SKCTC Middlesboro Library

One of the most popular types of fiction is the mystery.  People what to know “whodunnit” and to see that person caught.  The reader can follow along as the main character discovers clues, and perhaps even guess the villain before the detective does!  There are many reasons why people like to read mysteries.  One aspect of this is that there are different types of mysteries.   Some involve comedy, some are violent, and some even feature mystery-solving cats!  Whatever your tastes or interests, there is a mystery out there for you.

We have lots of mystery books available in the library.  Most of them are located in the PR (written by British authors) or the PS (American authors) section of the stacks.  Here are a few mysteries you might enjoy:

High Five by Janet Evanovich PS  3555 .V2126 H5 2000 Stephanie Plum isn’t a very good bounty hunter.  She is never remembers to take her gun out of the cookie jar, her assistant Lula is a plus-sized woman in a size 6 wardrobe, and her cars keep exploding.  She frequently has to take her grandmother to viewings at the nursing home to make sure Grandma Mazur doesn’t pry open the lids of the caskets.  The Stephanie Plum series is now up to number 15.  We have three of the books in the library.  You don’t have to start at the beginning to enjoy these funny and suspenseful novels!

The Ballad of Frankie Silver by Sharon McCrumb PS 3563 .C3527 B35 1999 Sharon McCrumb’s Appalachia-centered novels general involve two stories:  one taking place in the present day, and one taking place hundreds of years ago.  There is always a connection between the two, usually in the person of Nora Bonesteel, an old woman who knows when things are going to happen, and can communicate with ghosts.  The Ballad of Frankie Silver concerns the real life case of the first woman in North Carolina hanged for murder (in 1833).  While exploring the details from that crime, McCrumb weaves in a modern day mystery.

Catch as Cat Can by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown PS 3553 .R598 C44 2002 In this book, not only do cats solve the mystery, but a cat helped to write it, too!  Author Rita Mae Brown gives her striped cat Sneaky Pie equal writing credit on her mysteries set in the small town of Crozet, Va.  and featuring an animal sleuthing trio of cats Mrs. Murphy and Pewter and dog Tee Tucker.  The animals can talk to each other, and not surprisingly, generally have everything figured out well before the humans catch on!

Playing with Fire by Peter Robinson PR 6068 .O1964 P58 2004 The mystery novels of British author Peter Robinson feature music-loving detective Alan Banks and his assistant Annie Cabot.  Throughout the novels we get information about the lives of the characters as they attempt to solve the crimes presented in their latest adventure. In this novel, they attempt to determine if several arson cases are related.  Murders are involved and it is a race against time to stop the killer before he strikes again.

The topics of Forensic Science and Crime Scene Investigation have become very popular recently with the rise in television programs on the subject.  We have recently obtained some interesting books on the subject.  In order to make them easier to find, we have put some of these books on a display just inside the front desk of the library.  Some of the titles include:

Crime Scene: the Ultimate Guide to Forensic Science by Richard Platt

This book is published by DK Publishing.  The book is very interesting to thumb through, with many interesting photographs and graphics  illustrating various aspects of forensic science.  Some of the chapters in the book are:

At the Crime Scene
The Victim
Human Identification
Analysis of Evidence
Crimes without Corpses

There are plenty of case studies included to help to illustrate points.

Bodies We’ve Buried: Inside the National Forensic Academy, the World’s Top CSI Training School by Jarrett Hallcox and Amy Welch

The National Forensic Academy in Knoxville, TN is a training academy for law enforcement agents who learn how to work in the field of crime scene investigation.  This book details various aspects of what they are taught, including photography, burial recovery, postmortem fingerprinting, bloodstain pattern analysis, arson investigation and working with trace evidence.  Plenty of actual cases are discussed, and there are black and white photographs throughout the book.

Coroner’s Journal: Stalking Death in Louisiana by Louis Cataldie

Dr. Cataldie is the Louisiana State Medical Examiner.  Previously, he worked as a doctor and as a coroner in Baton Rouge.  This book is a collection of cases that Dr. Cataldie has worked on throughout his career, including attempting to identify bodies after the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

All of these books are available for check out at the library!  Even though classes start next week, make time for some reading on topics you enjoy.  If forensic science isn’t your cup of tea, stop by and see what the library has on your preferred topics!  We can help you find books that will educate and entertain you!

We started the SKCTC Middlesboro blog a while ago, but got a bit sidetracked and haven’t posted for a while.  We are now going to get back on track with library news, photos, and book information.  We look forward to hearing from our students and the SKCTC community!  Please feel free to contact us with any ideas or suggestions for the library!

Just now, we are getting in some new books on a variety of topics.  One we’ve recently acquired is My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor.  Dr. Taylor was working in brain research when she herself experienced a massive stroke at the age of 37.  Although she lost the ability to walk, talk or even remember her previous life, she at the same time experienced a great sense of peace.  This book chronicles her recovery, where she learned to rely less on her logical “left brain” and to more fully explore her intuitive “right brain.”  The book is available for check out today!  RC 388.5 .T387 2009

Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala is the second of two books about Guatemala that I have read over the past two months.  I prefer the first book,  Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala, which I read in August shortly after returning from that country. Although a non-fictional account of life in Guatemala in the years following “La Violencia,” Silence on the Mountain reads much like a novel as the author, through the written word, recreates his experience in that troubled country.

Buried Secrets is not without its own set of virtues, however. Replete with data and facts, it provides hard numbers and descriptive information regarding villages razed, techniques of torture and terror, and the government’s strategy as it set about denying its genocide of the Maya.  Indeed, the book reads like a reference work in places and probably provides more actual information than Silence on the Mountain.

