Blog Post
William F. Buckley, Jr. 1925-2008
by sernabad
William F. Buckly, Jr., one of the founders of modern American political conservatism, was found dead in his home office in Connecticut earlier today.
It might be easier to list what Buckley has not done. He hosted the talking-heads show Frontline for more than 30 years. He founded The National Review. His newpaper column, On the Right, appeared more than 5600 times. He created the popular spy, Blackford Oakes, in eleven novels, and penned 30-some nonfiction books.
Buckley was 82.
Blog Post
Come to the Puppet Party!
by StoryLaura
This Wednesday at 2:00 pm at the Downtown Library, for the first time ever, the storytime puppet collection will be available for your imagination to go wild! Puppet stages are waiting for your shows and paper bags are waiting to transform into puppets. If you are in Kindergarten through grade three this program is for you!
Blog Post
The Jump At The Sun Treasury (An African American Picture Book Collection)
by Tahira
Celebrate these wonderful stories from African American Heritage, in The Jump at the Sun Treasury. From the calls of street vendors to a tale of a haunted house there is something for everyone in this unique collection.
Blog Post
Poetry Bits - "I'm Sorry"
by ryanikoglu
This Is To Say: Poems For Apology And Forgiveness is a book full of "sorry" and "forgiveness" poems in haiku, pantoums, snippets, and rhymes. The idea began with a 4th grade group exercise to write a "Sorry" poem to mother....
Blog Post
French Connection author has died
by sernabad
Robin Moore, author of The French Connection, has died.
Born Robert L. Moore in 1925, his nonfiction account of the drug smuggling scheme of the 60s and 70s which moved drugs to the US from Turkey via France, became the basis for the much acclaimed movie of the same name. Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey, and the late Roy Scheider put car chases front and center in so many of Hollywood’s releases since the movie opened in 1971.
Moore was also much beloved by the Army Special Forces for his book, The Green Berets (1965) which led to his co-writing the song, the Ballad of the Green Berets, with Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler.
Moore’s other eclectic claim to fame was his authorial assist in the writing of Xaviera Hollander’s The Happy Hooker: My Own Story (1972).
Moore was 82 when he died Tuesday, February 19, 2008, in Kentucky.
Blog Post
Print is dead. Long live print!
by remnil
With all of the latest news about electronic books, one can be forgiven for thinking that print books are in their death throes. Free ebooks and Kindles and digital libraries, oh my! Nonetheless, the good money is that print books are not going extinct anytime soon. In fact, general skepticism of the ebook reading experience aside, good money is actually on ebooks boosting sales of "pbooks."
Allow me to offer some examples. Take Amazon's Search Inside the Book feature (an awesome tool, if you haven't tried it). According to Amazon, sales of books that could be searched increased by 9% when the feature was launched. And despite suing Google for scanning books from the great libraries of the world, publishers are jumping at the chance to make digital previews of their books available via Google Book Search. Now why, pray tell, would publishers partner with Google on scanning if they didn't experience some benefit like, oh, increased print sales?
All of this is to say that the printed word isn't going the way of the dinosaurs in the near future. Of course, we shouldn't be surprised given books' long and storied history.
Blog Post
A Few Fun Facts about George
by Maxine
Our first president, George Washington was born on this day,
February 22 in 1732. Did you know?
1. His dentures were carved from a hippopotamus tusk.
2. By the time he was 30, he had survived malaria, smallpox, pleurisy and dysentery. He had been shot at twice and fell off a raft into icy water.
3. He liked playing cards, hunting foxes, horse racing and dancing. He gave his hound dogs names like "Sweet Lips" and "Tarter."
4.He snored very loudly.
5. There are 33 counties, seven mountains, nine colleges and 121 post offices named after him.
6. He gave the shortest inaugural address which was only 133 words long and took 90 seconds to deliver.
(Facts culled from the The Writers Almanac).
For more information about Washington, check out this great website from the the Smithsonian.
Blog Post
Have Sword Will Travel
by RiponGood
One of my favorite fiction characters of all time is Conan the Barbarian. Robert E. Howard introduced the world to Conan in 1932 in several stories he sold to Weird Tales. In The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian you will find a collection of 13 stories as originally written by Howard, including my favorites The Frost Giant's Daughter and The Tower of the Elephant. The library has a nice collection of both books and graphic novels featuring the coolest barbarian around if you're looking for even more Hyborian adventure.
Blog Post
African-American Bits - "Kid Book" series
by ryanikoglu
"The "Miami" series grew out of a real need that Pat McKissack saw in children’s books: There weren’t many books about middle-class African American kids." The following title series can fit this need.
Michael Andrew Jackson, 3rd grader, also known as "Miami" stars in Miami Makes The Play; Miami Gets It Straight; and Miami Sees It Through.
Hey Li'l D! Stuck In The Middle stars "Li'l Dobber", aka Bob Lanier, as the kid who is crazy about basketball.
Willimena Thomas, 3rd grader, stars in How To Lose Your Cookie Money; How To Fish For Trouble; and more.
Books by Ann Cameron, have been published for a while and led the way. Look for Gloria, Huey, and Julian in their books, such as Gloria's Way; Julian, Secret Agent; and The Stories Huey Tells.
Blog Post
A Lunar Eclipse!
by jaegerla
Last night's lunar eclipse will be the last one until 2010, so hopefully you didn't miss it! The moon entered earth's shadow at 8:43 pm, with the moon fully covered within 80 minutes. It even gained a red tint for a period of time. If you are interested in learning more about eclipses, check out the library's books on outer space. And, if you did end up missing it, take a look at some pictures of it.