPEAKER_02:My recommendation for you, Jane, is pulling a little bit of everything that we talked about today, but I listened to part of it on audiobook, and then I I switched to the physical. It is Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaughey. It is about this family who lives on an island right off Antarctica. They have like a seed library there because the world is falling apart, and so they're tasked with keeping these seeds safe. So when the world hopefully can use them again, they are there for them. And it's this family, and researchers are on and off the island, but they're about to have to leave the island because the water is like eating away at the land. And it's two boys, one girl, and a dad. One day a random woman washes up on the shore. Her boat sinks, whatever. And so she's there, and there's there's mystery going on, there's a little bit of sci-fi going on, there's drama. It's not historical fiction, but the way that it is like different from our world kind of gives that same feeling. You don't really know where in time they actually are because they're secluded on this island, but it feels like a little bit out of time somehow.
SPEAKER_03:It sounds absolutely fascinating.
SPEAKER_02:I'm gonna put it on my list. It's really short, too. I think it's just over 300 pages.
SPEAKER_03:Sounds good, then that's my recommendation for you.
SPEAKER_00:Recommendations from both of you, so thank you. I will also be adding that to my TBR because that sounds fantastic.
SPEAKER_02:So good. Easiest five stars I've ever given this year.
SPEAKER_00:Really?
SPEAKER_02:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:Wow, five stars. I've really struggled to get something.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you got me sold at Seed Library. One of my other recommendations is The Villa by Rachel Hawkins. She is like a mystery thriller writer, I would say. I've read this by her, and then I enjoyed this, and I read another one by her that was just okay. But this is a dual timeline situation. And a writer is going to stay in this Italian villa to work on her manuscript. And she's writing a story about this musician that had stayed in the villa like years before, like decades before, with a writer that he had a relationship with. And they're kind of uncovering what was going on with this relationship, the secrets behind it, and the friend group that they had, and this mysterious murder that happened at the villa. So it's very interesting, especially with that dual timeline, because you get this writer in present day finding everything out, and then you see it happening in those scenes, and you're like, oh my God, like it's right there. I can't believe this happened. So I really enjoyed that and I would recommend that.
SPEAKER_03:I can't remember the name of the Rachel Hawkins book, but I read, but I know that I did enjoy it. Yeah, that sounds like a good one too. This to be read pile is getting forever bigger.
SPEAKER_02:Rachel Hawkins was in fact on my list to recommend to her. Really? Yeah. So we we have to pivot quick. Okay. My author recommendation, just generally, I think she has a lot of good things out, and she has a new one coming out soon is Lisa Jewell. Okay, great. I'm glad we're all in agreement.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Um, I loved None of This Is True. Same. That is especially good on audio. I don't know if you've read None of This Is True. It's the one where she has like a podcast and then she meets this woman and they have the same birthday. And then she, oh, Jane.
SPEAKER_03:Jane, you're that is not the one I have read.
SPEAKER_02:It's like truly one of her best books. I and the audiobook is great because there is like the podcast element to it, so it sounds a little different. That one and The Night She Disappeared. Those are my top two from Lisa Jewel.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, I do like her, and I have read her. I haven't listened to her on audio, but I've read her.
SPEAKER_02:I would highly recommend none of this is true on audio. You liked that too, didn't you?
SPEAKER_00:I did. I did that one on audio. I really liked that one. It was my first from her. I was gonna do Darcy Coates. That's what I'm looking for.
SPEAKER_02:You want Jane to read Darcy Coates? How are you with Gore?
SPEAKER_03:Um, I guess it depends on the context. Like if it's just yeah, it depends on the context. I'm not much of a horror movie fan or a much of a horror books, I guess. It's not a genre live role. Do you like those, Sarah?
