October 2021

  • Horror movies to stream this Halloween weekend

    Halloween weekend is upon us! If you’re looking to cozy up with a frightful movie marathon, we’ve got you covered with some streaming scaries – all free to access with your library card, no need to even leave home. (Audience note: most of these films are for adult audiences; please use discretion if watching with… Continue reading

  • MeatEater: Your Link to the Food Chain

    Steven Rinella grew up in Twin Lake, Michigan and learned to hunt and fish at an early age. This love of hunting and the outdoors has now become quite a career as an author, television personality, podcaster, and conservationist. He breaks the stereotype we have of the “American hunter” – when he explores a subject,… Continue reading

  • Fall Into Reading: Beyond Halloween

    The leaves are crunching beneath our boot heels, the sweaters are coming out of the corners of our closets, and cozying up with a book goes along with this season like a warm fire and fuzzy socks! Fall into the season with these reads celebrating all the various festivities the season has to offer! The… Continue reading

  • Let Us Know What You Need – Take the Library’s Levy Priority Survey

    When would you like your local neighborhood library to be open? How did your use of libraries change during the pandemic? Which Library services are most important to you and your community? The Seattle Public Library wants to hear from you. Please take a moment to complete our new Levy Priority Survey. Continue reading

  • Dreamathon: Reimagining Pandemic Life Together

    As we look ahead to fall and winter, what can we learn from communities who have been at the front lines of COVID response about the role of art, culture, creativity and joy? After enduring more than 18 months of a pandemic, what does the world need now? These questions are at the heart of… Continue reading

  • Witchy Reads

    Fiction has been awfully witchy this year, with strong showings across historical fiction, romance, and general fiction. For your reading pleasure, an incomplete list: HISTORICAL FICTION Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen In 1615 Germany, 74-year-old Katharina Kepler is accused of witchcraft, an accusation she shrugs off until it starts to… Continue reading

  • Not Your Mother’s Gone With the Wind

    I just finished reading the horror book When the Reckoning Comes by LaTanya McQueen.  It is a horror novel set in modern times on a plantation that has been refurbished to an amusement park that reenacts Antebellum times through the eyes of white people, but what they don’t know is that it is haunted by… Continue reading

  • The NewHolly Branch Reopens… and That Makes All of Them.

    The Seattle Public Library reached a major milestone this week. On Wednesday, Oct. 18, we reopened our NewHolly Branch, the last remaining Library branch to reopen from the systemwide closure that began March 2020. With the NewHolly Branch once again open to the public, all 27 of our library branches are now serving patrons in… Continue reading

  • Almost 40 Years in Libraries: Meet Interim Chief Librarian Tom Fay

    As you may know, The Seattle Public Library has a high-profile job vacancy right now: Chief Librarian. When Marcellus Turner – who led the Library for almost 10 years of distinguished service – left that role earlier this year to helm Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, The Seattle Public Library’s Board of Trustees initiated a national search… Continue reading

  • The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly World of Germs

    One thing I was not prepared for in this new thing called mom life, was that once you put your kiddo in daycare they will be sick FOREVER! To be fair, I was warned, but I had no idea the endless days of snot, coughing, and laundry would be this intense. As we all battle… Continue reading

  • Horror Comes Home

    Alright, it’s spooky season people! Horror has a long tradition of scary houses and liminal spaces, and this year’s horror novels feature a great slate of haunted properties: from a former plantation in the American South to a condo in Chicago and cabin in Colorado, from an ancestral home in an historic England-like country to… Continue reading

  • Discussing ‘The Vanishing Half’

    Whether you’ve read the Seattle Reads 2021 selection, The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, or it’s in your reading future, take a look at these discussion questions below to enhance your connection to the book. And you’ll also want to take a look at Moira Macdonald’s excellent interview with Brit Bennett in the Seattle Times: Brit Bennett’s… Continue reading

  • New Fiction Roundup – October 2021

    October’s fiction release calendar finds plenty of new horror, from the slightly creepy to the gory; new titles by big names, such as Jonathan Franzen and Amor Towles; a debut from an astronaut; a posthumous release by a master of spy fiction; and much much more. 10/5: The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman In… Continue reading

  • New Nonfiction Roundup – October 2021

    It may be cooling off outside, but the fall publishing season heats up in October with dozens of highly anticipated nonfiction books.Fame: Books by Celebrities. What happens when a former president and rock’s most respected songwriter collaborate? You get Renegades, an intimate conversation between Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen. In The Boys, Ron and Clint… Continue reading