If you have an ebook reader, you will have already noticed that a new ebook borrowing site has been added for Regina Public Library card holders:
Freading
Read the description of this collection here, including information about the app you'll need

Here are some tips for finding mysteries in Freading:
- Under Categories, chose Mysteries
and also
- Under Categories, chose Fiction, then scroll to the bottom of the page, and browse through the Subcategories (e.g. Crime, Legal, Mystery & Detective, Suspense, Thrillers)

Overdrive (library2go) is still available.

You can now have more ebooks checked out at the same time (some in Freading and some in library2go). And if you find a book you want in Freading, it is always available to be borrowed - no holds.

Questions? Have a look through the Freading FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

posted by Sharon

WHAT I'M READING NOW:
The Keeper of Lost Causes alternate title: Mercy
by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Nordic noir/police procedural

Book # 1 with Carl Mørck, an experienced homicide detective in Department Q, and his assistant Assad, in Copenhagen, Denmark

from the eurocrime review: "MERCY (also published as THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES) is an excellent debut from Denmark, containing all the elements I like best in crime novels. First, there is a fully rounded detective, Carl Mørck, not only disillusioned, traumatised and lazy but who has lived before the first page, both at work and outside it. Second, there is a believable depiction of the police force, including personal interactions between colleagues and plenty of bureaucracy and politics, infused throughout with black humour. Third, there's a good plot - Mørck is insubordinate and has constantly annoyed his superiors, but cannot be sacked as he's served for many years and has recently been seriously wounded in the course of duty. Therefore he is hived off to set up and run a cold-case department (Q), code for sticking him in the basement and forgetting about him while the mainstream force spends Q's assigned budget on its own investigations. The "cold case" theme has provided a fruitful line for other fictional detectives, and looks set to do the same for Mørck. ..." read more

RPL Book Sale this Saturday!

The RPL Book Sale is coming up this Saturday, October 27 at the George Bothwell Branch
in the Southland Mall

(Hours: 10 am to 4 pm)

Hardcovers $1
Paperbacks 50 cents
Spoken Word $1
DVDs/CDs $1

No taxes, GST exempt
Save even more when you fill up an RPL bag for $10.

For more details, visit ReginaLibrary.ca
or call 777-6000

Payment by cash only.

If you scan the Popular Picks racks at RPL for mysteries, here's good news:
the loan period is now 10 days.

The Popular Picks rules:
no holds, no renewals, limit of 5 items, $2 a day overdue fine

The current list of Popular Picks books
includes:

The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny

Bones are Forever by Kathy Reichs

Broken Harbour by Tana French

A Wanted Man by Lee Child

(I'm including the library online catalogue links to these books in case you would rather put the circulating copies on hold)

posted by Sharon

WHAT I'M READING NOW:
Let the Devil Sleep
by John Verdon

Investigator

# 3 with Dave Gurney, a recently retired 40-something NYPD homicide detective with a reputation for catching serial killers, in rural upstate New York

Consulting with a young documentary producer only to suffer a bizarre series of accidents shortly afterward, decorated NYPD detective Dave Gurney discovers links to a serial killer cold case that pits him against the nation's top law enforcement experts.

First book: Think of a Number

For the past few weeks, this blog has been attacked daily by spammers. I'm temporarily disabling the Comment feature of the blog and hopefully they will go away. I'll post another notice when I reactive the Comment feature.

posted by Sharon

WHAT I'M READING NOW:
Gone
by Mo Hayder

British police procedural

Book # 5 with Jack Caffery, a troubled police detective now working in the West Country, England.

Description: Investigating a serial carjacker whose actual targets are young children in back seats, Jack Caffery teams up once again with police diver Sergeant Flea Marley, whose life is endangered by a discovery in an abandoned, half-submerged tunnel.

First book: Birdman

The theme for this year's Saskatchewan Library Week is "Libraries=Possibilities"
October 18 - 25

It's time to read library-themed mysteries.

* * * * *
Find mysteries with a library theme by typing mystery fiction libraries into the SILS Classic catalogue (typing mystery fiction librarians also comes up with some good books). I couldn't find a way to knock the children's books out of this list, so I just ignored them and sorted the list by "most recent".

Here's a selection of the books these searches picked up:

Index to Murder by Jo Dereske
Book # 11 with librarian Miss Zukas

Summary: When two of Ruth Winthrop's paintings are stolen, artworks depicting a former lover who died mysteriously, Ruth calls in her best friend, dedicated librarian-turned-amateur sleuth Helma Zukas, to uncover the truth about both the theft and her late lover. NoveList
First book: Miss Zukas and the Library Murders

The Delegates' Choice /alternate title: The Book Stops Here by Ian Sansom
Book # 3 in the Mobile Library series

When mobile librarian Israel Armstrong's library-on-wheels is stolen at an annual library convention in London, he sets out with his irascible companion Ted Carson to find it. Their search leads them to a suspicious convoy of New Age travelers.
First books:
The Case of the Missing Books
Mr. Dixon Disappears

The Maltese Manuscript by Joanne Dobson
Book # 5 with Professor Karen Pelletier

At Enfield College Professor Karen Pelletier hides a visiting author, Sunnye Hardcastle, when invaluable texts are stolen from the library, igniting an investigation headed by her policeman lover.
First book: Quieter Than Sleep

The theme for this year's Saskatchewan Library Week is "Libraries=Possibilities"
October 18 - 25

It's time to read library-themed mysteries.

