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What
Readers' Advisory staff have
read and
enjoyed |
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Northern
Lights by Nora Roberts
(fiction)
Former Baltimore cop Nate Burke
is now Chief of Police in the small town of
Lunacy, Alaska where locals refer to themselves as
"lunatics." He took this job with the hope it
would help him recover from his recent divorce and
the death of his former partner. He is quickly
attracted to the feisty Meg Galloway, a self-made
Alaskan bush pilot. In late December, when there
is little daylight, all is quiet for Nate's first
few weeks on the job. However, the discovery of a
murdered frozen body in an ice cave shakes up the
quiet town. The body is Meg's father, Patrick
Galloway, who disappeared 16 years earlier. She
and her mother Charlene believed he just took off
and abandoned them. The discovery soon leads to
another death which, at first, appears to be a
suicide, and the supposed suicide note admits to
the killing of Meg's father. But Nate and Meg
don't believe this death was a suicide.
That means
Galloway's killer is one of the town locals and in
a town of only 500, it's hard to investigate and
keep information a secret. Small incidents keep
Nate busy and away from investigating the murders
but when Meg is directly threatened, Nate fears
the killer will continue to cover up the
past.
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The Sea
by
John Banville (fiction)
Max Morden is mourning the
recent death of his wife Anna — and his blighted
life. He returns to the small seaside resort where
he summered as a young boy. Memories of his wife's
illness intertwine with the nostalgia of that
formative summer and his memories of the Grace
family—father, mother and twins Chloe and
Myles—who lived in a nearby villa in the seaside
town. But things are not what they seem. Max's own
complicity in the sad history that unfolds, and
the facts kept hidden from the reader until the
shocking denouement, brilliantly dramatize the
unpredictability of life and the
incomprehensibility of death. Like the strange
high tide that figures into Max's visions and
remembrances, this novel sweeps the reader into
the inexorable waxing and waning of life.
Beautifully written, Banville seamlessly
juxtaposes Max's youth and age, and each scene is
rendered with the intense visual acuity of a
photograph. This book won the 2005 Man Booker P
rize for fiction.
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Deadly Love
by
B. D. Joyce (mystery)
In 1902
New York, Francesca Cahill is the youngest
daughter of the wealthy Cahill family. She is a
determined bluestocking secretly attending Barnard
College, with aspirations to become a female
journalist. However, her direction in life changes
when she meets the new Police Commissioner, Rick
Bragg. Inadvertently discovering the first clue in
a recent child abduction case, Francesca is
determined to work with Bragg to solve the crime.
Afterwards, Francesca comes to realize that she is
a romantic at heart as well as an excellent
sleuth. Her new career as a "Crime Solver
Extraordinaire" continues in the second book in
the series, Deadly Pleasures. B. D. Joyce
also writes romances under "Brenda Joyce." Similar
series to this one include the Fremont
Jones series by Dianne Day and the Sarah
Brandt Gaslight Mysteries by Victoria
Thompson.
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National
Library Week - April 2 -8, 2006
Kickoff at STDL,
Sunday, April 2, 12-3 pm
First
sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national
observance sponsored by the American Library Association
(ALA) and libraries across the country each April. It is
a time to celebrate the contributions of our nation’s
libraries and librarians and to promote library use and
support. STDL's lobby will be transformed into a circus
“big top” with carnival games, prizes and music, as well
as a magician and stilt-walker. Parents are welcome to
bring a camera for photos of children posing in
life-size clown cut-outs or standing with Reggie the
Reading Raccoon. Library staff will be on hand to greet
people, run the games and provide information. In a
lobby full of festive, circus style decorations, patrons
can enter contests and drawings as well as listen to
live music. Kids will have fun with a variety of FREE
carnival games in the lobby, including a bean bag toss,
ring toss, Bozo buckets and miniature golf, along with a
rubber duck pond in the Youth Services Craft Room. Also
included in the festivities will be a small book sale
which will benefit libraries destroyed by Hurricane
Katrina. We hope you’ll find some good used books and
help support this cause.
Inside Writing
& Publishing – Mystery Writing is Murder:
Secrets to Creating Killer Crime Fiction with the
Minnesota Crime Wave
Saturday, April 8,
10:30 am-12:30 pm
Adult
Classroom
A chance to learn from the
pros! Students will be introduced to the essential
elements of the genre, including plot, character,
suspense, pacing, common mistakes to avoid, and the
all-important marketing of your manuscript. The
Minnesota Crime Wave includes popular and
multi-award-winning mystery writers Ellen Hart, Carl
Brookins, and two-time Anthony award-winner William Kent
Krueger. Registration and a $10 fee
are required.
A
Coach’s Book (re)View
Tuesday,
April 25, 7-8 pm
Conference
Room
Primal
Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional
Intelligence By Goleman,
McGee and Boyatzis. Can leadership be contagious? Can
your boss's mood and outlook affect yours? If EQ
(emotional intelligence) is a better predictor of life
success then IQ, what role does it play in leadership?
