The library book drop is located on the curb just west of the Palestine Mall’s main entrance. It is intended for returning borrowed items when the library is closed.
Welcome to the Palestine Public Library. We offer access to ideas, information, and experiences through a variety of materials to enrich the lives of residents of Palestine and Anderson County, Texas. Our collection includes high-interest magazines, newspapers, books, audiobooks, DVDs, a Spanish collection, and a Special Collections room with rare books on genealogy and local history. Patrons can also visit our Digital Branch to check out digital eBooks and audiobooks.
We offer a story time for children ages 3 - 5 during the school year and Summer Reading Club is available for all ages during the summer. Onsite information services include computer access for all ages, copy, printing, fax and scanning services, and free Wi-Fi connection. Other free online resources include Texshare Databases, E-Sequels and Ancestry Library Edition, and our online library catalog. Visit us onsite and online and find something for everyone.
Holy Ghost
by John Sandford
Library Journal (c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. 9780735217324 Wendall Holland, the mayor of Wheatfield, MN, a dying small town of about 650, and his street-smart 17-year-old friend Skinner have a brilliant idea. If the Virgin Mary appears at the local Catholic Church, it will draw crowds and money to the area. The scheme works exquisitely until a tourist is shot by a sniper. After the second shooting, the mayor calls the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and Virgil Flowers is assigned the case. Virgil assumes he can easily apprehend the sniper, but that's not the case in a small community where everyone has a gun. Then a local resident is targeted and Virgil finds a body. This fast-paced novel never lets up, in violence, police investigation, or wisecracks from Virgil and his fellow officers. The suspense will draw in readers initially, but the well-developed characters, especially Holland and Skinner, along with the irreverent agents and officers, will keep readers hanging on for the dark humor and banter. VERDICT Sandford follows the nonstop action of Deep Freeze with another satisfying case for the likable Flowers. [See Prepub Alert, 4/23/18.]-Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved 9780735217324 In bestseller Sandford's wickedly enjoyable 11th outing for Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agent Virgil Flowers (after 2017's Deep Freeze), Wardell Holland, the maverick mayor of Wheatfield (pop. 650), and his 17-year-old sidekick, John Jacob Skinner, decide the town needs an economic boost, so they contrive for the Virgin Mary to appear at St. Mary's Catholic Church, with one of Skinner's many sexual conquests, Jennie Fischer, in the Mary role. The Marian Apparition succeeds in bringing flocks of tourists to Wheatfield. Then sniper-like shootings that wound two citizens threaten the bonanza. Flowers's subsequent investigation turns up suspects ranging from a few would-be Nazis to a farmer/gun range owner and Jennie's porn-loving boyfriend. When the shootings turn deadly, Flowers gets help, which he badly needs as he comes to realize that he must outwit a clever killer who proves one of his maxims: "If it's criminal, it's either stupid or crazy." Sandford's trademark sly humor shines throughout. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Book list From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission. 9780735217324 *Starred Review* The prolific Sandford has produced 28 Lucas Davenport thrillers since 1989, many of which were best-sellers, as well as the Virgil Flowers novels, of which this is the eleventh (after Deep Freeze, 2017). And, holy smoke, Holy Ghost is a hot one! Something is cooking in Pinion, Minnesota. Not just the bad cheeseburgers and fries at Mom's Cafe, the only restaurant in the small town of 700 souls, or the sad chicken pot pies available at Skinner & Holland Eats and Souvenirs. But what is really on fire is the town's once-crumbling economy. A floating apparition of the Virgin Mary has appeared in the local Catholic church, attracting thousands of pilgrims. When the miracle is eclipsed by random sniper shootings and murders, Flowers is at wit's end trying to figure out what's going on. He gets lots of help from his usual posse, as well as some of the locals, who are so well described that the reader could easily pick them out of a lineup. The dialogue is sometimes biting and always witty, and the entire book is at once wicked and sublime. This would be perfect for fans anxiously awaiting the next Carl Hiaasen. They will be delighted to learn the distinctions between Cheeto and Cheez-It residues. But no palm trees; just lots of good corn acreage. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Sandford is a bona fide A-lister, and every new novel, whether starring Lucas Davenport or Virgil Flowers, is sure to generate public-library demand.--Jane Murphy Copyright 2018 Booklist
Gold
by Chris Cleave
