Join us for next week’s NCompass Live webinar, where you will ‘Meet the NLC’, on Wednesday, January 10 at 10am CT.
To kick off 2024, we will introduce you to the people and departments of the Nebraska Library Commission.
In Part 2, you will meet Christa Porter, Library Development Director; Tessa Terry, Communications Coordinator; Gabe Kramer, Talking Book & Braille Service Director; and Devra Dragos, Technology & Access Services Director.
Upcoming NCompass Live shows:
Jan. 17, 2024 – Auditing Library Websites
Jan. 24, 2024 – Best New Teen Reads of 2023
Jan. 31, 2024 – Pretty Sweet Tech
Feb. 14, 2024 – ConnectEd Nebraska: Bridging the Digital Divide through Innovative eduroam Expansion
Feb. 21, 2024 – Using Creativity to Grow & Develop
To register for an NCompass Live show, or to listen to recordings of past shows, go to the NCompass Live webpage.
NCompass Live is broadcast live every Wednesday from 10am – 11am Central Time. Convert to your time zone on the Official U.S. Time website.
The show is presented online using the GoTo Webinar online meeting service. Before you attend a session, please see the NLC Online Sessions webpage for detailed information about GoTo Webinar, including system requirements, firewall permissions, and equipment requirements for computer speakers and microphones.
There’s nothing like the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918 to put those winter sniffles into perspective. Take your mind off of everything and get lost in a good book. Like this week’s BookFace, “The Orphan Collector: A Novel” by Ellen Marie Wiseman (Kensington, 2020), a historical fiction novel about German immigrants in Philadelphia. This title is available as a Book Club Kit for Nebraska libraries to check out, and also as an ebook and an audiobook in Nebraska OverDrive Libraries.
“Readers will not be able to help making comparisons to the COVID-19 pandemic, and how little has changed since 1918. Wiseman has written a touching tale of loss, survival, and perseverance with some light fantastical elements.”
— Booklist
Book Club Kits Rules for Use
These kits can be checked out by the librarians of Nebraska libraries and media centers.
Circulation times are flexible and will be based upon availability. There is no standard check-out time for book club kits.
Please search the collection to select items you wish to borrow and use the REQUEST THIS KIT icon to borrow items.
Contact the Information Desk at the Library Commission if you have any questions: by phone: 800/307-2665, or by email: Information Services Team
Find this title and many more through Nebraska OverDrive! Libraries participating in the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries Group currently have access to a shared and growing collection of digital downloadable audiobooks and eBooks. 194 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 26,174 audiobooks, 36,611 ebooks, and 5,210 magazines. As an added bonus it includes 130 podcasts that are always available with simultaneous use (SU), as well as SU ebooks and audiobook titles that publishers have made available for a limited time. If you’re a part of it, let your users know about this great title, and if you’re not a member yet, find more information about participating in Nebraska Overdrive Libraries!
Many times, I have selected audio books for their length but this time I selected for the narrator, Meryl Streep. Eleven and a half hours still left me wanting more. When it ended, I wondered, what will I do now? How can I follow that? Meryl’s voice is maternal, comforting, and restorative. Her delivery assures you everything will be all right. Even the author recommends listening to the book rather than reading the text.
The book is told through the voice of Lara, wife to Joe, and mother to 3 grown daughters and that makes it especially wonderful for Meryl to read. Set during the pandemic, all of her girls have returned home to the family orchard in northern Michigan. In the days of weeks of being sequestered, the girls encourage and cajole their mother to tell the stores of her young life when she shared the stage and a romance with a now famous actor, Peter Duke, in a summer stock theater called Tom Lake.
Time travels from the present to the past in the form of Lara recalling her youth mostly for the girls but also through interior thoughts shared only with the reader. For anyone who has lost young love and looks back, this is a familiar theme. Hindsight without nostalgia can bring clarity. Love during different ages of life and appreciating mature love.
This is a novel without drama or angst. One friend who read it agreed with me in calling the novel a warm hug. A bucolic story read to you by Meryl Streep. What are you waiting for?
This week, we have an 1881 New Year’s postcard sent by the A.W. Clarke Grain and Feed of Papillion, Nebraska. The card shows a grain elevator with a locomotive pulling train cars. Original card was printed by the Omaha Litho Co.
This postcard is published and owned by the Sarpy County Historical Museum. Located in Bellevue, Nebraska, the Sarpy County Historical Museum’s mission includes collecting, preserving, and displaying objects and documentary records related to Sarpy County.
