Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit.  

Coming up on Monday will be the first of a series of family mini golf nights at the Port Library.  Yes, you heard that right, from 7-9 PM on Monday and Tuesday nights you can come play mini golf on a specially designed course inside the library, among the books.  Call the library to reserve your spot.

Author Daniel Silva is known for novels of intrigue and suspense, and has mostly written in a series of novels centered around Gabriel Allon, a legendary Israeli spy and art restorer working in France.  The Black Widow by Daniel Silva is the 16th in the series.  The library has some of the more recent books in the series, and the beginning of the series can be requested through interlibrary loan. Like other fast paced serial novel series, this can be read on its own but the reader may want to brush up on the backstory by visiting the author’s website for the previous book synopsis.

In the previous books we are introduced to both Gabriel and his on again, off again love Hannah Weinberg. In The Black Widow, Gabriel is poised to be promoted to the head of Israel’s secret intelligence agency, but is called to one last case when a dangerous and mysterious terrorist named only Saladin starts leaving clues of an imminent attack so huge it could destroy an entire country. Hannah steps at Gabriel’s request in to pose as a widow intent on getting revenge as an ISIS operative to lure the infamous Saladin for capture.

The first five chapters of this book focus on the antagonists plans, and can be a bit confusing to read as there’s little to no introduction of characters. However, if you stick it out there is a nice introduction of the main characters which should bring you up to date in no time.

You can get the book reviewed here and more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.

​Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit. You may have heard the rumors and I can confirm they are true – you can come play mini golf inside the Port Library!  Thanks to a grant from the Dane G. Hansen and Solomon Valley Community Foundation the Port Library has had a portable mini golf course built for use indoors.  The public may sign up to play the course on August 29, 30, September 12, or 13 from 7 to 9 pm.  Check out our website or call the library with questions.

The Port Library is pleased to announce that we are once again recipients of a State Library of Kansas Notable Books Grant.  This grant provides copies of each of the 2016 notable books to grant receiving libraries. Each book on the list is published by a Kansas author or about Kansas. Check out our display later this month, including this week’s Port Pick: Lost and Gone Forever by Alex Grecian. Mr. Grecian is a Kansas resident.

This is the fifth installment in the Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad series by Mr. Grecian.  In Victorian-era London Detective Walter Day and his friend Sargent Neville Hammersmith have worked on four other cases for Scotland Yard each involving heinous crimes and murders.  All the while the specter of the famous murderer Jack the Ripper has haunted Detective Day’s work. In the previous book a new killer called the Harvest Man arises to distract Detective Day from Jack the Ripper and manages to lure the good detective into confronting his own demons as well as those on the streets.  This week’s Port Pick begins nearly a year after the previous installment.  Detective Day has been missing and Sergeant Hammersmith has been searching for Detective Day.  Jack the Ripper has been quiet too, but it’s only a matter of time before Hammersmith finds his friend and Jack the Ripper begins his grisly work once again.

If this series sounds interesting to you, the library has the previous four books housed in our Kansas Collection room.

You can get the book reviewed here and more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.

Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit.   The library will be closed Wednesday the 17th so the staff can attend out-of-town training.  We’ll re-open on Thursday the 18th at our regular time. 

The therapeutic ability of storytelling to help people understand the world around them is as old as society itself.  Most recently in the media, actor Adam Driver who plays the latest bad guy Kylo Ren in the Star Wars films, has spoken up about the power of using theatrical dramatic exercises to help returning soldiers process what they’ve seen on the battlefield and transition back to civilian life.  Author and playwright Brian Doerries uses classic literature and its relevance to our lives today to help communities and soldiers begin conversations about the visible and invisible wounds of war.  His latest book, The Odyssey of Sergeant Jack Brennan, seamlessly blends this approach and can be read and used by anyone wanting to learn more about the transition soldiers make every day from military exercises back to daily life.

In this graphic novel, Sergeant Jack Brennan has carried around a copy of the classic The Odyssey by Homer all through his last deployment.  It is the night before his squad of Marines heads home to San Diego and all of them need to begin to decompress as ordered.  However, this is tough to say the least.  Sergeant Breannan gathers his men one last time to lead them through the story of Odysseus’s ten year journey home after the Trojan War. As the story is told the pictures and words transition almost seamlessly from present day to ancient Greece, drawing together the problems of modern soldiers and the epic problems Odysseus’ men faced.

This slim volume could be read in one night, but digesting the impact to both civilians and soldiers will take a few readings.  I would recommend it to anyone connected to a serviceperson who has ever been deployed, for a conversation starter and hopefully a deeper mutual understanding of the price of war.

You can get the book reviewed here and more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit. 

​Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit.  

John Sandford writes serial novels just as engaging as the crime drama shows on evening television.  If you like watching NCIS, CSI, or Law and Order, or any of their spin offs, the Prey series by John Sandford would be a great series to get into for more gripping action in book form.

The Prey series features detective Lucas Davenport.  In the beginning, Lucas is just a police detective in Minnesota.  By the sixth book in the series he’s moved up to deputy level and occasionally travels to Wisconsin as well. By the 14th book Lucas is working for the state bureau of criminal investigation and by book 19 has a wife and an adopted daughter. Like all good serial stories the immediate murder mystery is solved, and the personal lives of the main characters are advanced as well.  In the previous installment of the series, Lucas has made a few political missteps and enemies at the state level as well.
He is finally let go from his prestigious job working for the Minneapolis Bureau of Criminal Apprehension after a particularly harrowing case involving danger to his daughter. 

Now in Extreme Prey, Lucas has been asked by his friend the governor to investigate some strange occurrences with the Minnesota governor’s recent campaign for a presidential slot. Lucas has seen crazy criminals in his long career, but none quite compare to the single minded political workers he’s encountering on the campaign trail.
 
Timely to this year’s presidential run and always a gripping adventure, Extreme Prey could be your next great summer read.  And the library has most of the back series if you’re interested.  I highly recommend the audiobook versions read by Richard Ferrone as well.

You can get the book reviewed here and more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.

​Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit.  I am pleased to announce that our young summer readers have reached their reading goal and the library will have a hot dog party for all summer library program participants and their parents Thursday, August 4th at 6 pm in the shelter house just south of the library on the North Campus. If you have questions please call the library.

Readers of Christian fiction at the Port Library should be very familiar with the author Kim Vogel Sawyer and her myriad of books on our shelves.  A little romance, a little adventure, forgiveness, a happy ending, and of course a message of God’s grace run through each story.  This week’s Port Pick, Room for Hope,  should feel even more familiar – Beloit, Kansas is mentioned in it! 

It is the 1930s – height of the depression – in fictional Buffalo Creek, Kansas, 40 miles in an unnamed direction from Beloit. Neva Shilling has two children and a husband who travels half the month gathering supplies for their little general store. Our story begins as Neva is expecting her husband home from one of his trips, only to have the sheriff’s deputy show up with a cart of household goods and the news that her brother (not husband) and his wife has died and unexpectedly left his three children to their “Aunt Neva.”  It turns out Neva’s husband wasn’t actually traveling for work half of every month, but instead living with another family.  Outwardly, Neva handles the situation with grace and kindness towards her newfound family, but inwardly she is struggling with forgiveness, acceptance, and the logistics of suddenly running a store herself and taking care of a family twice as large on her own.  In addition, the small community learns about judgement, forgiveness, and grace.

This is a stand-alone novel, so there are no worries about starting a series by mistake.

 You can get the book reviewed here and more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.