SPEAKER_00:I do. And my next recommendation is kind of gore. Yeah, yeah. It's not so horror like there's elements of horror in it for sure. But it is, I would say, a mystery more. Is it a dead of winter? Yeah, dead of winter. That's the one. There's some gory scenes for sure. Yeah. It's there is a group of people that go on, well, they're on their way to go to this resort, and it's the dead of winter. And horrible things just keep happening to them. Their bus breaks down, people go missing, people are dying left and right, they're stranded in the forest and it's freezing. And you just have to kind of uncover slowly with the main character what's going on, where are these people disappearing to? Why are they dying? Who is killing them? And finding out how everything wraps up and everyone is there for a reason is very Can I ask where do you find the books that you want to read?
SPEAKER_03:Do you just browse the shelves or do you have go-to places? How do you how do you figure out what you want to read or Goodreads lists sometimes? Oh good reads, right?
SPEAKER_00:Net galley. Yeah, looking for like arcs, so the advanced reader copies. Um I think that we I think all of us have like spent a lot of time figuring out what we like.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and then you know that, and then you just like look for that person when they're having another book coming up. Yeah. That um That's the bad thing. Well, not bad thing, but that's the um difficult thing when you go to a conference and they have all those arc.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Sarah and I went through that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. We made it work. We did. And we had a lot. I just had a carry-on and I made it work. It just happened. It worked.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It worked out. All right. I have one last recommendation and then we can move on to summer reading. I'm Sarah, I might need you to pitch this one. Uh-oh. It's The Favorites by Lane Fargo. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It's Wuthering Heights, right?
SPEAKER_00:It is. It's Wuthering Heights. Retelling. Yeah. I don't know if you've read Withering Heights. Oh, yes. Or if you enjoy it. Yeah, yeah. This is this is it, Jane. This is the one for you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You pitch it because I can't do it justice. Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00:I love that book. It is probably one of my favorite books of 2025. Uh, five-star read for me. It follows these two. They're not figure skaters, they're ice dancers. Big difference here. And their very tumultuous relationship with each other and with the sport itself. And it takes place what, early 2000s, 90s? So you get that gossip column vibe as well that's like sprinkled in there. And we meet these characters on the 10-year anniversary of their final dance or something of the sort. So we see them looking back at this experience that they had and also living this experience with them. And it's just drama, drama, drama, but very good.
SPEAKER_03:Did you audio book or read print?
SPEAKER_00:I read it in print. Yeah, I did too. Patrick has also read it too. And this is like not his wheelhouse. So if you wanted to get another opinion on someone that doesn't live in the world that we live in, even though this is not-I would say that this is more literary fiction.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. Romance.
SPEAKER_03:This is why it's so nice to have conversations with fellow library or book lovers, because you find yourselves reading things that you wouldn't normally choose. And that's so nice to get out of your favorites genres and try something else.
SPEAKER_02:Alright. I'll make you a deal. I'll read The Nightingale if you read one of our recommendations.
SPEAKER_03:All right. Um, well, as I've read Rachel Hawkins and Lisa Jewell, I'm going to read the favorites. Yay!
SPEAKER_02:That's a good one too, because that's a five-star book from both of us.
SPEAKER_03:So yes, that's a good one. I like all your suggestions, but that one sounds like I will really enjoy.
SPEAKER_02:All right, summer reading? Let's dive into it. When this comes out, we'll already be about a month into summer reading. It started on June 9th. It will end on August 3rd. That is the last day that we will be able to accept tickets on Beanstack into whichever drawing you would like to be entered in. I will speak for youth on this one. We are doing a bingo card challenge. We did the same thing for winter that involves logging books and different activities in order to get tickets to put into the raffles. One more thing. Um, Saturday, August 2nd, from 11 to 3 is our petting zoo. So the day before summer reading ends is when we will be having our petting zoo at the library.
SPEAKER_03:Always a fun event.
SPEAKER_00:It is fun. I have yet to come to one of our petting zoos since I started working here. So maybe this year will be the year. So for adults and summer reading, um, we have transitioned to also like a ticketed system where you can work on different activities throughout the summer reading challenge. Every week, those activities will cycle through and be different. You can attend a program, you can meet us at the farmer's market. That's one that will be there for the entirety of the challenge. You can read a book of a certain genre. So we have kept in reading because we do want to encourage reading, but we also want to encourage our patrons to use the resources that we have, come to the library, check out new events that we've got going on, and just make the most of everything that we have to offer. Similar to youth, ours does end on August 3rd as well. So make sure that you get your activities completed. If you have any questions, you can always reach out to us at the Adult Services or Youth Services Desks, and we'd be more than happy to answer any questions or get you registered.