Publishers Weekly (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved 9781451672725 Cleave (Little Bee) goes for the gold and brings it home in his thrillingly written and emotionally rewarding novel about the world of professional cycling. Zoe Castle and Kate Meadows met at age 19 trying out for the British Cycling Team and have been friends and rivals for 13 years now. Kate might have more natural ability, but Zoe is the more driven of the two. Kate is married to a fellow racer, Jack Argall, and they have an eight-year-old daughter, Sophie, who suffers from leukemia. Zoe is pursued by her own demons and has a tabloid reputation for sleeping around, which doesn't sit well with her agent. Things begin to heat up when the International Olympic Committee changes its rules so that only one cyclist, either Zoe or Kate, will be eligible to compete in the 2012 London Games. Cleave expertly cycles through the characters' tangled past and present, charting their ever-shifting dynamic as ultra-competitive Zoe and Kate are forced to decide whether winning means more to them than friendship, building to a winner-take-all race at the Manchester Velodrome. Cleave likewise pulls out all the stops getting inside the hearts and minds of his engagingly complex characters. The race scenes have true visceral intensity, leaving the reader feeling as breathless as a cyclist. From start to finish, this is a truly Olympic-level literary achievement. Agent: Jennifer Joel, ICM. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Book list From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission. 9781451672725 *Starred Review* Readers galvanized by best-selling Cleave's previous politically scorching novels (Little Bee, 2009) will be surprised by his foray into the world of Olympic bicycle racing until they discern just how psychologically gripping a tale this is of the soul-warping effects of fierce competition. Coach Tom is hobbled with bad knees and haunted by painful regrets. Wry and wise, he focuses his energy and expertise on two champions he adores, who are inextricably yoked in a complicated and potentially disastrous rivalry: model-gorgeous, self-destructive Zoe and good, honest, giving Kate. Sexy celebrity and sponsorship-magnet Zoe racks up medals with a lethal combination of head games and physical perfection while harboring secret grief and guilt. Wife and mother Kate's kindness is the source of both her weakness and her power. Cocky, gold-winning cyclist Jack has been involved with both women, but it is Kate he always loved and eventually married, and now their training regimes are thrown into chaos as they worry over and care for their young, valiant, and smart Star Wars-obsessed daughter, Sophie, who is battling leukemia. Spanning the Athens, Beijing, and looming London 2012 Olympics, Cleave's brilliantly plotted, nail-biting, and emotional tale dramatizes the triumphs and anguish of ambition and sacrifice, fame and heartbreak to celebrate the true gold of love.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal (c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. 9781451672725 Timed to publish with the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Cleave's latest novel demonstrates the determination of three extraordinary athletes in a story about true sacrifice. Kate and Jack Argall are Olympic-level cyclists from Manchester, England, gearing up for the 2012 Olympic Games. Kate and her close friend Zoe Castle share a coach, Tom Voss, who had a shot at the gold in cycling in the 1968 Olympics but lost by one-tenth of a second. Now in his sixties, with bad knees and false teeth, he knows London is their last Olympics. However, Kate and Jack have the added responsibility of caring for their eight-year-old daughter, Sophie, who was diagnosed with leukemia four years before when they were all competing in the Beijing games. Sophie, now bald and frail, but with championship grit, blocks out her illness by imagining herself a part of Star Wars scenarios. The life of these three committed athletes is so intertwined, so complex, that the outcome is sure to be a surprise. VERDICT Close on the heels of his international best seller Little Bee, British author Cleave has written another story so riveting that it is impossible to put down. [See Prepub Alert, 1/21/12.]-Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Grand Junction, CO (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
by Cheryl Strayed