The Nebraska Memories archive is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information.
All Nebraska public libraries are members of United for Libraries through the Statewide Group Membership purchased by the Nebraska Library Commission. The Commission provides this membership to ensure that public library staff members, Friends, Trustees, and Foundations can take advantage of United for Libraries’ services to enhance fundraising, advocacy, and public awareness.
United for Libraries: Learning Live – Standards of Excellence for Library Friends and Foundations
January 9, 2024 : 1 p.m. (CST)
“Is your Friends of the Library group and/or library Foundation following nonprofit best practices? Join Amy Coates Madsen, Vice President of Programs at the Maryland Nonprofits and the Director of the Standards for Excellence Institute, who will present on legal, ethical, and other standards for nonprofits. Learn about best practices, how to have a clear mission, board development, public engagement, and more.”
Statewide Group Members receive FREE registration for the live webinars and on-demand access for the duration of the active statewide group membership. These “Learning Live” sessions are recorded and can be accessed through the United for Libraries eLearning course.
This December 25th, we celebrated the birth of the late great legend, Mr. Jimmy Buffett. The Margaritaville singer-songwriter known for his island lifestyle and escapism passed away this last year on September 1st. So, to celebrate a true icon, we are spotlighting one of his many fiction books: A Salty Piece of Land. Which picks up from Buffett’s short story “Take Another Road” featured in the Tales From Margaritaville collection. A Salty Piece of Landeven has its own single to accompany your island-time reading relaxation.
When we meet up with cowboy Tully Mars and his trusty steed, Mr. Twain, as they are on the run from a vindictive poodle ranch owner. The pair hightail it out of the mainland and end up on a shrimp boat headed for the Caribbean. Driftless, and surrounded by the cool, pink sands of Cayo Loco, Tully meets old sea captain Cleopatra Highbourne, who has quite the proposal for him: Fix up the abandoned lighthouse and escape everything he is running from.
“Life is unpredictable, but there is a lot out there to do and see if you just tune in to the radio.”
Jimmy Buffet
Interspersed with beautiful Caribbean vistas and colorful characters, A Salty Piece of Land is as chill as Buffett’s music. The characters Tully encounters are as varied and strange as their names but are just as heartfelt and dear. Sprinkled with Buffett’s knowledge of the sea, navigation, and lighthouses, A Salty Piece of Land is escapist literature at its finest. Adult Book Clubs and Parrotheads will enjoy the familiar vibes of Buffett’s prose and that never-ending chase for freedom, eternal youth, and sunshine.
Fins up!
If you’re interested in requesting A Salty Piece of Land for your book club, you can find the Request Formhere. There are 8 copies available. (A librarian must request items)
Buffet, Jimmy. A Salty Piece of Land. Back Bay Books. 2005.
I started this series by Michael Connelly after watching the first season of the Bosch TV show on Amazon, I was hooked and immediately put the first book in the series, “The Black Echo” (Little, Brown and Company, 1992.) It’s the first in the 24 book series. This series has also inspired the spin offs The Lincoln Lawyer and The Renee Ballard Detective series. I’m currently reading book five, “Trunk Music.”
So if you’re late to the game like I was, let me tell you a little about Harry Bosch. These procedural police novels follow LA homicide detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch as he doggedly pursues cases in Hollywood. A Vietnam vet and a perpetual loner, Harry doesn’t always play well with others, including the top brass. He can’t stand the politics that influence police work, it’s gotten him in trouble and cost him in his profession. But his hard-nosed approach to police work, an innate curiosity, and trusting his gut instincts make him an excellent detective and help him close cases in a department that sometimes has a less than 50% closure rate.
If you like the anticipation of a long series that follows familiar faces through thick and thin, a likable but morally gray protagonist, or a classic detective murder mysteries then this series is for you.
Connelly, Michael. The Black Echo. Little, Brown and Company. 1992.
Join us for the first NCompass Live webinar of 2024, where you will ‘Meet the NLC’, on Wednesday, January 3 at 10am CT.
To kick off 2024, we will introduce you to the people and departments of the Nebraska Library Commission.
In Part 1, you will meet Rod Wagner, Library Commission Director; Vern Buis, Computer Services Director; Lisa Kelly, Information Services Director; and Mary Sauers, Government Information Services Librarian.
