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Showing posts from 2017

Gift Yourself a New Book

With the final day of classes less than a week away, it's time to prepare your winter break reading list. Might we suggest a few titles from our most recent new books for your reading delectation? We've got lots of new fiction in our Nook and Popular locations. Check out Turtles All the Way Down , John Green's latest YA about a girl detective living with anxiety and OCD; The Hate U Give , the #1 New York Times bestseller by Angie Thomas that examines police brutality from the point of view of sixteen-year-old Starr Carter; and Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum, about a girl newly bereaved and uprooted from her Chicago hometown, coming to grips with life on the other side of the country. Household names are back with new novels. Check out the John Grisham's latest legal thriller, The Rooster Bar ; Danielle Steel's modern Cinderella retelling, Fairytale ; and Sleeping Beauties , speculative fiction from Stephen King in collaboration with his son, Owen King. I

It's (Almost) the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

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Thanksgiving break is over, and we're in the final stretch, where everything final is coming up or coming due: final papers, final projects, final exams. We've got three weeks of cramming, composing, and silently sobbing ahead, and some days it might seem simpler to toss your computer out the nearest window than finish that essay. But don't despair. The exultation you'll feel from watching your computer smash against the concrete is small (and temporary!) compared with the constructive stress relief offered by these books: Everyone could use a magic bullet now and then -- and Success under stress: Powerful tools for staying calm, confident, and productive when the pressure’s on by Sharon Melnick is full of them. Kelly McGonigal explores the advantages of stress in The upside of stress: Why stress is good for you, and how to get good at it , while Mequilibrium: 14 days to cooler, calmer, and happier by Jan Bruce, Andrew Shatté, and Adam Perlman shows you how to ef

On Their Shoulders: A Talk with Dr. Christine M. Darden

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Now is your chance to meet one of the researchers featured in Margot Shetterly's New York Times best-selling book, Hidden Figures . Dr. Christine M. Darden -- mathematician, data analyst, and aeronautical engineer -- began her NASA career as a "human computer" before becoming an engineer and, eventually, the first African-American woman to serve as a senior executive at the Langley Research Center. Darden's talk with detail how she developed a love for mathematics in high school geometry, the highest level of math she took in high school, and how it was then that she formed a dream of becoming a mathematician. She will also share her story of how, being led by her dream and the requirements of her father, she catapulted her career as a high school math teacher into a 40-year career with NASA as an internationally known researcher and leader in sonic-boom minimization research, while also earning a D. Sc. Degree from George Washington University in Mechanical Eng

Encore! Hidden Figures Comes to PVCC

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In honor of the 2017 One Book program, Hidden Figures returns to the big screen at PVCC for an encore performance. If you've been waiting to see it or could watch it ten more times because it's just that good (and believe us, it is), then here is your chance to do just that. Mark your calendar for Friday, November 3 at 5:30 PM , where we will be showing Hidden Figures in Room M229 . Hope to see you there!

Stars, Superheroes, and Bite-Sized Astrophysics: New Books Are In

New month, new books: October is here, and here at Jessup Library there are 250+ new books gracing our shelves. The weather is cooling off (knock on wood) and fall break is only a week away -- time to take a break from your studies and curl up with a good book for an hour or two! If you're looking for suggestions to get you started, look no further than the list below: Hidden Figures, the 2017 choice for PVCC's One Book Program, celebrates the accomplishments of the African-American women who launched the first astronauts into orbit. If you're looking for more books about women and the stars, check out The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars by Dava Sobel, which reveals the hidden world of the women who worked as "human computers" at the Harvard College Observatory in the late 19th century; and Making Contact: Jill Tarter and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence by Sarah Scoles, an exploration of the

Let's Fight Censorship with The Great Gatsby!

