HollowFest at the Cumming Library

If you're looking for a hauntingly good time, then the Cumming Library is just the place for you! Join us for HollowFest, an adult program series all about Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Don't worry - we won't have headless phantoms roaming about (unless you count a paper horseman), but we will have an abundance of creepy stories and crafts.

Friends of the Library Book Recommendations: Historical Fiction with Social Commentary

One Sunday morning while enjoying a warm cup of tea, I beamed over the variety of books that I devoured this spring and summer. The following books stood out to me as part historical fiction and part social commentary about how words shape and define the way the world views women. 

The Dictionary of Lost Words
by Pip Williams

If you have ever owned a physical dictionary you will be in awe of the behind the scenes view this book offers on what went into the process of publishing the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Set in the late 1800s, the story unfolds the coming of age journey of Esme, who is motherless and grows up with a lexicographer father surrounded by words and dictionary men. As she spends time in the Oxford shed, she realizes that not all of the public word submissions are considered and recorded by the team - especially ones based on the experiences of women and common folk. I found myself enjoying the audiobook version as I accompanied Esme in her pursuit of building her own dictionary of such lost words.