On a more critical note, though, Buried Secrets must have originally been a Ph.D. dissertation, subsequently recast for book publication. Long passages are marked, burdened really, by a writing style suggestive of a graduate student’s slavish efforts at conceptual precision.  And the author’s continual effort to place her Guatemala research into a broad theoretical framework, again suggestive of dissertation research, at times gets in the way of her own story.

These books are reminders of evil’s pervasive reality, and that much of the evil in the world is caused by people who believe, or claim to believe, that they are fighting evil.

I’m going back and rereading the children’s classics(especially Newberry award and honor books=2-5 per week) since I don’t do TV.

I’ve just read Robert Morgan’s Gap Creek (of Oprah’s book club fame) and his more recent novel This Rock. I enjoyed both, but I really can’t understand why Oprah picked the former and not the latter, other than GC has a strong female protagonist. GC spans the first year of marriage for  Hank and Julie Richards. Through Julie’s first person perspective, the reader glimpses authentic Carolina mountain life before the turn of the century. Morgan’s prose is clean and poetic, a pleasure to read. I’m sure he was influenced heavily by Arnow, but whereas she used phonetic spelling, he practices the current technique of suggesting dialect through syntax. Consequently, the language rings true without condescension.  This Rock , which is set during the early 1920s, alternates between the perspectives of a young man Muir and his widowed mother Ginny. Muir’s voice commands most chapters with Ginny’s appearing sporadically. This is a classic Cain and Abel story of Muir’s search for himself and his struggle with his brother Moody. In retrospect, I wonder why Morgan allows us to see Moody only through the eyes of his mother and brother rather than giving him his own chapters. I’ll have to mull about this choice because I’m sure it’s significant in understanding the way Moody functions in the story.  One part of the book that doesn’t work for me is a segment about a circus coming to town and an elephant stomping a man to death. I think Morgan based this on a true incident, but it doesn’t flow within the context of the novel. A middle-aged Hank and Julie appear in this novel, but fleetingly. I recommend both books, and I look forward to reading more of Morgan’s fiction. (He has a Daniel Boone biography coming out in October, BTW.)

Gap Creek  PS3563.O87147 G36 2000
This Rock   PS3563.O87147 T48 2001

Hunter’s Horn  PS3501.R64 H86 1997

I recently read the Appalachian classic Hunter’s Horn by Harriet Arnow. I was blown away by her characterization and rich prose. At first, the text looks intimidating because the font is smaller than standard and at 600+ pages, it appears so dense as to be impenetrable. In addition, many readers are put off by her phonetic spellings of Appalachian dialect. However, the effort is worth it. She writes from the close third person perspective, and unlike The Dollmaker, which is primarily from Gertie’s point of view, this novel allows us to sympathize with its three main characters: Nunn, Milly, and Suze. It is a powerful commentary on the political and social climate that transcends its Appalachian setting. In fact, I’ve been calling Arnow the female Mountain Steinbech.

Freakonomics is a must read, and we have it in our library.  
HB74.P8 L479 2005

I’m currently enjoying reading the book Can Jane Eyre Be Happy? More Puzzles in Classic Fiction by John Sutherland which tries to answer some of the great puzzles in literary history, including:

How vulgar is Mrs. Elton? (Jane Austen’s Emma)
Why is Fagin hanged and why isn’t Pip prosecuted? (Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist and Great Expectations)
How many pianos has Amelia Sedley? (W. M. Thackeray’s Vanity Fair)

I must admit that it had never occurred to me to question most of the “puzzles”, but it’s very entertaining to read the “clues” that Sutherland has found in the texts to explain these conundrums.   There are more books in the series, including Is Heathcliff a Murderer? and Who Betrays Elizabeth Bennett?  The books read like the National Enquirer for English majors!

I’ve also been listening to the audio book of Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal.  What can you say about Terry Pratchett’s novels other than that they are outrageous fun!  In this one, Moist Von Lipvig has been plucked from the jaws of death to serve as the postmaster for Ankh-Morpork.  He is assisted and sometimes thwarted by an assortment of odd characters, including golems, werewolves and banshees.   I’m glad there are numerous novels in his Discworld series, because I think I’m going to be busy for a while!

While visiting Guatemala over the summer, I heard a lot about the Civil War there.  I knew of this conflict but did not realize how brutal, how ugly, it was. Entire villages were wiped out and terrible atrocities were committed; many (indeed, the vast majority) of the victims were non-combatants, including children, women, the elderly.  Ultimately, some 200,000 were killed and many thousands more went “missing.” Most of the victims — more than eight out of ten — were Mayan Indians, killed by the Guatemalan army and assorted “death squads” by order of the right-wing military government controlling the county at that time.

Since returning, I have tried to educate myself about “La Violencia,” as it is known in that part of the world. I have finished reading “Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala,” by Daniel Wilkinson.  The book is a powerful discription and testimonial of what government sanctioned terror can do to a people.  In addition, I currently am reading “Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala.” I am not yet ready to express an opinion about the book overall, though thus far it puts me in awe of those who investigate human rights abuses. 

The Civil War officially ended in 1996, though problems persist and violence (both political and criminal) continues to plague Guatemalan society.  In just a few days (September 9) Guatemala will hold its third national election since the Civil War ended.  Regrettably, the lead-up to those elections has also been marred by violence.

Despite all this, Guatemala is, quite simply, a beautiful country. Its people are charming, its landscape unforgettable.  I am hopeful that, over time, Guatemala will resolve its problems and begin fulfilling its potential as a nation-state.