SPEAKER_02:With all that being said about our summer reading program this year, Jane, do you have any fun information for us, some history on how it's changed through the years? Maybe one of your favorite memories from it.
SPEAKER_03:When you've been through as many as I have, it's hard to pick a favorite, really. They've changed so much. I remember years ago we did a lot of our own summer reading programs. We didn't follow what the state was doing. And we would make our own t-shirts, iron on things, and you know whatever.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:They had the years on them. I do like how it's changed now, and we have these activities and these challenges. I I like that interactive part that we do now. I think that's been a great addition to our summer reading programs. And I like the way um we do the raffles and things now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I know that this is like a big part of summer reading, is that we have our summer reading kickoff at Bennett Park, which just passed, and I think it was very successful. And we typically have Rainbow Cone come out and be a part of you know, celebrating summer reading with us. When did that start taking effect?
SPEAKER_03:I'd have to go back and find the date, but I know when it was. The first time we did Rainbow Cone was when we got our first self-checkout.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_03:I'd have to look back and find that out. So how that worked was we just got the self-checkouts, and if you used the self-checkout, you got a ticket. And that ticket got you a rainbow cone. Okay. When would that have been? I I well, certainly round about maybe 2011. I I really I really don't remember exactly, but that's how Rainbow Cone started, and they were here in the library in the lobby.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, for summer reading before Bennett Park, didn't you guys have it here? Yep. Yeah. And it was ice cream on the stairs and everything.
SPEAKER_03:Everywhere. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Ice cream. Shout out to Bennett Park.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Thank you, Bennett Park.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. You know, it was all it was never one of those days where it was a cooler day. No, it was always one of the hottest days. Ice cream was dripping everywhere. Yeah. Oh man. I feel like we learn every year something different to make it go smoother.
SPEAKER_00:I was a patron at the last year's, and then I worked this year's.
SPEAKER_03:It's nice to have it there too, to have the park to be able to take things for the kids to do, like the beyond books things that we can take games and stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that went really well last year. And this year. What's your favourite part about summer reading, Jane?
SPEAKER_03:I do like well, for the adults, I feel it's just more, you know, they're logging their books or whatever, but it's the excitement I think that the kids bring to summer reading. They're logging their books and they're getting more and they're getting prizes to put in and having the kickoff with rainbow cone. I think it's really the kids that make summer reading for me. Their excitement to be a part of it. And and everybody does such a, you know, a good job. It gets chaotic, so it gets chaotic with all the so many books and things being returned. And I'm sure it gets harder for the adult and youth staff too. People perhaps want recommendations or No, I think it's a busy time. But it's a very important time for the for our school children to make sure they continue to read during the summer. And now read for pleasure, not what maybe school is telling you to read.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And make it fun.
SPEAKER_02:That is the goal. That's a lot of where the activities come into play too.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you certainly do make it fun.
SPEAKER_02:We try. We try. Jane, you have anything else?
SPEAKER_03:No, thank you very much for um inviting me to be a part of this podcast. I've enjoyed talking to both of you very much.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you for joining us. It was a lot of fun. Definitely different genres than we usually talk about. So good to bring some some diversity to it. For sure. Thank you, Jane.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you both.
SPEAKER_00:So shifting gears from our conversation with Jane, let's catch up on our little book club read. We read Rose and Chains by Julie Soto. And do you want to start us off, Tessa? Sure.
SPEAKER_02:So Rose and Chains, I'll give you a little summary, I guess. Um, it is a fantasy romance that plays on the trope of the bad guy winning against the chosen one and what like that aftermath is. And after the chosen one is no longer with us, the losing side ends up under the rule of the opposing evil side's high-ranking families. It is enemies to lovers.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they're like supposed to be enemies.