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Question: What do The Great Gatsby , Moby Dick , Their Eyes Were Watching God , and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone all have in common? (Besides being iconic enough that you may have read, heard of, or been force fed at least one of them in your lifetime.) Answer: They've all been banned. September 24th - 30th is Banned Book Week . Book censorship has a long and storied history, and the tradition is alive and kicking in 2017. (What else is new?) Books have been banned for a variety of reasons -- for portraying sex and violence and using profanity to encouraging children to break dishes or for being 'a real downer' (those last two were A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstien and Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank, respectively). Banned Book Week brings attention to books that have been challenged and/or banned in schools, libraries, and elsewhere, both locally and nationally, and celebrates the efforts of book-lovers to fight censorship and preserve t

One Book Event: Team Rocket @pvcc

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First, a confession: Yes, the title is clickbait. This post has nothing to do with Pokémon. But there are plenty of rockets, so read on! Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly is the 2017 choice for our annual One Book program. Read more about the book here . The college hosts a variety of events as a part of the program, and we're holding our first on Wednesday, September 13 at noon. PVCC’s own rocketry club, Piedmont Student Launch Team, will share their experience of working with NASA engineers on a nine-month-long research-based, competitive exploration project of building and launching a high-power rocket with an experiential payload. Come see the rocket in person and hear about the team’s trip to Marshall Space Flight Cente r to participate in the final competition! The event will be held in the North Mall Meeting Room . Come join us!

Time for Pie...or Ice Cream...or a New Book!

It’s mid-July and time for pie.  Or ice cream.   Art of the pie: a practical guide to homemade crusts, fillings, and life and Food52 ice cream & friends: 60 recipes & riffs for sorbets, sandwiches, no-churn ice creams and more can provide recipes and inspiration.  The resulting pounds are up to you.  If the thought of all that sugar makes you weak with longing, you may want to read Biology of desire: why addiction is not a disease . Hide the livestock and wake the neighbors – the Vikings are coming!  Sorry, wrong century, but if you’re interested in Viking history, why not try Northmen: the Viking saga, AD 793-1241 or The Norse myths: a guide to the gods and heroes or Beyond the Northlands: Viking voyages and the Old Norse sagas ? Have you ever worried that you’re going to confess to a crime, even though you’re not guilty?  If so, you may want to brush up on How the police generate false confessions: an inside look at the interrogation room .  Things didn’t go so well f

Star Wars and Superheroes: New Books Are In

We realize it's the summer semester, and those of you taking classes are hard at work -- it's no joke to fit sixteen weeks of coursework into five or ten weeks! But, well... we have new books in, and there are a ton of great titles on the list. Can we entice you with one? Or ten? Check out our recommendations for summer reads below: Neil Gaiman explores everything from ghosts to gumshoes in The View from the Cheap Seats , his latest collection of nonfiction, and recounts the daring adventures of deities, dwarfs, and giants in Norse Mythology . We have new installments of the Jessica Jones comics. In Jessica Jones: Alias. Vol. 3 , which collects Alias #10 and #16-21, Jessica searches for Spider-woman, a teenage superhero who has gone missing. Jessica Jones: Alias. Vol. 4 collects Alias #22-28 and delves into the backstory of the superhero turned private detective. In the mood for more comics and graphic novels? Let characters like James Bond and the Wizard of Oz guide you t

Kanopy Comes to Roku!

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Kanopy, the Netflix of thoughtful entertainment, is now available on Roku. Kanopy gives you access to over 30,000 "documentaries, indie and foreign films, must-see classics and blockbuster movies" -- all for free, courtesy of your campus library. Kanopy adds hundreds of new titles each month, from the Oscar-nominated documentary, I Am Not Your Negro to fan favorite, For the Love of Spock , so click here to check out the latest additions , and start streaming!

Take A New Book on Summer Break

Welcome to the last day of finals! It's been a long semester, but it's nearly over, and all of us here in the library are cheering for you. Once you've finished that last exam, treat yourself to a new book to keep you company over the summer break. Check out our recommendations below: Looking for beach reads? We've added a few to the Nook and our popular shelves. Check out Here's To Us by Elin Hilderbrand, in which three women, all sworn adversaries previously married to the same man, gather to mourn his death. Janet Evanovich brings readers two new installments of her Stephanie Plum novels, Tricky Twenty-Two and Turbo Twenty-Three . In Two by Two by Nicolas Sparks, a recently divorced and newly jobless advertising executive struggles to raise his young daughter. And with a six-part adaptation of Good Omens coming to Amazon Prime and the BBC in 2018, now is an excellent time to read this hilarious and well-beloved novel about the end of the world, written by N

Fuel Up On Freebies

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Studying for finals is hungry work. Drop by the circulation desk from Tuesday, May 2 to Monday, May 8 , to re-energize with free cookies and coffee. Students, faculty, and staff -- all are welcome! Good luck this week! We're cheering you on.

