A Night of Laughs with Jeff Dugan

by Julie Johnson, Branch Manager, Roland Park Branch

Jeff Dugan, former television producer for the Discovery Channel, is a funny guy. He started his June 7th program with a throw-away joke or three and then headed straight for the other funny bone with a few readings from his book, Ins & Outs: A Life in Television.

Who knew that being the unintended camera pool feed for ALL the networks at Pope John Paul II’s entry into Giants Stadium could be so entertaining? Well, at least in the telling. At the time, perhaps “terrifying” is a better adjective.

How about the best way to get a French television company to cough up the “clean tapes” for a television program? Why, have your local fixer pretend to be you having a full-scale meltdown in the office, of course.

And yes, he did work with Oprah while she was in Baltimore.

You’ll have to read to book find out more. Click on the cover to check out his book in the collection.

Celebrate Pride Month Through Memoir, Biography, Essays, and Theatre

by Emilie Pichot, Humanities Department

Celebrate Pride Month, which occurs each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan, with us by digging into LGBTQIA+ materials in the Humanities and Fine Arts Departments. Check back all month for more recommended reading.

Click on a cover to reserve your copy today!

Memoir, Biography, and Essays

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Theatre

 

 

Have you checked out one of these titles? If so, let us know on social media and tag it #atthepratt.

May Day Library Guide

Happy May Day! Celebrate by learning more about the US Labor movement through music, photography, theatre, poetry, literature, and film from the Fine Arts and Humanities departments.

Click on the cover to reserve your copy now.

Labor Music

Prints and Photographs

Humanities: Theatre

Humanities: Poetry

Humanities: Film

Humanities: Literature

Checking out one of the resources? Share it on social media with #atthepratt.

Pratt Staff Picks Best of 2017: Fiction

Still looking for the perfect holiday read? The Pratt Staff has you covered all this week with their top picks for 2017.   Just click on the cover to reserve your copy now.

Today we start with……

Best Fiction 2017

THE HOUSE WITHOUT WINDOWS

By Nadia Hashimi

[Recommended by Helen Bennett]: A vivid, unforgettable story of an unlikely sisterhood—an emotionally powerful and haunting tale of friendship that illuminates the plight of women in a traditional culture—from the author of the bestselling The Pearl That Broke Its Shell and When the Moon Is Low.

                                THE FIFTH SEASON

             By N. K. Jemisin

[Recommended by Ann Gordon]  After the empire Sanze collapses and the vast continent Stillness becomes ravaged by a red rift which darkens the sky, Essun, whose daughter has been kidnapped by her murderous husband, crosses Stillness in a desperate attempt to save her daughter.

 

 

LILAC GIRLS

By Martha Hall Kelly

[Recommended by Anne Calhoun]   For readers of The Nightingale and Sarah’s Key, inspired by the life of a real World War II heroine, this remarkable debut novel reveals the power of unsung women to change history in their quest for love, freedom, and second chances.

 

PRUSSIAN BLUE

By Philip Kerr

[Recommended by Tom Warner]  When his cover is blown, former Berlin bull and unwilling SS officer Bernie Gunther must re-enter a cat-and-mouse game that continues to shadow his life a decade after Germany’s defeat in World War 2…

   

MISS SUSIE SLAGLE’S

By Augusta Tucker

[Recommended by Holly Tominack]  Originally published in 1939, this book spent six months on the national bestseller lists and went through 23 hardcover printings. “A novel written out of love and meticulous observation” (“New York Herald Tribune”), the story recounts the trials and tribulations of a group of Johns Hopkins medical students who boarded at Miss Susie Slagle’s house on Biddle Street in Baltimore during the years before World War I.

 

CHEMISTRY

By Weike Wang

[Recommended by Lucie Ferguson]  A luminous coming-of-age novel about a young female scientist who must recalibrate her life when her academic career goes off track; perfect for readers of Lab Girl and Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You.

Check in tomorrow for Pratt Staff picks for Best Nonfiction Titles of 2017.

Pratt Staff Picks Best of 2017

Looking for the perfect book to read over the holidays? The Pratt Library has you covered.  All week long, we’ll be releasing our staff’s top picks for 2017 in Fiction, Nonfiction, Children’s, Young Adult, Graphic Novels and Audiobooks.   Here’s a little sneak peek  from our Collection Management Selectors.  Click on the cover to reserve your copy now!

MY FAVORITE THING IS MONSTERS

By Emil Ferris

[Recommended by Jamequa Summerall] Set against the tumultuous political backdrop of late ’60s Chicago, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is the fictional graphic diary of 10-year-old Karen Reyes, filled with B-movie horror and pulp monster magazines iconography

                                                                          A DIFFERENT POND

By Bao Phi

[Recommended by Kathleen Neil]  As a young boy, Bao Phi awoke early, hours before his father’s long workday began, to fish on the shores of a small pond in Minneapolis. Unlike many other anglers, Bao and his father fished for food, not recreation. Between hope-filled casts, Bao’s father told him about a different pond in their homeland of Vietnam.

THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD: A TRUE STORY

By Douglas Preston

[Recommended by Sarah Kuperman] Suspenseful and shocking, filled with colorful history, hair-raising adventure, and dramatic twists of fortune, The Lost City of the Monkey God is the absolutely true, eyewitness account of one of the great discoveries of the twenty-first century.

Come back to #PrattChat tomorrow as we release Pratt staff’s picks for Best Fiction 2017.