Return to summer

Nothing like February to make you long for warmth.  Find it at the friendly meeting of the adult summer reading group on Thursday, February 18, 7 pm at the Dix Hills building.  We’ll talk about favorite books and authors while we enjoy light refreshments and a short presentation.

Authors reveal the best books of 2009

Salon.com asked some of our favorite authors to recommend their best books of 2009.

Here’s a condensed list – for more details, click on the link at the bottom.  Leave us a comment and let us know what you think of these choices – thanks!

Nick Hornby:  The Financial Lives of the Poets, by Jess Walter

Judy Blume: Swimming, by Nicola Keegan

Anne Lamott:  What I Thought I Knew, by Alice Eve Cohen

Matthew Klam:  Lowboy, by John Wray

Junot Diaz:  Book of Clouds, by Chloe Aridjis

Lydia Millet: Far Bright Star, by Robert Olmstead

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers

Juan Cole: Fault Line, by Barry Eisler

Colum McCann: The Book of Night Women, by Marlon James

Laura Lippman:  The Financial Lives of the Poets, by Jess Walter

Amy Sohn: Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby

Sean Wilsey: The Kids Are All Right, by Amanda, Liz, Dan and Diana Welch

Maud Newton: Book of Genesis, by R. Crumb

Tracy Kidder: Too Much Happiness: Stories, by Alice Munro

Dave Cullen: Sum: 40 Tales From the Afterlives, by David Eagleman

Geoff Dyer: Age of Wonder, by Richard Holmes

Curtis Sittenfeld: Tinsel: A Search for America’s Christmas Present, by Hank Stuever

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2009/12/10/author_recommendations_2009/index.html

Teens Top Ten-Vote now!

Voting is now open!

Teens’ Top Ten is a teen choice list, where teens choose their favorite books of the previous year. Readers ages twelve to eighteen can vote online, anytime between now and Sept. 18; the winners will be announced in a webcast featuring WWE Superstars and Divas during Teen Read Week, October 18-24.

Books for Dudes

Here are some thoughtful coming-of-age suggestions for the man who is looking for something insightful  (from a fellow dude):

Bellow, Saul. The Adventures of Augie March – Augie’s nonconformity leads him into an eventful, humorous, and sometimes earthy way of life.

Brown, Michael. Audrey Hepburn’s Neck – Infatuated with actress Audrey Hepburn, young Toshi comes of age in Tokyo, where he tries to make a living while balancing family secrets, American friends and lovers, and his own burgeoning identity. A first novel.

Chabon, Michael. Wonder Boys – In a story exploring the theme of the artist’s isolation, Grady Tripp, an obese, aging writer who has lost his way, and debauched editor Terry Crabtree struggle to rekindle their friendship, a sense of adventure, and purpose in their lives.

Doyle, Roddy. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha – Paddy Clarke, a ten-year-old boy who longs to be a missionary, experiences life’s joys and setbacks–specifically his ma and da’s fights–as he grows up in Liffey, Ireland, in the late 1960s. By the author of The Van. Winner of the Booker Prize.

Eberstadt, Fernanda. Isaac and His Devils – Isaac Hooker, a young genius in poor health, is spurred on to new achievements by his father, who has given up on his own early promise

Echenique, Alfredo Bryce. A World for Julius – “Like the best of Dickens’s novels, A World for Julius is a great, fat book that completely engages a reader with its characters and places—so completely that one reads with that often forgotten childhood pleasure of entering an all-encompassing, almost fairytale country of the imagination.”—New York Times Book Review

Hornby, Nick. About a Boy – Will trades his lack of enthusiasm toward children for a date with a truly beautiful woman and single mother in a comic, incisive novel about modern romance by the author of the international best-seller High Fidelity.

Irving, John. The Water Method Man – The main character of John Irving’s second novel, written when the author was twenty-nine, is a perpetual graduate student with a birth defect in his urinary tract–and a man on the threshold of committing himself to a second marriage that bears remarkable resemblance to his first…

Poirier, Mark Jude. Goats: A Novel – Fourteen-year-old Ellis departs from the Southwest to attend boarding school in the East, leaving behind his mother and the Goat Man, the surrogate father figure who has taught him the meaning of stability, commitment, and caretaking.

Sonnenblick, Jordan. Drums, Girls, & Dangerous Pie – Being a member of the All-Star Jazz Band, having a hopeless crush on the hottest girl in school, and playing the part of the generic role model to his younger brother, Jeffrey, is enough to keep thirteen-year-old Steven busy in his average life, but when a tragic event happens within his family, Steven begins to realize what really matters most in the world.

Graphic novels:

Bennett, Ian. Leap Years – Gr. 10-12. Bennett captures the uncanny feeling of high school in this graphic novel about teenage Jake.