Upcoming NCompass Live shows:
Jan. 10, 2024 – Meet the NLC, Part 2
Jan. 17, 2024 – Auditing Library Websites
Jan. 24, 2024 – Best New Teen Reads of 2023
Jan. 31, 2024 – Pretty Sweet Tech
Feb. 14, 2024 – ConnectEd Nebraska: Bridging the Digital Divide through Innovative eduroam Expansion
Feb. 21, 2024 – Using Creativity to Grow & Develop
To register for an NCompass Live show, or to listen to recordings of past shows, go to the NCompass Live webpage.
NCompass Live is broadcast live every Wednesday from 10am – 11am Central Time. Convert to your time zone on the Official U.S. Time website.
The show is presented online using the GoTo Webinar online meeting service. Before you attend a session, please see the NLC Online Sessions webpage for detailed information about GoTo Webinar, including system requirements, firewall permissions, and equipment requirements for computer speakers and microphones.
Happy New Year from the Nebraska Library Commission! In our humble opinion, there’s no better New Year’s resolution than the classic “I want to read more books!” Make sure you get the Libby App downloaded on that brand-new Kindle or iPad you got for Christmas; all you need is a library card to read all the amazing books available on Nebraska OverDrive Libraries. One of those great titles is “My Year of Rest and Relaxation: A Novel” by Ottessa Moshfegh, available as an ebook and audiobook. Here at NLC we like to embark on a new year by setting fresh reading goals or starting a new reading challenge! If you’re trying to read a certain number of books this year, the library is the easiest way to make that happen; don’t forget to check out ebooks and audiobooks from Nebraska OverDrive Libraries.
“One of the most compelling protagonists modern fiction has offered in years: a loopy, quietly furious pillhead whose Ambien ramblings somehow wend their way through sad and funny and strange toward something genuinely profound.”
— Entertainment Weekly
Find this title and many more through Nebraska OverDrive! Libraries participating in the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries Group currently have access to a shared and growing collection of digital downloadable audiobooks and eBooks. 194 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 26,174 audiobooks, 36,611 ebooks, and 5,210 magazines. As an added bonus it includes 130 podcasts that are always available with simultaneous use (SU), as well as SU ebooks and audiobook titles that publishers have made available for a limited time. If you’re a part of it, let your users know about this great title, and if you’re not a member yet, find more information about participating in Nebraska Overdrive Libraries!
Featured in this week’s #throwback is A. C. Hull’s Photograph Gallery. A. C. Hull opened his Fremont studio in 1870 and continued work as a photographer until 1893. He traveled with William Henry Jackson in 1869, capturing scenes of the building of the Union Pacific on photographic glass plates.
This image is owned by the Dodge County Historical Society and is published to Nebraska Memories by Keene Memorial Library in Fremont, Nebraska. Keene Memorial Library and the Dodge County Historical Society worked as partners to digitize and describe content owned by the historical society. The collection of photographs documents life in Fremont in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Local businesses, churches, schools, and private residences are all featured.
The Nebraska Memories archive is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information.
“Take All to Nebraska” by Sophus Keith Winther is now available on cartridge and for download on BARD!
A novel about a Danish family struggling to establish themselves on a rented farm in Nebraska at the turn of the century.
TBBS borrowers can request “Take All to Nebraska”, DBC02009, or download it from the National Library Service BARD (Braille and Audio Reading Download) website. If you have high-speed internet access, you can download books to your smartphone or tablet, or onto a flash drive for use with your player. You may also contact your reader’s advisor to have the book mailed to you on cartridge.
That’s right, you heard it here first, the Tech Kits Through the Mail service has some new tech kits available! Learn all about them on next week’s ‘Pretty Sweet Tech’ NCompass Live webinar, on Wednesday, December 27 at 10am CT.
Special monthly episodes of NCompass Live! Join the NLC’s Technology Innovation Librarian, Amanda Sweet, as she guides us through the world of library-related Pretty Sweet Tech.
For anyone new to the Tech Kits, the Nebraska Library Commission circulates drones, robotics, circuit kits, virtual reality headsets, and more! The kits are designed to introduce communities to the Industry 4.0 technologies that are changing the way we all live, work and interact with one another. Attend this session to:
Learn about the newly added kits.
Explore updated resources & activities.
Learn how the service works.
Explore practical ways Industry 4.0 tech is being used to solve real problems.
I hope to see you there as you follow the tech kit saga! If you’re not in Nebraska, you can still access the supplementary resources, and gather ideas for which tech kits you want in your own library!
