Welcome to November! How quickly do you trade your jack-o-lanterns and ghosts in for cornucopias and turkeys? Or do you skip right to the twinkle lights and snowflakes?

One holiday you don’t want to miss is celebrating Veterans Day on Nov. 11. All of the Delaware County District Library branches will close on Saturday, Nov. 11, in honor of the service and sacrifice of U.S. military veterans.

Did you know that the Delaware County District Library has an ongoing project called Delaware County Veterans and Heroes? Head to www.delawarelibrary.org/services/veterans to read all about the project, which seeks to gather, preserve, and make accessible the experiences of all county veterans.

Information can be added via a form on the website, which is meant to collect stories, records and photographs of veterans who have a connection to Delaware County. The veterans’ information and stories are accessible online in a digitally searchable collection. If you are, or know someone who is or was a veteran, please share your stories, documents, and photographs with us so we can remember all our local heroes.

The Delaware County District Library offers access to many other services that connect you with veteran history. Fold3 is a website that helps you discover and share stories about your heroes and the families that supported them. With DCDL’s access to Fold3, you can combine records found on the site with what you have in your own albums and shoeboxes to create an online memorial for someone who served.

Ohio Memory is the collaborative statewide digital library program of the Ohio History Connection and the State Library of Ohio. On this free website, you can explore digital content from more than 390 institutions representing all 88 of Ohio’s counties covering a wide range of topics.

For several years, the Delaware County District Library and several other community groups have cooperated with the Community Library in Sunbury to archive local historical records in a project called Delaware County Memory. These records have now been added to the national Digital Public Library of America. The Delaware County Memory collection includes over 300 items, including letters from and to local soldiers in World War I and the Civil War. To find these records, visit https://dp.la/ and then search “Delaware County Ohio History.”

Of course, you’ll want to look up what your community is doing to celebrate veterans in the coming weeks. If you need any help, call your local library and we can assist with your search.

New on the shelves this week are some romance titles. From sweet to spicy, you’ll want to see if these stories should be added to your list to warm up a cool fall day.

• “The Long Game” by Elena Armas. Exiled to rural North Carolina by her father, the owner of the Miami Flames FC, privileged Adalyn Reyes must enlist the help of retired goalkeeper Cameron Caldani to turn around a struggling soccer team…of nine-year-olds. Part Ted Lasso, part Bad News Bears, The Long Game is the 1st in a new series by the author of The Spanish Love Deception.

• “A Shot in the Dark” by Victoria Lee. On her first night back in New York City after a decade away, ex-Orthodox art student Elisheva Cohen has a one-night stand with a handsome trans man who turns out to be her teacher, photographer Wyatt Cole. This “profoundly emotional” (Publishers Weekly) novel of forbidden romance also tackles issues of addiction, faith, and trauma.

• “My Roommate is a Vampire” by Jenna Levine. For the too-good-to-be-true monthly rent of $200, Chicago-based artist Cassie Greenberg is willing to risk getting murdered by her handsome and deeply eccentric Craigslist roommate, Frederick J. Fitzwilliam.

• “Kissing Kosher” by Jean Meltzer. Ethan Lippmann, heir to a kosher baked goods empire, goes undercover at Best Babka in Brooklyn to steal the family-owned bakery’s famous Pumpkin Spiced Babka recipe, but instead falls for general manager Avital Cohen.

• “Curves for Days” by Laura Moher. A lottery win provides cashier Rose Barnes with means, motive, and opportunity for a fresh start, but surly, burly contractor Angus Drummond, whom she hires to build her dream house, is already shaping up to be her worst nightmare. Curves for Days kicks off the Big Love from Galway series.

• “The Secret to a Southern Wedding” by Synithia Williams. Dr. Imani Kemp races home to Peachtree, Georgia, to stop her mother’s wedding to some guy she met on a dating app and meets her match (in every sense of the word) in Cyril Dash, her future stepfather’s son.

If you have a question that you would like to see answered in this column, mail it to Nicole Fowles, Delaware County District Library, 84 E. Winter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call us at 740-362-3861. You can also email your questions by visiting the library’s web site at www.delawarelibrary.org or directly to Nicole at [email protected]. No matter how you contact us, we’re always glad you asked!