Cruse, Howard. Stuck Rubber Baby – A truly eye-opening comic. The story is set in the South in the early ’60s and deals with homophobia, racism and the gay subculture of that period. The art is absolutely beautiful; Cruse is a master of the cross-hatching technique, which gives a certain “texture” to his art work and brings his pages to life. Stuck Rubber Baby is easily the most important comic book since Art Spiegelman’s Maus.

Thompson, Craig. Good-Bye, Chunky Rice – Chunky Rice, a small turtle, embarks on an ocean voyage, where he meets a shady skipper and conjoined twins, Ruth and Livonia,, but he also leaves behind his girlfriend Dandel, who sends him letters in a bottle.

Thanks to Douglas Lord of Library Journal

Authors reflect on their favorite childhood books

The authors that write our children’s books talk about the ones they loved most.  You can read the entire article about Anita Silvey’s  Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children’s Book, but below are some of the highlights.  How many have you read?  What did you love as a child?

Peter Sis – The Little Prince , by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Jean Craighead George – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Leonard Marcus - Profiles in Courage (Young Readers Edition), by John F. Kennedy
Sherman Alexie – The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats
Maurice Sendak – Harold and the Purple Crayon, by Crockett Johnson
Beverly Cleary – The Tailor of Gloucester , by Beatrix Potter
Wendell Minor – Treasure Island , by Robert Louis Stevenson
Thacher Hurd – The Wind in the Willows , by Kenneth Grahame
Eric Rohmann – Charlotte’s Web , by E.B. White
Marc Brown – Where the Wild Things Are , by Maurice Sendak
Eden Ross Lipson – Little House on the Prairie , by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Golden Reads

2009 Adult Summer Reading Club
Help celebrate the Library’s 50th Anniversary by joining the Half Hollow Hills Golden Reads Adult Summer Reading program. The program begins on July 6 and ends on August 27. Signing up is easy, register online or pick up a registration form available at the Dix Hills or Melville reference desk. Either way don’t forget to pick up your complimentary welcome kit.
Each time you finish a book, enter it online or complete a reporting card available on the book club displays at Dix Hills and Melville. Your entries will automatically be entered into a weekly raffle.
This year we are celebrating the library’s 50th Anniversary by having a Just Desserts party on Thursday, August 27th at 7pm. Club members can come and talk about their favorite books while enjoying refreshments. A grand prize will also be raffled away that evening. The winner must be present.

Have you noticed your connections?

We’ve made some new paths on our website – ways to connect you to excellent services and ideas to enrich your life.

The first is our Learning Connection, with links that let you learn at home. Mango is foreign language instruction using a unique teaching method that quickly engages you in real conversations between two native speakers.  Learning Express is a comprehensive, interactive online learning platform of practice tests and tutorial course series designed to help students and adult learners succeed on the academic or licensing tests they must pass.

Reader’s Connection has links to NoveList Plus, which offers read-alikes, award winners, recommended titles and book discussion guides, NextReads, an email subscription service with ideas about what to read (or listen to) next, and two searchable databases filled with book reviews, literary criticism, author biographies and more. You’ll also find our fledgling reviewers blog, which contains quick reviews from library staff.  Please add your comments to any reviews and let us know what you like or don’t like and what your recommendations are too!

Worst Books of 2008

They can’t all be winners.  What have you read that disappointed you this year?

EW.com’s 5 Worst Books of 2008

1. CHASING HARRY WINSTON, Lauren Weisberger
2. THE LACE READER, 
Brunonia Barry
3. THE GARGOYLE, 
Andrew Davidson
4. BRIGHT SHINY MORNING, James Frey
5. A WOLF AT THE TABLE, Augusten Burroughs

Women and Books, together

Reading

October is National Reading Group Month, sponsored by the Women’s National Book Association.  To help celebrate, take a look at some of these great books by women, and another list from our catalog.

Lists not your thing?  Here are a few suggestions from readers:

Jessica Helfand, Scrapbooks

Jenny Davidson, The Explosionist

Dubravka Ugresic,  Nobody’s Home and Thank You For Not Reading

Freya Stark, The Valleys of the Assassins, and Other Persian Travels

Jennifer Egan, Look at Me

Erica Jong, Fear of Flying

Katherine Dunn, Geek Love

Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow and Children of God

Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake

Dana Spiotta,Eat the Document

Stevie Smith, Novel on Yellow Paper

Marisha Pessl, Special Topics on Calamity Physics

Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading? – read the article and leave a comment!

Check out the New York Times article about whether or not online reading is really reading (like we traditional readers do when we read between the covers of a book). The jury is still out on this one. Let us know what you think!

Go to this link to read the article — http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/27reading.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=018a275d92417649&ex=1217995200&emc=eta1