Upcoming NCompass Live shows:
Jan. 3, 2024 – Meet the NLC, Part 1
Jan. 10, 2024 – Meet the NLC, Part 2
Jan. 17, 2024 – Auditing Library Websites
Jan. 24, 2024 – Best New Teen Reads of 2023
Jan. 31, 2024 – Pretty Sweet Tech
Feb. 14, 2024 – ConnectEd Nebraska: Bridging the Digital Divide through Innovative eduroam Expansion
Feb. 21, 2024 – Using Creativity to Grow & Develop
To register for an NCompass Live show, or to listen to recordings of past shows, go to the NCompass Live webpage.
NCompass Live is broadcast live every Wednesday from 10am – 11am Central Time. Convert to your time zone on the Official U.S. Time website.
The show is presented online using the GoTo Webinar online meeting service. Before you attend a session, please see the NLC Online Sessions webpage for detailed information about GoTo Webinar, including system requirements, firewall permissions, and equipment requirements for computer speakers and microphones.
We want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays with this week’s #BookFace! And surprise, surprise, books are our preferred way to celebrate the holidays! Reading a fun book all snuggled up on the couch with a hot drink is the perfect tradition, so if your looking for a new book option for the younger readers in your life check out “the Christmassy Cactus” written by Beth Ferry and illustrated by N.A. Kang (HarperCollins, 2023.) This picture book is full of delightful illustrations and a fun story for all ages.
“Little readers will be delighted by the holiday magic …This succulent successfully steals the spotlight from the ever-present evergreens.” —Kirkus Reviews
This title comes from our large collection of children’s and young adult books sent to us as review copies from book publishers. When our Children and Young Adult Library Services Coordinator, Sally Snyder, is done with them, the review copies are available for the Library System Directors to distribute to school and public libraries in their systems.
I don’t remember whether it was the Apple TV+ series or a book that started my interest in Mick Herron’s spy novels. In my view, they are equally good. Bad Actors is the eighth and latest in Herron’s Slough House series. There are also four novellas. Slough House is purgatory for disgraced British MI5 service rejects placed apart from headquarters to serve out their careers. Central to all books in the series is the Slough House cast of colorful characters referred to as the “Slow Horses” – the B-team, if you will. In Bad Actors you will find some of the same characters and new ones as well – flawed as they all are. There is also the usual clash of personalities, backstabbing and insults, along with quick and sharp dialogue.
Mick Herron is kind of, sort of, somewhat, loosely in the company of many good and popular authors from among the espionage genre. Herron’s writing is especially witty and unique. These are intricate spy books that are also full of dark humor.
The Bad Actors narrative evolves from the growing tensions between the UK and Russia and a series of mysterious and supposedly unconnected events. A protest at a London arms fair leads into violence, a high-level politician disappears, and a shady organization known as “The Outfit” emerges to manipulate events from afar. As it happens, dispatched on a sideline task, Jackson Lamb’s “Slow Horses” find themselves in the midst of the chaos – a charade of conspiracy involving the upper echelons of government. Jackson Lamb is the offensive, slovenly leader of this group of misfits. Imagine Jackson Lamb with the well-worn trench coat, loosened necktie, longish unwashed hair, and days of unshaven face. A veteran intelligence officer, Lamb is a secretive, perceptive and shrewd spook. As outcast as they are, and as ill viewed, Jackson’s crew manages to pull it together and come out on top in the end.
The Apple TV+ series enriches Herron’s books, creating interest and adding multitudes of Herron fans.
American Library Association’s Games and Gaming Round TableNational Gaming Survey
To improve relationships between libraries and vendors, gain donations and sponsorships for ALA Play and International Games Day, and grow collaborations with industry partners, the executive board of the Games and Gaming Round Table (GameRT) has created a short survey to collect data related to games in libraries:
This short (10 question) survey will not only help with publisher relationships but will help GameRT understand the evolving nature of games in libraries. If your library does not collect or use games, we still ask that you take the survey to help us gain a better understanding of the field. Contact information will only be used to follow up for clarifications. Non-anonymized data will be kept separate and retained for a maximum of one year.
If you have any questions before or after taking this survey, please contact the GameRT executive board at gamert@ala.org
This week, we have a 1 1/2″ x 1″ color acetate negative featuring a scene from Mitchell’s Bicentennial celebration hosted in 1976.
This image is published and owned by Mitchell Public Library. Local historian Jane Hills Bowman collected pictures and stories about Mitchell’s early years. Her collection includes street scenes from the early 1900s that are some of the earliest images of Mitchell’s business district. The collection also contains photographs of Mitchell’s first public school buildings.
The Nebraska Memories archive is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information.
