The Collection Connection

The winter solstice approaches. On December 21, we'll experience this year's longest night, shepherding in the frosty, cold months to come. When the weather outside is frightful, gather a cup of hot chocolate, a warm blanket, and some great reads from the State Library! In this issue, check out our new and notable titles in bestseller fiction, employee wellness and workplace topics, and Kentucky books. Also, in this issue: literary dates worthy of attention, database spotlight on Consumer Health Complete, and hygge books celebrating the Danish concept of comfort and contentment.

See something of interest? Click on the hyperlinked title to be taken to the item record in our catalog, sign in, and click Send to My Office. If the item is an eBook or eAudiobook, the link will go to Kentucky Libraries Unbound, our platform for downloadable materials. If you only like general and genre fiction, we have all types of fiction in large print and audiobooks in our collections, as well as plenty of fiction eBooks/audiobooks through Kentucky Libraries Unbound.

Bestsellers

• The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan
• Cher: The Memoir, Part One by Cher
• The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
• God of the Woods by Liz Moore
• James by Percival Everett
• The Wedding People by Alison Espach
• Wicked by Gregory Maguire
• Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson

Employee Wellness & Workplace

Finance/Legal

• Clever Girl Finance: Learn How Investing Works, Grow Your Money by Bola Sokunbi

• Kiplinger's Personal Finance 2025 by Future Publishing Ltd.

Health/Wellness

• Breaking the Pattern: The 5 Principles You Need to Remodel Your Life by Charles Platkin, PhD.

• Eating Disorders Don't Discriminate: Stories of Illness, Hope and Recovery from Diverse Voices edited by Dr. Chukwuemeka Nwuba & Bailey Spinn

• Mayo Clinic on Healthy Aging: How to Find Happiness and Vitality for a Lifetime by Mayo Clinic Press

• Unmasking Male Depression by Archibald D. Hart

• Worthy: How to Believe You Are Enough and Transform Your Life by Jamie Kern Lima

Parenting

• Grown and Flown : How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults by Lisa Heffernan and Mary Dell Harrington

• The New Adolescence : Raising Happy and Successful Teens in an Age of Anxiety and Distraction by Christine Carter, PhD

• Rage Against the Minivan : Learning to Parent Without Perfection by Kristen Howerton

• The Simplest Baby Book in the World : You Got This! : The Illustrated, Grab-and-Do Guide for a Healthy, Happy Baby by Stephen Gross, et. al.

• Raising Empowered Athletes: A Youth Sports Parenting Guide for Raising Happy, Brave, and Resilient Kids by Kirsten Jones

Technology

• Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick

• Cracking the Bro Code by Coleen Carrigan

• The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs by Michael Belfiore

• Talk to Me: How Voice Computing Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Think by James Vlahos

Workplace

• Alphabet Soup : The Essential Guide to LGBTQ2+ Inclusion at Work by Michael Bach

• Cite Right : A Quick Guide to Citation Styles -- MLA, APA, Chicago, the Sciences, Professions, and More by Charles Lipson

• The Friction Project : How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder by Robert I. Sutton & Huggy Rao

• Glue : Transforming Leadership in a Hybrid World by John Dore

• Recalculating : Navigate Your Career Through the Changing World of Work by Lindsey Pollak

Kentucky Highlights in Fiction and Non-Fiction

• 136 Court Street : Where Rivers Meet by Carroll County Writing Group, edited by Ron Whitehead

• Abandoned Kentucky by Sherman Cahal, Adam Paris, Michael Maes

• Dog by Brian David Walker

• Engaging Appalachia : A Guidebook for Building Capacity and Sustainability edited by Rebecca Adkins Fletcher, Rebecca-Eli Long, and William R. Schumann

• The Foxes of Belair : Gallant Fox, Omaha, and the Quest for the Triple Crown by Jennifer S. Kelly

• James Harrod : Founder of Harrodsburg, Kentucky by Bobbi Dawn Rightmyer

• Louisville's Street Railways and How They Shaped the City's Growth by Martin E. Biemer, James B. Calvert, and George H. Yater, with major contributions by Ernest K. Gibson

• New Perspectives on Civil War-Era Kentucky edited by John David Smith

1/4 - Storytellers Stage One Family Theatre, Louisville. This 40-minute storybook program takes children’s favorite books and brings them to life in a way that’s as unique and exciting as the stories themselves. Audiences help tell the story through music, interaction, and LOTS of imagination!

1/26 - Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction. The two medal winners will be announced by the 2025 selection committee. The awards, established in 2012, recognize the best fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the U.S. in the previous year and serve as a guide to help adults select quality reading material.

2/19 - Keeneland Library Lecture Series Presents: Stacy A. Cordery, Keeneland Library, Lexington. Keeneland Library will host Stacy A. Cordery in discussion of her recent release Becoming Elizabeth Arden.

2/28-3/1 - Kentucky Women's Book Festival 2025, University of Louisville. The 19th annual Kentucky Women’s Book Festival will feature authors from a wide variety of genres. There will be opportunities to participate in the festival in-person, virtually, and/or hybrid.

3/4 - Audie Awards - announcement of 2025 winners. The Audies is the premier awards program in the United States recognizing distinction in audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment.

3/17 - Alton Brown signing Food for Thought: Essays and Ruminations, Joseph-Beth Bookstore, Lexington. Alton Brown, the New York Times bestselling cookbook author and beloved culinary food personality discusses his debut collection of personal essays. “Deliciously candid and full of behind-the-scenes stories fans will love, Food for Thought is the ultimate reading experience for anyone who appreciates food and the people that prepare it.”

Consumer Health Complete consists of health and wellness information, from mainstream medicine to the varied perspectives of complementary, holistic, and integrated medicine. It includes electronic searchable versions of many popular print titles such as the AMA Complete Medical Encyclopedia and the Mayo Clinic Family Health Book. In addition, it contains full-text journals, magazines, health reference books and evidence-based health reports. Especially helpful are the many consumer health pamphlets and leaflets from experts such as the CDC, FDA, NIH and others. Parents will find numerous resources on subjects such as smoking and sexting to dealing with anger and coping with divorce. “TeenTalk” articles are aimed at teens, while “How to Talk to Teens” articles provide tips to parents on starting difficult but crucial conversations. To access Consumer Health Complete, click on the Research Databases button below, then click the KYVL icon, click on the Databases option for the drop-down menu, then choose EBSCO, then scroll down to Consumer Health Complete.

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