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March 2022 Natchitoches Parish Library Lagniappe
Library Expands Personal Finance Collection
The titles being added to the NPL’s personal finance collection are currently featured on the New Arrivals shelf on the second floor.
The Natchitoches Parish Library (NPL) has expanded its personal finance collections following receipt of a grant from the FINRA Investor Education Foundation (FINRA Foundation). The additional resources will help ensure that residents have the information they need when making critical money decisions. The curated collection features advice on investing, retirement, saving, and budgeting, among a multitude of other wealth-building topics. Many titles have been added, in multiple formats, including print, eBooks, and digital audiobooks. So, no matter your preference, you can ready yourself to make informed financial decisions.
FINRA Foundation President Gerri Walsh noted, “Many of us lack experience with these decisions. Nonetheless, we have to get it right the first time around or face long-term financial consequences. Fortunately, the Library has information that can help.”
The expanded personal finance collections at the Library are fully funded by a grant from the FINRA Foundation. For more than 15 years, the FINRA Foundation has provided funding, staff training and programs to build the capacity of public libraries to address the financial education needs of people nationwide. Much of this has been accomplished in partnership with the American Library Association through a program known as Smart investing@your library®.
To sign up for a library card, you may visit either library location or text LIBRARYCARD to 318-357-3280. Digital library services can be accessed through natlib.org and the Libby and Hoopla apps.
The FINRA Foundation supports innovative research and educational projects that give Americans the knowledge, skills, and tools to make sound financial decisions throughout life. For more information about FINRA Foundation initiatives, visit finrafoundation.org.
New and On Order
Would you like to share your writing with others? Have a poem, story, review, or an excerpt that you have selected from your writings?
Please contact Alan Niette, NPL Community Outreach Coordinator, at alan@natlib.org. We will gladly share your tales with our readers!
"What's Up" This Month?
Joey Matheson
New meteor and solar news…
This may sound strange, but February 14th, Valentine’s Day, a meteor of high velocity came streaking through the Earth’s atmosphere, at a very high rate of speed. This was during the middle of the day, but we are not short on personal testimonies. This happened near northern Arkansas and southern Missouri. Though some witnessed a fireball, others heard a series of sonic booms. The number was reported as high as five in succession. Not only that, but slight earth tremor was also recorded.
Our next bit of news has to do with the Sun Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SoHo) Solar Orbiter’s view of a giant eruption from the surface of the sun, captured close-up. Solar prominences are large structures of tangled magnetic field lines that contain dense concentrations of solar plasma suspended above the sun’s surface. These sometimes take the form of arching loops. They are often associated with coronal mass ejections, which, if directed toward Earth, can wreak havoc on our technology and everyday lives.
Again, all of this took place on February 15th. For more information, visit www.esa.int
-Joey
Digital Hoopla Picks From the Library
Audiobook: The Radium Girls (15h 54m, 2017). By Kate Moore, read by Angela Brazil.
The Dark Story of America's Shining Women. 1917... As a war raged across the world, young American women flocked to work, painting watches, clocks and military dials with a special luminous substance made from radium. It was a fun job, lucrative and glamorous-the girls themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered head to toe in the dust from the paint. They were the radium girls. As the years passed, the women began to suffer from mysterious and crippling illnesses. The very thing that had made them feel alive-their work-was in fact slowly killing them: they had been poisoned by the radium paint. Yet their employers denied all responsibility. And so, in the face of unimaginable suffering-in the face of death-these courageous women refused to accept their fate quietly, and instead became determined to fight for justice. Drawing on previously unpublished sources-including diaries, letters, and court transcripts, as well as original interviews with the women's relatives-The Radium Girls is an intimate narrative account of an unforgettable true story. It is the powerful tale of a group of ordinary women from the Roaring Twenties, who themselves learned how to roar.
Movie: My Week With Marilyn (1h 39m, 2011, R).
In the summer of 1956, 23-year-old Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne of LES MISÉRABLES) joined the set of THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL as an assistant determined to make his way up in the film business. His diary, released 40 years later, documented the tense interactions between Sir Lawrence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh of JACK RYAN, VALKYRIE) and the iconic Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams of BLUE VALENTINE, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN). But a week was missing from that account, and this is the story of that time - an experience Clark will never forget. As he and Marilyn get closer, she begins to shake off the insecurity that plagues her and exposes the many complex layers that have fascinated the world since her rise to fame.
eBook: 18 Tiny Deaths (2020).
By Bruce Goldfarb.
The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics. The story of a woman whose ambition and accomplishments far exceeded the expectations of her time, 18 Tiny Deaths follows the transformation of a young, wealthy socialite into the mother of modern forensics… Frances Glessner Lee, born a socialite to a wealthy and influential Chicago family in the 1870s, was never meant to have a career, let alone one steeped in death and depravity.
Yet she developed a fascination with the investigation of violent crimes, and made it her life's work. Best known for creating the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, a series of dollhouses that appear charming-until you notice the macabre little details: an overturned chair, or a blood-spattered comforter. And then, of course, there are the bodies-splayed out on the floor, draped over chairs-clothed in garments that Lee lovingly knit with sewing pins.
18 Tiny Deaths, by official biographer Bruce Goldfarb, delves into Lee's journey from grandmother without a college degree to leading the scientific investigation of unexpected death out of the dark confines of centuries-old techniques and into the light of the modern day. Lee developed a system that used the Nutshells dioramas to train law enforcement officers to investigate violent crimes, and her methods are still used today.
18 Tiny Deaths transports the reader back in time and tells the story of how one woman, who should never have even been allowed into the classrooms she ended up teaching in, changed the face of science forever.
From the Stacks: Featured Cookbook
641.5975 MCC—Southern on a Shoestring, by Kimberly McCallie.
The only images that some people have of life in the South are the beautifully and richly stylized photographs seen in Southern lifestyle magazines and cookbooks. As a Southerner, I too have been drawn in by the fantasy presented on those pages. But that is exactly what that lifestyle is—a fantasy. The reality is that the majority of people, no matter where they’re from, are working with limited budgets and are simply trying to put a delicious yet affordable meal on the table for their families. With this cookbook, I hope to show readers that the spirit of Southern cooking can be captured regardless of location and without financial sacrifice. For me, the spirit of Southern cooking is defined in two ways: by the ingredients, and by the attitude in which the ingredients are used.
As you read through this cookbook, you will see that I use some of the same ingredients in many recipes. Those are the ingredients that I keep in abundance in my pantry. I create as many recipes with those ingredients as I can and this helps reduce cost.
My goal with this cookbook is to create recipes that use affordable ingredients and are easy to create. Many of these recipes have been requested of me time and time again. May they become a part of your repertoire as well.
Veggie Pasta Skillet (pg.66)
If I had my way, I would cook every meal in a skillet and would include different varieties of sauteed vegetables and pasta. But I also have a family that has to eat, so I don’t always get my way. But when I do, I make a dish like this. Use whatever vegetables you like and have on hand.
Ingredients:
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 lb. asparagus (tough ends removed), cut into bite-sized pieces
1/2 lb. yellow squash, thinly sliced
1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp garlic salt
8 oz. pasta, prepared
Instructions:
In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat.
Add asparagus, squash, and onions, and sauté for 5 minutes.
Add garlic to the skillet and continue cooking vegetables until they reach your preferred tenderness.
Sprinkle in pepper and garlic salt.
Add in the cooked pasta and toss with vegetables until coated with olive oil and seasonings. If the dish seems dry, add more olive oil.