Publishers Weekly (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved 9780307592736 In the summer of 1995, at age 26 and feeling at the end of her rope emotionally, Strayed resolved to hike solo the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2,663-mile wilderness route stretching from the Mexican border to the Canadian and traversing nine mountain ranges and three states. In this detailed, in-the-moment re-enactment, she delineates the travails and triumphs of those three grueling months. Living in Minneapolis, on the verge of divorcing her husband, Strayed was still reeling from the sudden death four years before of her mother from cancer; the ensuing years formed an erratic, confused time "like a crackling Fourth of July sparkler." Hiking the trail helped decide what direction her life would take, even though she had never seriously hiked or carried a pack before. Starting from Mojave, Calif., hauling a pack she called the Monster because it was so huge and heavy, she had to perform a dead lift to stand, and then could barely make a mile an hour. Eventually she began to experience "a kind of strange, abstract, retrospective fun," meeting the few other hikers along the way, all male; jettisoning some of the weight from her pack and burning books she had read; and encountering all manner of creature and acts of nature from rock slides to snow. Her account forms a charming, intrepid trial by fire, as she emerges from the ordeal bruised but not beaten, changed, a lone survivor. Agent: Janet Silver, Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Agency. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Book list From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission. 9780307592736 Echoing the ever-popular search for wilderness salvation by Chris McCandless (Back to the Wild, 2011) and every other modern-day disciple of Thoreau, Strayed tells the story of her emotional devastation after the death of her mother and the weeks she spent hiking the 1,100-mile Pacific Crest Trail. As her family, marriage, and sanity go to pieces, Strayed drifts into spontaneous encounters with other men, to the consternation of her confused husband, and eventually hits rock bottom while shooting up heroin with a new boyfriend. Convinced that nothing else can save her, she latches onto the unlikely idea of a long solo hike. Woefully unprepared (she fails to read about the trail, buy boots that fit, or pack practically), she relies on the kindness and assistance of those she meets along the way, much as McCandless did. Clinging to the books she lugs along Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Adrienne Rich Strayed labors along the demanding trail, documenting her bruises, blisters, and greater troubles. Hiker wannabes will likely be inspired. Experienced backpackers will roll their eyes. But this chronicle, perfect for book clubs, is certain to spark lively conversation.--Mondor, Colleen Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal (c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. 9780307592736 Strayed delves into memoir after her fiction debut, Torch. She here recounts her experience hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) in 1995 after her mother's death and her own subsequent divorce. Designated a National Scenic Trail in 1968 but not completed until 1993, the PCT runs from Mexico to Canada, and Strayed hiked sections of it two summers after it was officially declared finished. She takes readers with her on the trail, and the transformation she experiences on its course is significant: she goes from feeling out of her element with a too-big backpack and too-small boots to finding a sense of home in the wilderness and with the allies she meets along the way. Readers will appreciate her vivid descriptions of the natural wonders near the PCT, particularly Mount Hood, Crater Lake, and the Sierras-what John Muir proclaimed the "Range of Light." VERDICT This book is less about the PCT and more about Strayed's own personal journey, which makes the story's scope a bit unclear. However, fans of her novel will likely enjoy this new book. [See Prepub Alert, 10/1/11.]-Karen McCoy, Northern Arizona Univ. Lib., Flagstaff (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
- Automated Due Date Reminder Call
An automated phone call system now calls to remind patrons the day before items are due. We hope this automated reminder will help patrons avoid late fees.
- Fine Balance Policy
The maximum fine threshold is $5.00. Once the fine threshold has been exceeded, patrons must pay their account in full to restore borrowing privileges. - Storytime 10 a.m. Check our Calendar for Dates
Join Ms. Theresa every other Wednesday for storytime for ages 3-5. Check our calendar for future dates and special storytime events.
- Closing Policy
The library doors will be locked and no patrons admitted 10 minutes prior to the posted closing time.
- Library Book Drop
- Friends of the Library Donations
The Friends of the Library accept donations the 2nd & 4th Saturday of each month from 12-2 pm in the Friends' Book Room in the mall concourse. Exceptions would be in the case of holidays. Please check our online calendar.
- Friends of the Library Book Sale
The Friends of the Library will be hosting their LAST BOOK SALE OF 2018 at the Palestine Mall on Friday, October 12 th from 4 p.m. - 7 p.m. and Saturday, October 13 th from 9:00 a.m. - 3 p.m. - Tai Chi Classes
Join the library’s Tai Chi club practice sessions on Thursdays at 5:30 p.m. & Saturdays at 9:30 am. Tai Chi is a low-impact form of stretch, breathing, and balance exercise for all fitness levels.
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