Library News

A skeleton hiding in the Cromaine shelves.
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Spooky Books & Films Recommended by Cromaine Staff!

Spooky season is in full swing at Cromaine, and we're counting down the days till Halloween!

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A graphic of an orange cookbook with a measuring cup and a wooden spoon.
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Recipe Club and Potluck: October 2024

Our Friday Foodies gathered for another Recipe Club and Potluck program last week, and shared a variety of wonderful recipes!

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An audience sits classroom-style in the Community Room, watching Michelle give a presentation on Oktoberfest beers.
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Ale Together Now: German vs. American Marzens

This month's Ale Together Now program explored the wonderful world of Oktoberfest beers, with a special look at the malty, toasty Märzen style.

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New at Cromaine

Book cover for "By the Fire We Carry"

By the Fire We Carry

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"Impeccably researched. . . . A fascinating book and an important one." -- Washington Post

"[A] brilliant, kaleidoscopic debut. . . . Nagle's narrative is lucid and moving. . . . A showstopper." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review

Most Anticipated Book of the Fall: Washington Post, People, Los Angeles Times, Parade, Bustle, Book Riot

A powerful work of reportage and American history that braids the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation's earliest days, and a small-town murder in the 1990s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land more than a century later. 

Before 2020, American Indian reservations made up roughly 55 million acres of land in the United States. Nearly 200 million acres are reserved for National Forests--in the emergence of this great nation, our government set aside more land for trees than for Indigenous peoples.

In the 1830s Muscogee people were rounded up by the US military at gunpoint and forced into exile halfway across the continent. At the time, they were promised this new land would be theirs for as long as the grass grew and the waters ran. But that promise was not kept. When Oklahoma was created on top of Muscogee land, the new state claimed their reservation no longer existed. Over a century later, a Muscogee citizen was sentenced to death for murdering another Muscogee citizen on tribal land. His defense attorneys argued the murder occurred on the reservation of his tribe, and therefore Oklahoma didn't have the jurisdiction to execute him. Oklahoma asserted that the reservation no longer existed. In the summer of 2020, the Supreme Court settled the dispute. Its ruling that would ultimately underpin multiple reservations covering almost half the land in Oklahoma, including Nagle's own Cherokee Nation.

Here Rebecca Nagle recounts the generations-long fight for tribal land and sovereignty in eastern Oklahoma. By chronicling both the contemporary legal battle and historic acts of Indigenous resistance, By the Fire We Carry stands as a landmark work of American history. The story it tells exposes both the wrongs that our nation has committed and the Native-led battle for justice that has shaped our country.

Book cover for "Who Could Ever Love You"

Who Could Ever Love You

Instant New York Times and USA Today nonfiction bestseller!

A New York Times Nonfiction Book to Read this Fall
A People Magazine Best Book of September
The Week Five Riveting Books to Take You Through September

Mary Trump grew up in a family divided by its patriarch’s relentless drive for money and power. The daughter of Freddy Trump, the highly accomplished, dashing eldest son of wealthy real estate developer Fred Trump, and Linda Clapp, a flight attendant from a working-class family, Mary lived in the shadow of Freddy’s humiliation at the hands of his father.

Fred Trump embodied the ethos of the zero-sum game and among his five children, there could only be one winner. That was supposed to be Freddy, his namesake, but Fred found him wanting—too sensitive, too kind, too interested in pursuits beyond the realm of the real estate empire he was meant to inherit. In Donald, Fred found a kindred spirit, a “killer,” who would stop at nothing to get his own way.

Even after Freddy’s short-lived career as a professional pilot for TWA came to an end, he never stopped trying to gain his father’s approval. Finally, at the age of forty-two, he succumbed to Fred’s lethal contempt and died alone in an emergency room, with no family by his side.

In WHO COULD EVER LOVE YOU, Mary Trump brings us inside the twisted family whose patriarch ignored, froze out, and eventually destroyed his own. Freddy Trump’s decline into alcoholism and illness, along with Linda’s suffering after their divorce, left Mary dangerously vulnerable as a very young girl. 

Inadequately and only conditionally loved, there were no adults in her life except for the father she loved, but lost before she could know him; and a mother abandoned by her ex-husband’s rich and powerful family who demanded her loyalty but left her with nothing.

With searching insight, poignant detail, and unsparing prose, Mary Trump reveals the cold, selfish cruelty that has come to define the Trump family thanks in large part to her uncle, whose malignant ambition has riven our nation and threatens the world.

