Las Animas - Bent County Library District

When the renowned poet Fiona Skinner is asked about the inspiration behind her iconic work, The Love Poem, she tells her audience a story about her family and a betrayal that reverberates through time. It begins in a big yellow house with a funeral, an iron poker, and a brief variation forever known as the Pause: a free and feral summer in a middle-class Connecticut town. Caught between the predictable life they once led and an uncertain future that...

"Born in exile, in Zambia, to a guerrilla father and a working mother, Sisonke Msimang is constantly on the move. Her parents, talented and highly educated, travel from Zambia to Kenya and Canada and beyond with their young family. Always the outsider, and against a backdrop of racism and xenophobia, Sisonke develops her keenly perceptive view of the world. In this sparkling account of a young girl's path to womanhood, Sisonke interweaves her personal...

Lovely and Beauty know their place: at home, beneath the watchful eye of their mother. Life has never included friends, an education, or anything the sisters can call their own. Their comings and goings are supervised by Farida. Otherwise, they don’t come and go at all. That changes on Lovely’s fortieth birthday. In a stroke of inexplicable fortune, Farida permits her eldest daughter to go to the Gausia Market alone, with no instructions but...

"From the darkest hours rises life in all its glory...From the acclaimed author of Secrets of a Charmed Life and A Bridge Across the Ocean comes a new novel set in Philadelphia during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which tells the story of a family reborn through loss and love. In 1918, Philadelphia was a city teeming with promise. Even as its young men went off to fight in the Great War, there were opportunities for a fresh start on its cobblestone...

In the country of Ossaniul, there is a fortress that is as disproportionate as it is inaccessible: the Highest House. Its masters, the noble family of Aldercrest, reign over a veritable army of slaves. At the bottom of the ladder, young Moth performs the most thankless tasks and has little hope of living past childhood. Until the day he meets Obsidian, a mysterious prisoner of the House who whispers to him in his sleep. If Moth does what he asks,...

"Along with a team of comic book legends-- Dennis O'Neil, Terry Austin, and Marie Severin-- Carl Potts (The Punisher) presents an awe-inspiring and gloriously illustrated tale set in nineteenth-century Japan, a land of noble and serene dragons. But when a sect of deranged monks begin training the huge reptiles to kill in Northern California, only an aging samurai and a half-American ninja stand in their way. Originally published as a six-part series...

First biography of the little-known real-life Tom Sawyer (a friend of Mark Twain during his brief tenure as a California newspaper reporter), told through a harrowing account of Sawyer's involvement in the hunt for a serial arsonist who terrorized mid-nineteenth century San Francisco.

"Stanley and Vera, academically precocious but awkward teenagers, form a bond when they tie for first place in the National Spelling Bee. Though their mothers have big plans for them -- Stanley will become a senator, Vera a mathematics professor -- neither wants to follow these pre-determined paths. So Stanley hatches a plan to marry Vera in a sham wedding for the financial freedom to pursue his one true love: crossword puzzle construction. In enlisting...

Inside The Mind of Agatha Christie - Agatha Christie ranks as one of the most successful writers of all time. Combining rare access to Christie's family and her personal archive, the show gives viewers a never-before-seen look into the late crime writer's fascinating life story. Agatha Christie's England - retraces the celebrated English writer's footsteps across the England. With access to both her family and those who lived with her and knew her...

"In America, censorship surges in periods of demographic and political change. Its primary purpose is to silence challenges to an established elite or norm. Today, censorship is part of a larger assault on such American institutions as schools, public libraries, and universities, the better to establish more control over the people--while also pilfering their wallets. In this concise look at censorship, author James LaRue explores the topic through...