eBook of the Week

Rocket Girl by George D. Morgan

Dive into the story of Mary Sherman Morgan, a woman from Ray, North Dakota and her journey helping orchestrate the research which led to astronauts landing on the moon. George D. Morgan’s Rocket Girl follows his mother’s untold story and scientific brilliance, whilst addressing the commonality of suppressing women’s contributions in historically male-dominated fields.

North Dakota’s Oil Patch

Available at the BSC Library.  Check it out!

“A surreal, lyrical work of narrative nonfiction that portrays how the largest domestic oil discovery in half a century transformed a forgotten corner of the American West into a crucible of breakneck capitalism.

“As North Dakota became the nation’s second-largest oil producer, Maya Rao set out in steel-toe boots to join a wave of drifters, dreamers, entrepreneurs, and criminals. With an eye for the dark, absurd, and humorous, Rao fearlessly immersed herself in their world to chronicle this modern-day gold rush, from its heady beginnings to OPEC’s price war against the US oil industry. She rode shotgun with a surfer-turned-truck driver braving toxic fumes and dangerous roads, dined with businessmen disgraced during the financial crisis, and reported on everyone in between – including an ex-con YouTube celebrity, a trophy wife mired in scandal, and a hard-drinking British Ponzi schemer – in a social scene so rife with intrigue that one investor called the oilfield Peyton Place on steroids …”                                                                                                         

Click here to read more about it

 

Happy 128th Birthday, North Dakota!

On November 2, 1889, President Benjamin Harrison signed statehood proclamations for both North Dakota and South Dakota.

Because President Harrison “went to great lengths to obscure the order in which the statehood proclamations were signed, the exact order in which the two states entered is unknown. However, because of alphabetical position, North Dakota is often considered the 39th state.”

Dakota is the Sioux Indian word for “friend”.

Source: NorthDakota.gov, State Facts, “Origin of the Name”

Image source: Britannica ImageQuest; Photo credit: U.S. Geological Survey / Photo Researchers / Universal Images Group

 

 

50 States, 50 Novels

If you don’t have the time or money to visit our 50 nifty states, click on the link for another way to travel:

50 States, 50 Novels: A Literary Tour of the United States 

Be sure to check out the selection for North Dakota!

[Hint: It’s a book by the son of a recently retired librarian.]

The Man Who Bought North Dakota

Ryan Taylor, Democratic candidate for governor, mentioned an article, “The Man Who Bought North Dakota,”  in his acceptance speech at the 2012 North Dakota Dem-NPL State Convention in Grand Forks, March 16-18.  The article’s subtitle is: “How Wildcatter Harold Hamm Became the Biggest Winner in the Biggest American Oil Find Since Prudhoe Bay.”

Interested in reading it?  You can find the full-text article online in our Business Source Premier database, or you can read it in the traditional print format at the BSC Library.

Gruley, Bryan. “THE MAN WHO BOUGHT NORTH DAKOTA.” Bloomberg Businessweek no. 4263 (January 23, 2012): 78-81. Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed March 20, 2012).   

Check it out!

Happy to Be in North Dakota!

I first heard this story on NPR this morning … here’s the full story from The New York Times:

The Happiest States of America: North Dakota on the Rise

Enjoy!