The FCC Form 471 Application Filing Window for Funding Year 2024 will open on Wednesday, January 17, 2024 at noon EST and close on Wednesday, March 27, 2024 at 11:59:59 EDT. You can read the USAC announcement for full details.
To prepare for the window opening:
If you haven’t already done so, file your FCC Form 470 now! You do not have to wait for the Form 471 window to open.
To file your FCC Form 470, log into the E-Rate Productivity Center (EPC). You must wait 28 days after your FCC Form 470 is posted to the USAC website before you can close your competitive bidding process, select a service provider, sign a contract (if applicable), and submit an FCC Form 471. If you issue an RFP after the FCC Form 470 is posted, you must wait 28 days from the release of the RFP to select a service provider.
Wednesday, February 28, 2024 is the deadline to post your FCC Form 470 to the USAC website or issue an RFP and still complete all of these actions before the window closes.
Update Your EPC Profile During the Administrative Window – Update your EPC profile by January 12, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. EST. Review your EPC profile and confirm all of your information is accurate including your organization’s name, address, and other details. Your profile is currently unlocked and available for you to insert any further updates, but will be locked again before the 471 Filing Window opens. Libraries should confirm their square footage, main branch, and public school district of the main branch information is correct and that any bookmobiles or kiosks are included. View the EPC Administrative Window webinar slides to learn more.
Please contact Christa Porter , Nebraska State E-rate Coordinator for Public Libraries, if you have any questions or need any assistance submitting your E-rate forms.
What is E-rate? How can my library benefit from E-rate? How do I apply for E-rate?
E-rate is a federal program that provides discounts to schools and public libraries on the cost of their Internet Access and Connections to make these services more affordable. This includes Broadband, Fiber, and Wi-Fi Internet access as well as Internal Connections, such as wiring, routers, switches, and other network equipment.
The E-Rate Productivity Center (EPC) is your online portal for all E-rate interactions. With your organizational account you can use EPC to file forms, track your application status, communicate with USAC, and more.
In this workshop, Christa Porter, Nebraska’s State E-rate Coordinator for Public Libraries, will explain the E-rate program and show you how to access and use your account in EPC to submit your Funding Year 2024 E-rate application.
If you have any questions or need any assistance with your E-rate forms, visit the NLC E-rate webpage or please contact Christa Porter, 800-307-2665, 402-471-3107.
It’s hard to feel fully in the holiday spirit when it’s supposed to be 52 degrees and raining on Christmas Day- so to get us in the “Let it Snow” mood, let’s visit a place where the weather is genuinely “frightful”. Standing at the China-Nepal border, at a ridiculous height of 29,031 feet 8 ½ inches, Mount Everest reaches airplane cruising height and skims into the stratosphere. Most of the year, monsoon winds and far below-freezing temperatures blast the peak, and with only about 33% of the oxygen level you’d find at sea level, it sounds like a reasonable place to visit! And one such visitor, journalist and mountaineer Jon Krakauer (author of Into the Wild, and Under the Banner of Heaven), ended up smack dab in one of the definitive tales from Mount Everest. Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster is Krakauer’s first-hand account of the 1996 Mt. Everest Disaster that would claim 8 lives before the night was through, the highest death count in a single day (at the time).
Lauded and controversial, Into Thin Air follows Krakauer as he joins the ill-fated 1996 Everest Expedition on behalf of Outside Magazine. As a journalist, his mission was to report from basecamp on the growing commercialization and traffic on Mount Everest, its toll on the Sherpa people and the environment, and the mountain’s unimaginable death rate. But as a mountaineer, the thrall of the peak was too strong, and he convinced his editor to let him make a push for the top. Joining an expedition team led by veteran climber Rob Hall, Krakauer notes due to the technical ease of the climb and the tireless (and thankless) work from the Sherpa guides, the over-commercialized ascent at times felt more like “paying someone to climb for me.” After summiting, Krakauer is waylaid on his descent, stuck in a traffic jam of climbers as they make their way to the top, far past the regarded safe time slot. As his descent continues, tragedy strikes. Small mistakes add up, while the egotism and greed of the expedition leaders and climbers lead to horrifying ends as a blizzard encapsulates Everest, trapping the enthusiasts and Sherpas in the Death Zone. Remember, reaching the summit is only half the journey.
“There were many, many fine reasons not to go, but attempting to climb Everest is an intrinsically irrational act—a triumph of desire over sensibility. Any person who would seriously consider it is almost by definition beyond the sway of reasoned argument.”
