Happy August, Gardeners!
I have a confession: I think that I got my tomatoes out too late because I do not have a single blossom yet! I'll hold on hope. Also, the squirrels stole my baby bok choy! Thank goodness for my flowers -- at least the pollinators are being fed from things I'm growing!
There have been some fantastic book-to-screen adaptations of 2025 so far. From Bong Joon Ho's Mickey 17 (based on the novel Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton) to the newest installment of the Bridget Jones franchise, Mad About the Boy, Hollywood is working overtime to bring some of our favorite novels to life.
Here are some of the most highly anticipated book-to-film adaptations we still have to look forward to in 2025:
Starring Glenn Powell and directed by Edgar Wright, this latest adaptation of Stephen King's 1982 novel is set to release in November.
Set in a distant dystopian future (*ahem* 2025), The Running Man tells the story of Ben Richards as he participates in the reality show The Running Man, in which a contestant can win money by evading hit men sent to kill them.
Originally released as one of King's The Bachman Books, this was also made into a 1987 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Speaking of The Bachman Books, Stephen King's The Long Walk is finally being made into a feature film. This has been a long time coming as they initially green-lit the film in 1988 with George Romero attached to direct!
Set to release in September and starring Mark Hamill, The Long Walk is one of King's lesser-known novels, but truly horrifying.
The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
Freida McFadden's breakthrough novel, The Housemaid, spent 60 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller and 82 weeks on the Amazon Bestseller lists.
Selling over 2 million copies worldwide, this psychological thriller is set to be released in theaters on December 25, 2025. Starring Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney, The Housemaid is not for the faint of heart!
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
The Thursday Murder Club is the introductory book in a fun series about four friends living in a retirement community who get together to investigate unsolved murders.
Coming to Netflix as an original series, the production pulled out all the stops when it came to casting. Starring Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, and Ben Kingsley, the series is sure to be a fun experience!
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Although Frankenstein is not new to screen adaptations, get ready to see a couple different versions in the next two years.
First up, is Guillermo del Toro's version coming to Netflix this fall and starring Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, and Mia Goth. Over a decade in the making, del Toro is fulfilling a lifelong dream in the creation of this movie.
Next year, Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride, will also be released. Set in the 1930s, this alternative take on the novel stars Christian Bale, Penelope Cruz, and Annette Benning.
The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
Based on Ruth Ware's bestselling novel, The Woman in Cabin 10 is set to release on Netflix this fall.
This psychological thriller starring Keira Knightley and Guy Pearce tells the story of a journalist who upon seeing someone go overboard during the night on a luxury cruise is told that she must have imagined it.
With themes of trauma, and gaslighting, this classic whodunnit is a fun ride!
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
2025 feels like the year of dystopian book-to-screen adaptations, and with a rise in our current technology it's easy to see why.
Klara (played by Jenna Ortega) is an Artificial Friend in a world where students are "lifted" for enhanced academic ability, at a cost.
Directed by Taika Waititi, with an all-star cast including Amy Adams, Steve Buscemi, and Natasha Lyonne, this Ishiguro novel is full of haunting prose and the movie is sure to tug at your heart strings.
Regretting You by Colleen Hoover
After last year's release of It Ends With Us, we can expect to see a lot of Colleen Hoover adaptations hitting the big screen.
Regretting You, slated to be released on October 24th, may be one of Hoover's lesser known books, but is sure to garner a lot of publicity.
The story explores themes of first love, loss, mother/daughter relationships and more.
Wicked by Gregory Maguire
Wicked: For Good the second chapter of Wicked (based on the 2002 stage play) will be released on November 21, 2025.
The first part of the film made of $756 million dollars worldwide and received 10 Oscar nominations (and 2 wins).
What are some of your favorite book to movie or tv show adaptations? Any that you're particularly excited about seeing this year?
Here are what the Sandy and Hoodland book clubs have decided to read in August:
Happy July, Gardeners!
I am happy to share that I have additional staff support for the seed library! Rick Camp is a fellow library clerk, and if you have not met him at the library or one of our events, please say hello the next time you are in! Rick joins the Sandy Seed Library team with a fondness for gardening and all things plants. He is helping me reimagine some of the systems we have in place in order to make it more streamlined in getting new seeds out and additional resources available. He will also be contributing to the newsletter when possible!
This year, Riley Berg will be joining the Sandy Library!
Here's a little bit more about Riley:
Name: Riley Berg
Age: 17
School/Year: Junior (Soon to be a senior next school year!)
Favorite Subject in School: I love my history and English classes because of the teachers, but I have a soft spot for science.
School Extracurriculars: I act in the fall play and spring musicals, I am in the symphonic choir, Green Club, Aquanauts (a club dedicated to oceanic exploration/conservation), I write for the Pioneer Press at Sandy High, and am also a member of NHS!
What inspired you to intern at the library: I've always loved libraries, and spent so much time in them as a child. In grade school, I opted to stay in most recesses and help the librarians, earning the title of a library helper. In my recent years, the Sandy Library has always been a place I've felt welcomed and I wanted to be able to extend that towards others by interning here.
What are you most excited about in your internship: I am very excited to see how the programs/activities I am able to create are able to come to fruition. I am currently workshopping an event based on the life cycle of a salmon which would explore keystone species and the unique traits salmon have!!
What is your favorite book: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, it's the perfect length book to bring along for a short trip, I've read it at least thrice.
What is your favorite book series: My favorite book series is the Alice Oseman books, which are Solitaire, Radio Silence, Loveless, and I Was Born for This. While they were not technically published as a series they all follow stories set within the same world and characters. I love her writing style and the realistic ways she depicts characters.
