Mercer County Library Blog

You might not think of memoir as a genre that lends itself to invention – it’s supposed to be true. But memoir is a literary form that can be inventive and innovative, in its form and prose style. I hope to show you, with a list of examples, just how imaginative memoir can be. Some of the books below incorporate dreams, formal experiments, and even fiction to get at an emotional truth and tell the story of a life or lives. I included pieces of publishers’ descriptions in quotation marks, and my own words alongside. Pathemata, or, The Story of My Mouth by Maggie Neslon “ Pathemata merges a pain diary chronicling a decade of jaw pain with dreams and dailies, eventually blurring the lines between embodied, unconscious, and everyday life. In scrupulously distilled prose, Pathemata offers a tragicomic portrait of a particularly unnerving and isolating moment in recent history, as well as an abiding account of how it feels to inhabit a mortal body in struggle to connect with others.” I...

Here are some of the events and programs from around the Mercer County Library System for the month of October. For a complete list of events at your local branch, visit the MCLS Events Calendar , and check out the flyers in this post! October Brings Spooky Fun and Cultural Celebrations This October, MCLS branches come alive with Halloween fun and Diwali celebrations. Enjoy spooky crafts, costume parades, and themed storytimes alongside vibrant Festival of Lights programming featuring dance performances, traditional crafts, and cooking demonstrations. For Kids Diwali Storytime & Craft with Author Prarthana Gururaj Saturday, October 4, 11:00 am West Windsor Branch Pumpkin Painting Saturday, October 4, 11:30 am Tuesday, October 7, 4:30 pm Hickory Corner Branch Diwali Celebration Sunday, October 5, 1:00 pm Sunday, October 5, 3:00 pm Ewing Branch DIY Scarecrow Craft Monday, October 6, 4:00 pm Tuesday, October 7, 4:00 pm Ewing Branch Find Your Gourds to Decorate Wedne...

A pumpkin is rotting under your feet, why are you counting someone else’s mustard seeds?--- would be my father’s putdown in response to neighbors or relatives minding our business. Too polite to say it to their face, of course. Yet, the imagery it brought forth never failed to amuse us. Maybe it is one of the fairly easily-translatable ones from Konkani, my mother-tongue, or maybe it is that everybody is minding everyone else’s business these days, that this is an oft-repeated one in my household from the treasury of dad’s idioms. Although my approximate translation does not capture its full color, I think I’m somewhat able to retain the spirit of the vernacular. A few thousand years ago, text for translations were not easy to come by; and, for that matter, text was not easily translatable. I was recently reminded of the fact that, in ancient India, scholars travelled several thousand miles for several years, from neighboring regions to Nalanda , to come across Buddhist teachers and ...

As the leaves start to fall, many children are diving back into school, homework, and nightly reading logs. But what do you do when your child, who is used to picking out a Level 2 or 3 about their favorite character, or easily reading through an Elephant and Piggie favorite, hits a roadblock when making the jump into the Juvenile chapter books? Finding the right book for your child can be challenging, but the Mercer County Library System is full of resources that can help you discover enjoyable books that grow their reading muscles! Schools use different systems to check a child’s reading or comprehension proficiency, often leaving parents and caregivers wondering what the level, number, or letter even means. Many are familiar with the Step Into Reading , I Can Read! , and DK Super Reader Easy Reader series, with levels from 1 to 4. But what happens when your child has graduated from the Easy Reader section? Most of the Easy Reader series do have Level 4 books, which contain the sa...

September is Happy Cat Month. Happy Cat Month was started by the nonprofit CATalyst Council to bring awareness to the welfare of cats. It can be hard work to understand your cat’s wants and needs…I’m still figuring it out with my own cat! I adopted my cat Svetlana when she was 7 years old. She is now almost 14 and is as playful as ever. Providing your cat with enough mental stimulation is one of the most important aspects of taking care of your cat. I have tried to get my cat interested in all sorts of toys over the years…from cat houses to ball tracks, but some days her favorite toy is a simple ping pong ball. I think she, like most cats, lose interest rather quickly, so it is important to introduce new toys and games often. The American Animal Hospital Association has a list of DIY Enrichment games that you can make at home and enjoy with your cat, like homemade feather toys and a toilet paper roll puzzle. Another important part of a cat’s health is hydration. A lot of cats do not ...

Where do you go when your family is far away? Perhaps the most popular example of “found family” I can think of is from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone . A young orphaned Harry Potter escapes his neglectful aunt and uncle and is admitted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he finds community and substitute parental figures in his fellow wizards. The “found family” trope is a frequently used idea in media in which a character forms family-like ties with people other than their family of origin. This can be due to losing their family of origin, such as the case of Harry Potter, but it can also be due to being shunned by their family of origin, simply not being understood by them, or having to move far away from them for work or school. You can find “found family” in almost any genre of fiction, including literary fiction, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and romance. “Found family” reminds us that even in the face of great familial hardship, turmoil, or loss, t...

Part 1: Restoration Have I told you about the bell? When my sister bought a shelf on Facebook Marketplace, the seller said, "I have this giant old rusty ship's bell I've been trying get rid of. Want it for $20?" Amused, my sister shared the bell offer in our family group text. But what practical or even impractical purpose could a giant old tarnished bell have? Buying the bell could mean taking on a big piece of junk I now had to re-home. It was a terrible idea. I already pursue more hobbies than I have time for. Could my life really be missing... a big old beat-up bell? The answer was no. Unequivocally no. I told my sister I wanted it. The bell carried layers of scratches and tarnish and pockmarks, measured a foot tall and a foot in diameter, and had been cast in solid bronze. It weighed at least 70 pounds. It also had no mount—two steel bolts stuck out at the bottom. Without a base to bolt into, it would never ring. But I decided to make it shine. Not thinkin...