Primal Leadership tackles these questions. Join
Career Strategies coach Jerilyn Willin as she discusses
this intriguing book.
Adult Summer
Reading Program –
Then
& Now
Sign-up
begins May 15
2006 marks
the 50th anniversary of the incorporation of
Schaumburg. This special reading program celebrates what
was popular in the 1950s and what people are reading
now. Sign up at the Central Library Readers’ Advisory
Desk or at the branch libraries. For more information,
call our Readers' Advisory Desk at (847) 923-3189.
A
Coach’s Book (re)View
Tuesday, May 30, 7-8
pm
Rasmussen North
Pitch
Like A Girl: How A Woman Can Be Herself And Still
Succeed, by Ronna
Litchtenberg. As a woman you may feel uncomfortable when
it comes to promoting yourself and asking for what you
want. If you could get more comfortable putting your
ideas out there, you would feel more in control of your
work day and enhance your career satisfaction. Other
books have told you how to get what you want by being
more like a guy. Pitch Like a Girl tells you why
it¹s an advantage to be who you are and how to be more
effective by bringing more of yourself to work. Join
Career Strategies Coach Jerilyn Willin and learn why
it’s definitely OK to Pitch Like a
Girl.
Downloadable
Audios and E-Books
Wednesday, June 14, 7-8
pm
Adult Classroom
Plug into
the library’s newest online 24/7 service. Popular
Services librarians Amy Peterson and Susan Gibberman
will demonstrate how to check out and download digital
audiobooks and e-books from the library’s web site to
your home computer and portable digital players.
A Coach's Book
(re)View
Tuesday June 27, 7-8 pm
Rasmussen
North
The Way of
Transition, by
William Bridges. Life is filled with change and stress:
starting a new job, sending the first child off to
school, adjusting to marriage, divorce or retirement.
William Bridges is a world-renowned expert on change.
How did he cope with unexpected changes in his own life?
What can his experience teach us (and what did it teach
him)? Join Career Strategies coach Jerilyn Willin as she
reviews this latest, very personal book from the man who
has helped millions make sense of life's changes.
The
"Gotta Write" AuthorFest
Saturday, June 24, 10 am to
4 pm
Rasmussen Rooms
For the
second year, authors from all over the Chicagoland and
surrounding areas will lead panel discussions on writing
and publishing. After each panel, copies of the authors'
works will be available for purchase and signing. A
complete list of discussion topics and panel
participants will be available at the Readers' Advisory
Desk and branch libraries. For more information, please
call Susan Gibberman at 847-923-3339.
First-Time Authors - Is it
REALLY Happily Ever After?
Thursday, July 13, 7-9
pm
Rasmussen South
New authors
are thrilled when they get “the call,” but the work is
just beginning. A panel of local, newly published
authors will discuss what it's like to sell and market
their first book. This same program, with another panel
of authors, will be offered on Wednesday, August
16.
A Coach's Book
(re)View
Tuesday,
July 25, 7-8 pm
Rasmussen
North
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff @
Work, by Richard Carlson. Are coworkers, customers and cubicle life is
driving you crazy? The wisdom in this book is
straightforward yet unique. Join us as we explore how to
not sweat on the job! THEN...bring the title of a book
that made an impact on you. Share why and what you
learned. A resource exchange we all can profit
from!
| In
Memoriam: Octavia Butler
(1947-2006) |
 The literary world lost one of its
most successful African American female science fiction
writers. Octavia Butler died this past February after a
fall in her Seattle-area home. She was 58.
For more than 30 years, Butler dreamed up fantastic
worlds and religions, made-up creatures and futuristic
plots. Then, in her stylistic prose, she used them to
tackle the social issues she was most passionate about.
Fledgling, her first novel in seven years, was
released in the fall of 2005.
An only child, Butler was born on June 22, 1947 in
Pasadena, California. Her father died when she was very
young. After college, Butler participated in the Clarion
Science Fiction Writers Workshop and her first story,
Crossover, appeared in the 1971 Clarion
anthology. Additional sales were slow to develop but in
time she published nearly 20 novels and books.
Octavia received the PEN Center West Lifetime
Achievement Award, two Nebula awards and two Hugo
Awards. In 1995 she was the recipient of a $295,000
MacArthur Foundation fellowship, known as the "genius
grant." In 2000, she received the Nebula Award - science
fiction's highest prize - for her novel Parable of
the Talents, a futuristic story about a utopian
community ravaged by civil war, explored modern-day
issues of intolerance, the growing gap between rich and
poor, and environmentalism. In her first novel,
Kindred, she plunged into racial issues when a
modern-day character was transported into the body of a
pre-Civil War slave.
"What [Ms. Butler] was writing for the first time was
a kind of woman's-eye view, a very smart woman's-eye
view, of say, Brave New World [by Aldous Huxley]
or 1984 [by George Orwell]," said writer Harlan
Ellison, Ms. Butler's friend and mentor.