If you could see any book or series made into a tv/movie what would it be and why: I would love to see the book The Secret History by Donna Tartt made into a movie. It would make the most beautiful mystery on screen!
Favorite literary hero/heroine: Despite how cliché it may be I've always loved Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series.
What's next for you after high school: I am planning to attend Oregon State University and study nuclear engineering! Although I am partial to biology and environmental sciences, therefore my focus of study may change.
Thanks Riley and welcome to the team! We can't wait to see all that you do!
Annually on June 19th we recognize Juneteenth. Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery, when on June 19, 1865, Major General Gordan Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War.
Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021, although it has been celebrated by many communities including Galveston, TX since 1866. In 1872, Emancipation Park in Houston was created to host annual Juneteenth celebrations. Texas would later become the first state to recognize Juneteenth as an official holiday in 1980, with several other states following suit.
Want to learn more about Juneteenth and it's history, here are some of the books available in the LINCC system all about Juneteenth.
"Mazie is ready to celebrate liberty. She is ready to celebrate freedom. She is ready to celebrate a great day in American history. The day her ancestors were no longer slaves. Mazie remembers the struggles and the triumph, as she gets ready to celebrate Juneteenth"
"In 1865, members of a family start their day as slaves, working in a Texas cotton field, and end it celebrating their freedom on what came to be known as Juneteenth."
"This book is an ode to the history of the Black community in the United States, a tribute to Black joy, and a portrait of familial love"--
A girl contemplates what Juneteenth means to her, her family, and her community."
"Fourteen-year-old Luli and her family face tragedy after failing to tell their slaves that President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made them free."
"The story of a black man who passes for white and becomes a race-baiting U.S. senator. When he is shot on the Senate floor, the first visitor in hospital is a black musician-turned-preacher who raised him. As the two men talk, their respective stories come out"
"Fleeing his violent master at the side of abolitionist John Brown at the height of the slavery debate in mid-nineteenth-century Kansas Territory, Henry pretends to be a girl to hide his identity throughout the raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859."
"Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned across the years to save him. After this first summons, Dana is drawn back, again and again, to the plantation to protect Rufus and ensure that he will grow to manhood and father the daughter who will become Dana's ancestor. Yet each time Dana's sojourns become longer and more dangerous, until it is uncertain whether or not her life will end, long before it has even begun."
"It is staggering that there is no date commemorating the end of slavery in the United States." -Annette Gordon-Reed. The essential, sweeping story of Juneteenth's integral importance to American history, as told by a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Texas native. Interweaving American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed, the descendant of enslaved people brought to Texas in the 1850s, recounts the origins of Juneteenth and explores the legacies of the holiday that remain with us. From the earliest presence of black people in Texas-in the 1500s, well before enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown-to the day in Galveston on June 19, 1865, when General Gordon Granger announced the end of slavery, Gordon-Reed's insightful and inspiring essays present the saga of a "frontier" peopled by Native Americans, Anglos, Tejanos, and Blacks that became a slaveholder's republic. Reworking the "Alamo" framework, Gordon-Reed shows that the slave-and race-based economy not only defined this fractious era of Texas independence, but precipitated the Mexican-American War and the resulting Civil War. A commemoration of Juneteenth and the fraught legacies of slavery that still persist, On Juneteenth is stark reminder that the fight for equality is ongoing"
"Juneteenth has been touted as a national day celebrating the end of slavery. Observances from coast to coast have turned this event into part of the national conversation about race, slavery, and how Americans understand, acknowledge, and explain what has been called the national 'original sin.' But, why Juneteenth? Where did this celebration--which promises to become a national holiday--come from? What is the origin story? What are the facts, and legends, around this important day in the nation's history? This is the first scholarly book to delve into the history behind Juneteenth. Using decades of research in archives around the nation, this book helps separate myth from reality and tells the story behind the celebration in a way that provides new understanding and appreciation for the event."
"The very first cookbook to celebrate Juneteenth, from food writer and cookbook author Nicole A. Taylor--who draws on her decade of experiences observing the holiday"--Amazon.
On June 19, 1865, more than two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, General Order No. 3 informed the people of Texas that all enslaved people were now free. In 1866, Juneteenth celebrations were celebrated with music, dance, and BBQs. Taylor bridges the traditional African American table and twenty-first century flavors with stories and recipes that will inspire parties to salute the holiday, or to help you create moments to savor joy all year round."
Here are what the Sandy and Hoodland book clubs have decided to read in July:
Happy June, Gardeners!
Summer is just around the corner and I am itching to get my seed starts outside. But I think I will just appreciate the time I have to do some general garden maintenance before all my time is taken up with my new plants.
If you're an avid Libby user, you may have noticed a new feature!
Libby now features Lucky Day titles!
Lucky Day titles are the hottest new books available, and no holds are allowed, so if you're lucky enough, one of those titles on your wish list will be available when you're looking for a new read!
You'll recognize these Lucky Day titles by the shamrock!
Here are what the Sandy and Hoodland book clubs have decided to read in June
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Happy May, Gardeners!
Some of you may remember my call for landscaping volunteers over a year ago. We got a core group together, and in the fall of 2023 we created the lofty goal of removing plants that raised pedestrian and traffic safety concerns due to limiting visibility, and we decided we should replace some plants with pollinator-friendly natives to help us with our Bee City, USA initiative. We applied for a grant from the Xerces Society in the spring of 2024 and were awarded a wildflower and grassland kit. Our lead volunteer, Tom Ibsen, created a landscaping design and planted all 100 plants! The plants are still young, but they are strong and healthy. If you would like to see what a pollinator-friendly native garden bed design looks like, stop by the southeast corner of the library (the back corner on Shelley Ave).
If you are interested in joining the efforts to keep our newly planted beds weed-free, please let me know!
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