July 20, 2020
Featured in this week's Book Talk Bakersfield:
  • Join Kern County Library staff members, Fahra and Jasmin, with Matt Constantine, Director of the Kern County Department of Public Health to talk about what we're reading and watching, the importance of reading for public health, pandemic reads, and information about the Library's curbside services.
  • Watch this week's episode on the Beale Memorial Library Facebook page. 
Matt Constantine 
Kern County Public Health
Fahra Daredia
Beale Memorial Library
Jasmin LoBasso
Kern County Library
Matt is reading...

11/22/63
by Stephen King

Receiving a horrific essay from a GED student with a traumatic past, high-school English teacher Jake Epping is enlisted by a friend to travel back in time to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy, a mission for which he must reacclimate to 1960s culture and befriend troubled loner Lee Harvey Oswald.
 
Also available in eBook & eAudiobook on OverDrive
The Summer House
by James Patterson

Investigating four Army Rangers who have been implicated in the destruction of a luxurious summer lake resort, Army Major and former NYPD cop Jeremiah Cook is stonewalled by local law enforcement and dangerous secrets. 
 
Also available in eBook & eAudiobook on OverDrive
 
Also available in eBook on CloudLibrary
Pandemic Reads
 
Fever, 1793
by Laurie Halse Anderson

In 1793 Philadelphia, sixteen-year-old Matilda Cook,
separated from her sick mother, learns about perseverance
and self-reliance when she is forced to cope with the horrors
of a yellow fever epidemic.
 
Also available in eAudiobook on OverDrive
 
Also available in eAudiobook on Hoopla
Find Me
by Laura Van den Berg

A dystopian future in which a mysterious, fatal disease is
wiping out people's memories. The narrator, Joy, is immune and finds herself in a hospital in Kansas, where doctors think she'd make an excellent guinea pig for the cure.
The Old Drift: A Novel
by Namwali Serpell

Three generations of a cursed family traverse from India and Italy to England and ultimately a fantastical Zambia of the
near future, where an interstitial Greek chorus of mosquitoes traces their vibrant human experiences as children, parents
and grandparents.
 
Also available in eBook on OverDrive

Fahra is reading...
 
Lois Lane and The Friendship Challenge
by Grace Ellis

Lois Lane and her friend Kristen want to promote their friendship video channel at the big neighborhood barbecue
and bike race but when the fireworks go missing and a new
girl takes up all of Kristen's attention, Lois tries to face her challenges and still celebrate the summer.
Agnes At The End of The World
by Kelly McWilliams

Dutifully embracing her faith while tirelessly caring for her younger siblings, including one who needs forbidden insulin
to survive, a teen who is unaware that she lives within a strict cult meets an Outsider boy and begins to question what is and is not a sin. 
 
Also available in eBook on CloudLibrary
Jasmin is reading...

Llama Unleashes the Alpacalypse
by Jonathan Stutzman
 
Llama's back and ready to destroy the world AGAIN...this
time with his best camelid, Alpaca!
 
Also available in eAudiobook on Hoopla
Alone Together : Love, Grief, and Comfort During the Time of Covid-19
by Jennifer Haupt

A collection of essays, poems, and interviews to serve as a lifeline for negotiating how to connect and thrive during this stressful time of isolation as well as a historical perspective
that will remain relevant for years to come.
 
Book to be released in September, 2020. 
Even More Titles We Talk About
    Books
    A Parcel of Patterns by Jill Paton Walsh
    Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
    Beauty Mark : A Verse Novel of Marilyn Monroe by Carole Weatherford
    Before We Were Yours : A Novel by Lisa Wingate
    Love in The Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
    The Bitter Kingdom by Rae Carson
    The Stand: A Novel by Stephen King
    The Tea Dragon Tapestry by Katie O'Neill
    Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and The Opening of the American West by Stephen E. Ambrose
    We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor
    We're Not From Here by Geoff Rodkey 
     
    Shows
    Alone on The History Channel
    Down to Earth with Zac Efron on Netflix  
    The Baby-Sitters Club on Netflix 

    Movies
    Guns Akimbo on Amazon Prime