Jon Krakauer
Despite its great expense (anywhere from $30k – $60k) and the very real possibility of death- the mesmerizing top of the world worms its way into the minds of everyone from skilled climbers to middle managers who want a taste of beating the nearly impossible odds. Into Thin Air is breathtaking in that it even exists; very few people from Krakauer’s team survived, and he is lucky to be one of them. I find Mount Everest to be endlessly fascinating, and what is it about the human condition that drives people to climb it not for the sake of discovery or exploration- but for personal gain? Appropriate for Book Club Groups, Adults and Young Adults alike who don’t mind peril, Into Thin Air, and the enormity of Mount Everest can provide endless discussions into ethics and morality. What happens to a marvel of Earth and human achievement when it too falls to overconsumption and exploitation?
Krakauer: I don’t know why this tragedy has grabbed people with such force and won’t let go. Part of it’s the Everest mystique and part of it’s the absurdity and even perversity of people spending this kind of money chasing this kind of goal, throwing prudence and common sense to the wind. But in the final analysis I really don’t get it. I’m a victim and a beneficiary of it all at the same time. Everest has turned my life upside down. Nothing will ever be the same. Why did I end up climbing the mountain on that particular day, with those particular people? Why did I survive while others died? Why has this story become a source of fascination to so many people who ordinarily would have no interest in mountain climbing whatsoever?
…
I guess maybe we should think of Everest not as a mountain, but as the geologic embodiment of myth. And when you try to climb a chunk of myth – as I discovered to my lasting regret- you shouldn’t be too surprised when you wind up with a lot more than you bargained for.
“The dramatic self-documented story of 20 elite Nepali climbers who venture into the ‘Death Zone’ of Mount Everest to restore their sacred mountain and the contaminated water source of 1.3 billion people.” Narrated by Patrick Stewart
If you’re interested in requesting Into Thin Air for your book club, you can find the Request Formhere. There are 17 copies and 1 Large Print available. (A librarian must request items)
Growing in a small town, I had romantic notions of what it might be like be a farm kid. I would grow pumpkins, sweet corn, and strawberries. I could have as many animals as my heart desired, and not be limited by a tiny backyard or city codes. Over time, these longings waned, yet I still find myself curious about people that take that leap and bravely (or sometimes naively) switch up their life completely and follow a big dream. In Hilarie Burton Morgan’s case that meant trading city life for Mischief Farm in upstate New York.
Some of you may know Hilarie Burton Morgan for her acting career. She is best known for roles on One Tree Hill and White Collar. In 2009 she began dating The Walking Dead actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan and they married in 2019. Frankly, and I don’t usually have much interest in celebrity autobiographies unless I’m a fan of their work. I wasn’t familiar with any of Hilarie’s roles, but after recently listening to an interview about her second book, Grimoire Girl, I was intrigued. I found her spirited, smart, and a compelling storyteller. I decided to start with the audio version of her first book, The Rural Diaries, which is narrated by the author.
On the surface The Rural Diaries could seem like the plot of a cheesy Christmas movie, which is fitting since Hilarie has starred in several Christmas movies in recent years. The book tells of the meeting and evolution of her relationship with Jeffrey Dean Morgan, their decision to buy a cabin in upstate New York, and the couple’s love affair with the small town of Rhinebeck. Every leading actor needs a best friend and, in this case, the Morgans became friends with fellow Rhinebeck residents Paul Rudd and his spouse Julie Yaeger. When the owner of a beloved local candy shop passed away, the two couples purchased it. The Morgans also decided to put down real roots in the community and purchased a larger farm property they dubbed Mischief Farm.
The Rural Dairies is more than idealistic candy shops and romanticized rural life. Yes, they do acquire a menagerie of animals and grow a garden as you might expect, but there are other layers to the story. The farm helps Hilarie reconnect to her Virginia roots and she shares a variety of recipes accompanied by stories. The book also delves much deeper into other parts of Hilarie’s life, including the challenges of relationships and becoming a parent. After struggling with infertility and loss, she discovers meaning in acts of service. She finds solace in community and the deep connections built in their beloved small town.
Overall the book is a compelling mix of humor, heart, and heartbreak. I recommend the audio book as Hilarie’s narration adds emotion and layers to her storytelling. You can hear and get a better feel for her Virginia roots that influence her traditions, world view, and ability to tell a good story. I will definitely be giving her second book a read.
Morgan, Hilarie Burton. The Rural Diaries: Love, Livestock and Big Life Lessons Down on Mischief Farm. Harper One, 2020.
