Spring Cleaning - Get a Book Ahead

Did you know that March 28 through April 3rd is National Cleaning Week?

It's just to remind you that it is time for that spring cleaning we all hope to do. I know that sometimes Martha Stewart can be a bit overwhelming (where does she get the time to do all that stuff?), but she does have two books on cleaning and caring for your home that are excellent.

Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook (2006) is a comprehensive manual on how and when to care for various items in your home, with a room by room guide with weekly, monthly and seasonal checklists. There are also tips for cleaning and even help for folks who are moving.

Good Things for Organizing by Martha Stewart (2001) is the second book I would like to recommend. Divided up by rooms (Kitchen, Bedroom, Storage Rooms, Workrooms, etc.) this book suggests, with both text and pictures, many ways to help organize your stuff. She also includes tips for re-using household articles in new and different ways, along with “how-to” directions for simple building projects.

The library has many other books on house cleaning or de-cluttering. Come check them out. Meg

Novels with a hint of green...

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! If you’re looking to get in the mood, try the following -

Lacemakers of Glenmara by Heather Barbieri
“You can always start again. All it takes is a new thread.” Kate Robinson flees from her struggling fashion career and other heartbreaks, back to her ancestral Irish homeland , seeking peace and equilibrium. Her mother’s sewing maxim about starting again becomes far more meaningful as she learns the craft of lace-making from a local group of women and finds new friends and inspiration.

Swan Maiden by Jules Watson
This is the retelling of one of the most enduring of Irish legends, the tale of Deirdre – the Irish Helen of Troy. Don’t let the science fiction label put you off. This is a romantic and tragic tale of “enchantment and eternal passions.”

The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville
The plot is unique: Fegan, who has been a IRA killer in Northern Ireland, is out of a job, so-to-speak, once peace is realized. Unfortunately for Fegan, he is now haunted by the ghosts of his innocent victims – and the only way out is for him to avenge their deaths and kill the men who had given the kill orders. Booklist says “Neville’s debut novel is tragic, violent, exciting, plausible and compelling….and hard to put down.” Meg

How Does Your Garden Grow?

A gloriously green display of gardening books of all sorts greets you as you walk into the library. Come see books and other materials on vegetable gardening, composting, flower gardening and more.

Novices should try Organic Gardening for Dummies or Easy Container Gardens. Experts might want to look at Old Fashioned and David Austin Roses. There are even gardening murder mysteries, including Summer Garden Murder or Death of a Political Plant , both by Ann Ripley.

Meg

It's Written in the Bones - Reading About Forensic Science

You could say that Patricia Cornwall started it all, with Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Then Kiernan O’Shaughnessy, a former medical examiner, tried her hand at detecting.

Today, television series (NCIS, Bones, etc.) and books (The Bone Garden by Tess Gerristsen, 206 Bones by Kathy Reichs, etc.) about forensics and scientific criminal invesitgation are everywhere.

But have you checked out the non-fiction? A brand new book, written by Pulitzer Prize winning science writer, Deborah Blum, is The Poisoner’s Handbook. Subtitled “Murder and the birth of forensic medicine in Jazz Age New York,” The Poisoner’s Handbook introduces us to Charles Norris, who later became New York City’s chief medical examiner, and Alexander Gettler, head toxicoligist and how they solved one of New York City’s infamous Jazz Age murders.

James Patterson, writer of numerous fictional detective stories, tries his hand at forensic anthropology with his book, The Murder of King Tut (2009). Patterson and his co-writer Martin Dugard, have sifted through stacks of evidence – X-rays, files, forensic clues – to re-tell the story of King Tut’s brief life and death.

The Gardner Heist: A True Story of the World’s Unsolved Art Theft by Ulrich Boser is an account of art detective Harold Smith’s near obsession with this major Boston art theft and what was done (or perhaps wasn’t done) to solve this crime and return some major works of art to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Meg