Destination Fiction: The Middle East

Hello Patrons! We are now well into summer and our adult summer reading program The Great Jackson County Read: Armchair Traveler is going strong; plus, there is still time to rack up some raffle tickets and win cool local prizes! Last month, we visited Asia through a selection of fiction. Now it's time to get …

Destination Fiction: Asia

https://stockwatchboard.com/traveling-through-books/ Hello Readers! This summer I hope you will participate in the Adult Summer Reading program at Jackson County Public Library, beginning June 3rd. This year’s theme is the Great Jackson County Read: The Armchair Traveler, which is all about experiencing the world abroad through the books you read, from the comfort of your favorite …

National Parks and Recreation Month

Hi Shelf Life Readers! Happy National Parks and Recreation month! I am writing to you from the Jackson County Public Library but if you tried to find me during the summer months from 2012 to 2015, you would’ve had to look deep in the wilderness of either the Sumter or Chattahoochee National Forest, where I …

Hike with Pride this month!

June is LGBTQIA+ Pride Month as well as Great Outdoors Month and so this blog will be about both! LGBTQIA+ is an acronym that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and the plus is for gender fluid people - people whose gender identity changes over time or per situation. Queer is a …

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

I made my first trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1975 when I was in graduate school at UTK in Knoxville.  Three years later, forty years ago, our family made our first hiking trip, when we participated in a church sponsored outing, which included a walk up Mount LeConte.   Since then, we've …

“When thou haply seest Some rare noteworthy object in thy travel”

My life here in the frigid middle of January feels like I've been binge-watching an Adam Sandler marathon while trying to stomach a Banquet Microwavable Chicken Pot Pie that was taken out of the oven after just over a minute-and-a-half -- addlepated with an unshakable feeling of general disappointment. (As an aside, how hungry do …

Sir John Keegan

British historian John Keegan and I were almost contemporaries.  Although he was four years older than me, both of us were boys living in a Britain troubled by war in the early 1940s; he in England, I in Scotland.  Keegan told interviewer Brian Lamb a few years ago he chose military history  to study because he …

Dewey Attack 2015! 10 Books for 10 Categories

If you are like me, you may feel like you do not read enough nonfiction.  (Note: fellow blogger Stephen is not like me.) To help with that we are doing a Dewey Attack. As most public libraries do, Fontana Regional Library uses the Dewey Decimal System to organize many of our books.  More specifically, to …

Culture Club

By Amy Despite how badly I want to make all the jokes, you won't find any Boy George here! And I'm not just saying that to make you cry! The Culture Club is a new program at Macon County Public Library. Parents of the some of the littlest library patrons mentioned that it would be …

The Shield, 40 Hours Without Sleep, and a Broken Trunk: A Wrestlemania Road Trip (Part 2)

By Chris and Christina What you are about to read is Part 2 of a true story of two library bloggers and their daring Wrestlemania 29 adventures. Part 1 can be found here. This harrowing account is presented in a back and forth manner, taking you from the road trip itself to each of the …