Book cover for "America's Deadliest Election"

America's Deadliest Election

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"Snappy and accessible prose... America's Deadliest Election is the kind of book that might generate fresh interest in our country's brief post-Civil War attempt at creating a multiracial democracy."--The Washington Post

The violent election of 1872 that serves as a warning for today's divided politics.

From CNN's Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash, the fast-paced story of the extraordinary election that led to hundreds of murders, warfare in the streets of New Orleans, two governors of Louisiana--and changed the course of politics in our country.

The Election of 1872 was the most contentious in American history. After both parties complained of corruption, neither candidate would concede, two governors claimed office and chaos erupted. Rival newspapers engaged in a bitter war of words, politicians plotted to overthrow the government, and their supporters fought in the streets and attempted assassinations. The entire country watched in grim fascination as the wounds of the Civil War were ripped open and the promise of President Grant's Reconstruction faltered in the face of violent resistance and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan.

In this riveting book, Dana Bash and David Fisher tell the incredible, little-known story of the election that pushed democracy to the breaking point, and sparked historic events including: 
 

  • The Colfax Massacre, in which at least 150 Black men were killed by white supremacists
  • The extraordinary train race from New York to New Orleans for control of the state government
  • The election of the first black Congressman from Louisiana in the face of violent resistance
  • The Supreme Court ruling that ended Reconstruction and became the foundation of Southern segregation, changing the American legal system for the next century



Readers will find eerie parallels to today's divided political landscape and leaders willing to seize power no matter the cost. An eye-opening warning of what's at stake and what it takes to protect our democracy, this is a must-read tale of America's deadliest election.

Book cover for "The Message"

The Message

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The renowned author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell—and the ones we don’t—shape our realities.

“Ta-Nehisi Coates always writes with a purpose. . . . These pilgrimages, for him, help ground his powerful writing about race.”—Associated Press

“Coates exhorts readers, including students, parents, educators, and journalists, to challenge conventional narratives that can be used to justify ethnic cleansing or camouflage racist policing. Brilliant and timely.”—Booklist (starred review)

Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set out to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell’s classic “Politics and the English Language,” but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories—our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking—expose and distort our realities.

In the first of the book’s three intertwining essays, Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind. Then he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on his own book’s banning, but also explores the larger backlash to the nation’s recent reckoning with history and the deeply rooted American mythology so visible in that city—a capital of the Confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares. Finally, in the book’s longest section, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground. 

Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.

Book cover for "When the Moon Hatched"

When the Moon Hatched

THE OVERNIGHT VIRAL SENSATION AND #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

PRE-ORDER NOW to get a limited edition with blue-stained edges - available only on the first printing! This deluxe hardcover features metallic and embossed jacket effects and colored endpapers with exclusive character artwork.

The bestselling phenomenon, When the Moon Hatched, is a fast-paced fantasy romance featuring an immersive, vibrant world with mysterious creatures, a unique magic system, and a love that blazes through the ages.

The Creators did not expect their beloved dragons to sail skyward upon their end. To curl into balls just beyond gravity's grip, littering the sky with tombstones. With moons. They certainly did not expect them to FALL.

As an assassin for the rebellion group Fíur du Ath, Raeve's job is to complete orders and never get caught. When a rival bounty hunter turns her world upside down, blood spills, hearts break, and Raeve finds herself imprisoned by the Guild of Nobles--a group of powerful fae who turn her into a political statement.

Crushed by the loss of his great love, Kaan Vaegor took the head of a king and donned his melted crown. Now on a tireless quest to quell the never-ebbing ache in his chest, he is lured by a clue into the capitol's high-security prison where he stumbles upon the imprisoned Raeve ...

Echoes of the past race between them.

There's more to their story than meets the eye, but some truths are too poisonous to swallow.

"A wild ride that thrills as much as it enchants . . . This remarkable book is an instant classic." -- Thea Guanzon, New York Times bestselling author of The Hurricane Wars

"When The Moon Hatched breathes new, beautiful life into the genre, as Sarah A. Parker weaves lyrical prose with undeniable chemistry. I laughed, I cried, I got everything out of this. It's an absolutely stunning fantasy world that everyone should sink their teeth into." -- Raven Kennedy, internationally bestselling author of The Plated Prisoner series