Though she was a giant in the science-fiction world,
Butler was such a private person that even her closest
friends said they knew little about her. Those who knew
Ms. Butler agreed that, in many ways, she was a
contradiction. She kept to herself but was easy to talk
to. She was tall and imposing, and, Ellison said, "very
warm and charming, but there was gravitas in her."
Ellison said Ms. Butler had a number of obstacles
to overcome in the writing business, among them being
female and being black.
So many of our readers are, themselves, also
fledgling writers. Just as the Readers' Advisory
Department offers programs geared to writers so, too, we
have decided to add this new special section of our
electronic newsletter designed to keep writers informed
of tools available at our library, web sites of interest
to writers or other topics of interest.
WEB SITE OF NOTE: Library of Congress American
Memory Collection
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/
The
Library of Congress' American Memory Collection provides
free and open access through the Internet to written and
spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images,
prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American
experience. It is a digital record of American history
and creativity. These materials, from the collections of
the Library of Congress and other institutions,
chronicle historical events, people, places, and ideas
that continue to shape America, serving the public as a
resource for education and lifelong learning.
The
American Memory historical collections began as a pilot
program that ran from 1990 through 1994. The program
experimented with digitizing some of the Library of
Congress’s unparalleled collections of historical
documents, moving images, sound recordings, and print
and photographic media -- the "nation’s memory." It
identified audiences for digital collections,
established technical procedures, wrestled with
intellectual-property issues, explored options for
distribution such as CD-ROM, and began
institutionalizing a digital effort at the Library.
Originally distributed as a CD-ROM, they
discovered that distributing these materials in a CD-ROM
format was both inefficient and prohibitively expensive.
By 1994, the Internet and World Wide Web were beginning
to transform the presentation and communication of human
knowledge. The Library took advantage of the opportunity
and, in October 1994, announced the establishment of the
National Digital Library Program and the Library of
Congress launched the American Memory historical
collections as the flagship of the National Digital
Library Program -- a pioneering systematic effort to
digitize some of the foremost historical treasures in
the Library and other major research archives and make
them readily available on the Web to Congress, scholars,
educators, students, the general public, and the global
Internet community.
By 2000, over five million
items were available online. American Memory continues
to expand online historical content as an integral
component of the Library of Congress’s commitment to
harnessing new technology as it fulfills its mission "to
sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge
and creativity for future generations."
GRAMMAR TIP: What is the difference between
then and than?
The only similarity between the two words is in the
way they sound. Than is used to compare or
contrast things (e.g., "He is a lot smaller than his
older brother."). Than can also used before a
pronoun, as in "Paul loves pizza more than me."
Then refers to time or consequence (e.g.,
"He lost the race, but then he never really expected to
win." or "If the angles are equal, then the complements
are equal."). So if one thing follows or results from
another, use then.
MAIN
DISPLAYS
| April |
Big
City Cops |
| May |
Revenge : A Dish Best Served
Cold |
| June |
Then
& Now |
| July |
That's the Spirit: Read, White &
Blue |
MINI
DISPLAYS
| April 1 - 15 |
Fly
the Friendly Skies |
| April 16 - 30 |
On
the Lighter Side |
| May
1 - 15 |
Tear
Jerkers |
| May
16 - 31 |
Good
Versus Evil |
| June
1 - 15 |
Translated from... |
| June
16 - 30 |
Suspense Superstars |
| July
1-15 |
Forging a New
Nation |
STAFF PICKS
TABLE
This table includes an assortment
of titles read and enjoyed by library staff from the
various fiction collections (general fiction, mystery,
science fiction) within the department.
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The
following is a list of upcoming films based on
novels, now playing or coming soon to a movie
theatre near
you: |
The
Sentinel - novel by Gerald Petievich
Hoot
- novel by Carl Hiaasen
Killer Diller - novel
by Clyde Edgerton
American Haunting - based on
the novel The Bell Witch by Brent
Monahan
Poseideon - based on the novel The
Poseidon Adventure by Paul Gallico
The Da
Vinci Code - novel by Dan Brown
The Devil
Wears Prada - novel by Lauren
Weisberger
Flick - based on the novel My
Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
A Scanner
Darkly - novel by Philip K. Dick
Brothers of
the Head - novel by Brian Aldisss
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DID YOU KNOW....? (A bit of trivia
with a literary
bent) |
The phrase "the whole nine
yards" came from World War II fighter pilots in the
Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the
.50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27
feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the
pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the
whole nine yards."
According to the Guinness
Book of World Records, the best-selling fiction
author is Dame Agatha Christie (nee Miller, later Lady
Mallowan), 1890-1976. Her 78 crime novels have sold an
estimated 2 billion copies in 44 languages. Christie
also wrote 19 plays and six romance novels (under the
pseudonym Mary Westmacott). Royalty earnings from her
works are estimated to be worth $3.7 million each
year.
And, speaking of Ms.
Christie, did you know that a "clue" originally meant a
ball of thread? That is why one is said to "unravel" the
clues of a mystery.
Quote of the
quarter (from Woody Allen): "Reading isn’t fun;
it’s indispensable." |