Take a Breather with a New Book

With only a month until finals and the semester wrapping up, things are getting hectic here in academia! But that doesn't mean you can't take a breather now and then... with a book, of course. (We're librarians; what else did you expect us to say?) Drop by the library and check out our latest goodies: April is National Poetry Month, so check out Restless Vanishings by John Michael Flynn. With movies like Wonder Woman and Justice League due this year, check out our newest comic books -- Wonder Woman, Earth One, volume 1 , written by Grant Morrison, and Batman, Earth One, volume 1 by Geoff Johns -- as well as an exploration of American superheroes through the lens of queer theory called The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics by Ramzi Fawaz. In Born A Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood , Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show, recounts his life as the child of an illegal union and his relationship with his bold, brave mot

Ring in the Spring with a New Book

Spring break is just around the corner -- as is spring weather, coincidentally, no matter what Punxsutawney Phil predicted. With a week's worth of liberation barely a week away (for some of us), it's time to stock up on your relaxation reading. Check out our recommendations from the new books list to get started: Wander off into a world of wizards in The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, the first book in The Kingkiller Chronicle. Adventurer and magician Kvothe narrates the story of his rise to fame, from orphanhood to legend. Ta-Nehisi Coates, award-winning author of Between the World and Me , brings his talents to bear on the story of T'Challa, the Black Panther, as he fights to preserve the nation of Wakanda in Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, Book 1 . Get an inside look at the Pulitzer Prize for Drama-winning musical, Hamilton , in Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter's Hamilton: The Revolution: Being the Complete Libretto of the Broadway Musical

The Votes Are In: One Book 2017 Winner

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The people have spoken, and the results are in: we have our winning One Book for Fall 2017! Three books entered the gladiator's pit: Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, which tells the story of four African-American women who worked for NASA as human computers from World War II through the Space Race;  Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance, a debut memoir that explores the author's life growing up in the white underclass; and It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis, a political satire about the rise of a fascist government in the United States. They're all great stories and relevant to current events -- but in the end, only one book could prevail. And that one book, receiving a total of 251 votes out of a total of 412, was Hidden Figures . Eager to start reading? Copies are available for students starting on Club Day, September 2017 . If you're teaching faculty, drop by the library for your copy today. In the meantime, whet your interest with these reviews a

Fall In Love With A New Book

Whatever the state of your New Year's resolutions (abandoned, going strong, or nonexistent), it's never too late in the year to try something new -- like a book (hint, hint). Our latest crop of new books is in. Here are some recommendations to get you started: Travel through America's culinary landscape in The Mad Feast: An Ecstatic Tour through America's Food by Matthew Gavin Frank. Alternately, climb into a culinary time machine in A History of Food in 100 Recipes by William Sitwell. Love it or hate it, Valentine's Day is a fact of February. Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray by Helen E. Fisher brings a sociological lens to romantic love, and Sex in the Sea: Our Intimate Connection with Sex-Changing Fish, Romantic Lobsters, Kinky Squid, and Other Salty Erotica of the Deep kicks humans out of the equation altogether. January may be over, but if there's room in your life for a new project or a bit of sprucing up, w

A Newsstand for 2017

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 Extra, extra! Come get your magazines! Access the latest issues of popular magazines through Flipster , a database now available on trial through the Jessup Library. Featuring nearly 1,200 magazines in 20+ categories, Flipster is your online newsstand, delivering everything from Rolling Stone to Sports Illustrated right to your phone, tablet, or computer. We're trialing Flipster until February 8 , so take a look and find it here . Let us know if we should keep this database. We won't be able to get all ~1,200 magazines if we subscribe to this platform, so also let us know which ones to keep and if you like the platform. Email Crystal Newell at cnewell@pvcc.edu with your feedback.