SPEAKER_02:I wouldn't say it's like too intensely enemies to lovers, but by the by the definitions of their roles in this world, it is definitely enemies to lovers. I gave it a 2.5, 2.75. It isn't bad, but I've definitely read fantasy romance that I enjoy a lot more. I cannot tell a lie. The the writings surrounding action scenes really drug it down for me personally. Yeah, that that's where a lot of my issue lies with it, is there are several scenes that should be important to what happens, but you can't even really discern what actually occurred. But the male main character loved him. There is like a dual timeline thing going on. Also, really enjoyed that. Really preferred the flashback scenes to like our present-day story.
SPEAKER_00:So I sit a little bit at the opposite end of that spectrum. I think that that stems from the perspective in which we're reading it from. Yeah. You're coming from having a lot of experience with romantic, romance fantasy books. Whereas for me, I'm coming from a very romance-driven mindset. Yeah. And so that's kind of what I focus on. I will say I could not get past the action scenes. I did have some qualms with those as well. They were very hard for me to follow. And again, like I don't read action scenes so often. So coupled with that, even more, I was like, what's going on? I have no idea what happened.
SPEAKER_02:It doesn't help that the book opens with a pretty big inciting incident. Well, we already said it. The good side lost. And that's like where the book opens. Like the first two chapters are that occurring and like the chaos that comes after it. And I genuinely couldn't tell you. I really couldn't. There were several times where things would be happening, and I wouldn't understand where they were happening until the next chapter when they had left that place.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the action scenes, I have to agree with you, were difficult for me to follow. And opening with an action scene was a choice, considering they weren't written well. I do love our main male character, Tovin. I I really like him. I think that he is a very dark, brooding man. And I don't encounter a lot of those again in a fantasy romance. Like I don't have this background. So I enjoyed his character a lot, a lot more than I enjoyed our female character. I don't think I said my rating yet, but I did rate it like a four or four point five because of their relationship. And those flashback scenes truly made the story for me. Agreed.
SPEAKER_02:If it wasn't in there, I yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I loved living in those flashback scenes. And I kind of wanted a prequel book. Like I wanted this book to just be those flashbacks scenes. Agreed. Well, overall, I really enjoyed it. I know you had middle of the road slightly less than average of an experience with it.
SPEAKER_02:I think if you want to read it, you should read it. Agreed. Yeah. Like I don't know that I would go out of my way to tell people to read it. But if anyone in the library in my life is like, oh, I'm thinking of reading this, I'm not gonna tell you not to.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I would also recommend it if you have like the same frame of reference that I do. If you have similar tastes in reading as I do, I would recommend it. I would also recommend Julie Soto's other works a lot more than I would recommend this. So I would recommend Not Another Love Song and Forget Me Not. Forget Me Not is one of my all-time favorite romance, contemporary romance books. So I would 10 out of 10 recommend that too.
SPEAKER_02:I would recommend The Thrashers, which is her YA thriller that also came out this year. If you enjoy a YA thriller, I would recommend trying that one. I much preferred that to Rose and Chains.
SPEAKER_00:Our experience with Rose and Chains doesn't encompass our overall experience with Julie Soto's writing. And I personally am looking forward to seeing what she does with the next book in this Rose and Chains trilogy.
SPEAKER_02:I'll read it. I've gotten this far, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Before we wrap up this month's episode, we did want to do a little something different for next episode. We will not be having a book club pick. Instead, we will be working on a little reading challenge. So we have picked out Pop Sugars 2025 reading challenge, and we're going to see how many of those we can finish by next episode. Tessa and I've also picked out a handful of challenges for each of us to specifically complete that revolve around our reading habits and topics that we want to see the other person read. So stay tuned for next month's episode to see if we've accomplished those goals.
SPEAKER_01:You can send us an email at ghpl at greenhillslibrary.org. Thank you guys so much for listening. This has been episode 10, Library Lore. I'm Tessa. I'm Sarah, and we're checked out.