We always get fantastic recommendations from our library patrons. These adult fiction and non-fiction books are all ones you all have excitedly told us about as dropped your books into the drop box at the front desk. Read on: Facing the Mountain by Daniel James Brown "Facing the Mountain is a such a good book. It is a painful book, but a book that we all should read. Read and heed." ![]() From In the days and months after Pearl Harbor, the lives of Japanese Americans across the continent and Hawaii were changed forever. In this unforgettable chronicle of war-time America and the battlefields of Europe, Daniel James Brown portrays the journey of Rudy Tokiwa, Fred Shiosaki, and Kats Miho, who volunteered for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and were deployed to France, Germany, and Italy, where they were asked to do the near impossible. Brown also tells the story of these soldiers' parents, immigrants who were forced to submit to life in concentration camps on U.S. soil. Woven throughout is the chronicle of Gordon Hirabayashi, one of a cadre of patriotic resisters who stood up against their government in defense of their own rights. Whether fighting on battlefields or in courtrooms, these were Americans under unprecedented strain, doing what Americans do best—striving, resisting, pushing back, rising up, standing on principle, laying down their lives, and enduring. (From Amazon) Find in Catalog / Read or Listen on Libby Code Girls by Liza Mundy "Story is told really well, not like a history book. Very interesting to hear about these women working through the worse conditions to get really important work done. Hard to put down, you have to get to the next CD." ![]() Recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than ten thousand women served as codebreakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of code-breaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them. A strict vow of secrecy nearly erased their efforts from history; now, through dazzling research and interviews with surviving code girls, bestselling author Liza Mundy brings to life this riveting and vital story of American courage, service, and scientific accomplishment. (From Amazon) Find in Catalog / Read or Listen on Libby Piranesi by Susanna Clarke "A brilliant story about being lost and found." ![]() Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house. There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known. Find in Catalog / Read or Listen on Libby The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden ![]() "At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn't mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse's fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil. After Vasilisa's mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa's new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows. And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa's stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent. As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse's most frightening tales." Find in Catalog / Read or Listen on Libby Have a book that you LOVED and want to recommend? Let us know at the front desk or send us an email (harneycl@harneycountylibrary.org)!
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Black History Month is celebrated throughout the month of February to recognize and honor the contributions of Black Americans. Few in Harney County realize one of their own residents, Martha (Adams) Anderson, was a noted author whose writing on African-American history in the Northwest was at the forefront of a movement to preserve the stories of countless Black Americans, like her own family, who contributed to settling the West.
Martha Anderson described herself as coming from an “unusual family.” Born in Denver in 1910, she was reared on a ranch in Idaho. Anderson was interested in writing from an early age. In her 20s, she wrote scripts for Seattle radio stations, and in her later years had been a frequent contributor to trade magazines and other publications. “As a child I listened to my grandfather (a Union veteran who later settled in Seattle) talk about Civil War battles, and eating mule meat. He was full of history.” She met and married successful Steens Mountain area rancher, Walter Scott Anderson, several years after the death of his first wife, Stella, from pneumonia in 1936. Walter, a native of Arkansas, arrived in Harney County with his brother Oscar in the early 1910s and soon thereafter established his own cattle ranch at the site of the old Alberson Station. The brothers, highly respected stock raisers, were noted in the Burns newspaper as the only two black ranchers in the county and remained so as late as the 1950s. Walter and Martha sold their Juniper Lake area cattle operation and moved to Portland in 1952 due to Walter’s failing heart. In Portland, Mrs. Anderson operated the Medley Hotel for black servicemen who, she said, “didn’t have any civil rights.” Her interest in history, no doubt fueled by stories from some of her hotel guests, led to the writing and publishing in 1980 of “Black Pioneers of the Northwest, 1800-1918,” detailing the lives of successful black gold rush muleskinners, laundresses, steamboat cooks, barbers, farmers, ranchers and businessmen. The publication is a primary reference for many contemporary works on African-American history in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. “The blacks who settled in the West in the 1800s," she said, proved that, “it doesn’t take a million dollars to be a good citizen. Rather, they showed an ability to work under any circumstances. Those who worked the mining camps proved that a person could go out with a frying pan into the middle of the desert and make a living.” Martha and Walter Anderson were both laid to rest in unmarked graves beside Oscar and his wife Maude Anderson in the Burns cemetery, an ignominious ending for true pioneers of their time. In July 2020, members of the group Rural Alliance for Diversity (RAD) in Burns became aware of the Anderson’s and their unique story. They contacted Oregon Black Pioneers for support in a project to raise awareness and funds for the creation of a grave marker for the Anderson’s. A GoFundMe campaign generated $1400 for the markers. During Memorial Day weekend in May 2021, members of RAD, OBP and the Harney County community formally dedicated headstones in the Burns cemetery for Martha and Walter Anderson. RAD also purchased a copy of Martha Anderson’s book, now available for public circulation at the Harney County Library. Learn more about the Andersons in the files of the Claire McGill Luce Western History Room, located in the back of the Harney County Library. Thank you so much for the wonderful entries you all submitted for the Great Harney County Bake-off this year! The winners have been chosen and will be announced soon. You all were incredibly creative and we loved looking at each and every entry as we received them.
Don't forget -- Harney County Library offers a diverse collection of cake pans that are available to be checked out. Browse them on our catalog here or stop into the library and take a look in person. |
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