PaperCuts

The Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library has launched a “Digital Branch” that includes a complete website redesign. This blog, Papercuts, will be archived but not updated during the transition to the new website.

You can find much of the book-related content from this blog on the new website under the heading Papercuts. More general content will now be dispersed throughout the website in the appropriate subject area.

Please visit our new website at www.tscpl.org and tell us what you think!

Thank you for reading Papercuts!

Posted on March 28, 2008 by Lissa at 06:10 PM | Permalink

Once again, here is are a few of the books I recently finished reading and what I thought of them:

Plain Secrets: An Outsider Among the Amish by Joe Mackall
The author and his family live across the road from an Amish family and in the course of time he develops a close friendship with them--as close as a non-Amisher is allowed. The family he befriends are of a very strict order and his friendship with them starts when he gives the husband a ride to a funeral. Through the years of interacting with this family, and through his own research, he has discovered a lot about Amish life which he shares along with his stories about how these things play out in real life. He also talks about a young man he knows who left the Amish order and much of a struggle it was for him to establish himself in the modern world. The result is an utterly fascinating look into another world, told in a real and heartfelt way as the author also discusses his own reactions to the ways of his neighbors.  I thoroughly enjoyed it and would highly recommend it.

Scaramouche a Romance of the French Revolution by Rafael Sabatini
I didn't think I would like this at first, I've never been much interested in the French revolution and I thought the language would be challenging.

Continue reading "Thoughts on recent reads" »

Posted on March 28, 2008 by Deb at 10:07 AM | Permalink

Dr. Hastings has a plan to make himself very rich. He’s a professor at a small college in Texas and is the expert on the killer Mad Maron. In the nineteenth century Maron and his gang went on a killing spree after a bank robbery. The gang was caught, but the gold was never found. Hastings is depending on one student, Juan who has the power of making. At a young age Juan could make things by thinking about them, but Juan doesn’t know that Hastings knows his secret or his plans where Juan has a special role. The Doctor forces his students in his night class to hold a séance with Juan in attendance. In Gossamer Hall by Erin Samiloglu everything goes terribly wrong and soon Juan will raise the dead. The few students in the class will find themselves in a terrible game of cat and mouse with Maron and his gang in pursuit. Not only can the gang shoot their guns but somehow Maron knows the hidden secrets of the students and uses that knowledge to further terrify them before he kills. Trapped in a nether world where the dead rise again, can Juan stop what he has made or will everyone die a horrible death?

Posted on March 26, 2008 by Christina at 08:29 AM | Permalink