* * * * *
Browsing through the Murder by the Book reading list Bibliomysteries (mysteries about libraries, booksellers, and authors), the following book looks intriguing:

The Grand Complication by Allen Kurzweil (2001)
Summary: Confronted by both professional and personal crises, reference librarian Alexander Short gains a new lease on life when he meets Henry James Jesson III, who hires him for some research into an enigmatic eighteenth-century inventor. NoveList

Here's what the Booklist review had to say:
In a kind of sequel to Kurzweil’s first novel, A Case of Curiosities (1991), Alexander Short, NYPL reference librarian, comes to the aid of a bibliophile named Henry James Jesson, who is searching for information about an eighteenth-century cabinet (the “case of curiosities”) whose contents tell the tale of a man’s life. Short’s job is to determine what objects once occupied one of the cabinet’s cubbyholes. No small task, but just right for this world-class reference librarian . . . . As Short is forced to confront the most challenging of reference questions (Who am I?), Kurzweil revels in the minutiae of librarianship while at the same time offering a thought-provoking, deeply philosophical meditation on the problem of identity. This is a delightfully intricate jewel box of a novel, and it works on multiple levels. Librarians will find the book a riotously funny in-joke (name the last novel in which the phrase “presort the reshelves” appeared), while connoisseurs of the most sophisticated literary-historical thrillers will lose themselves completely in Kurzweil’s multifaceted world. The charismatic Short immediately joins the protagonists of Martha Cooley’s The Archivist and Ross King’s Ex-Libris on the short list of fiction’s best bibliophile heroes.

Watch for an upcoming post: Read a library-themed mystery during Saskatchewan Library Week, part two

There's nothing like reading a great book in the lazy days of summer, especially when you have a chance to win some great prizes...

Starting June 14, tell us the title of a book you've read and be entered to win $50 Book & Brier gift certificates. Regular draws will take place at all RPL locations throughout the months of July and August. The Grand Prize - an evening at Beer Bros Bakery & Cuisine along with tickets to the Globe Theatre - will be drawn on September 10.

So don't forget to pick up your entry forms from any RPL branch or if you prefer, bookmark this link to enter online.

This contest runs from June 14 to August 31 and is only open to Regina and area residents.

As you may be aware, RPL has moved to a new province wide consortium (One Province One Library Card), which also means a new catalogue.

This new system provides access to MANY more books - everything from the new to the hard to find, as well as to out of print editions, are now only a simple click of the Request button away.

Links for older blog posts will have broken, but we will try to restore as many of them as we can (although our first priority is to ensure that new posts are properly linked to the new catalogue).

Something else you may notice - there is not just one, but two versions of the catalogue:

1) Encore (with a Google-like search bar and interface and Amazon-like layout, including the option to "tag")
Note from Sharon: as far as I can tell, you can access your account, re-new items, check on your holds list, etc. from the Encore catalogue also

and

2) the Classic (the more traditional looking catalogue where you can access your account, re-new items, check on your holds list, etc.)

If you have any questions or concerns about these changes, please do not hesitate to fill out the following online Comments form:
http://www.reginalibrary.ca/contactus.html

Special note from Sharon:
When you are logged in to your patron account, and you want to cancel a hold, DO NOT click on the "Cancel All" button - this will cancel all your holds.
Instead, click in the box to the left of each book title you want to cancel, and then click the box "Save Changes" at the bottom or top of the holds list.

Are you the next McCall, Perry or Christie? Have you started writing your mystery novel but need some professional guidance to get you over your writer's block? Then you might want to consider making an appointment to talk with Regina Public Library's 23rd Writer in Residence, Terry Jordan. Until the end of June 2010, Terry will provide aspiring writers of all genres with the opportunity to receive guidance and advice from an established Canadian author.

Terry Jordan is an award-winning fiction writer, essayist and dramatist whose stage plays have been produced across the country. His book of stories, It’s a Hard Cow, won a Saskatchewan Book Award and was nominated for the Commonwealth Book Prize. His first novel, Beneath That Starry Place, was published internationally and was nominated for two Saskatchewan Book Awards, and the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award. The Globe & Mail called it “an achingly beautiful book.”

The Writer-in-Residence will be available every Tuesday from 11:00 am to 5:30 pm and 6:30 to 8:30 pm.

To discuss a manuscript, call 777-6069 to set up an appointment. Your manuscript should:

* Be typed and double-spaced on white 8-1/2 x 11” paper.
* Include your name, address and telephone number on the cover sheet.
* Include a short paragraph on your experience as a writer, and any training or publications to your credit.
* Include your last name and page number on each page. (e.g. Smith - Page 3).
* Maximum length: 15 pages, or one chapter of a novel, or up to 6 poems.
* Limit of one manuscript per person.

Note: Please send only a copy and retain your original manuscript.

The Writer-in-Residence office is located at Central Library, 2311- 12th Avenue, second floor, in the southwest corner beside the Learning Centre.