Happy Chinese (Lunar) New Year!

This Sunday, February 10 marks another Chinese New Year, a major holiday for millions of people worldwide. Following the lunar calendar, the Chinese New Year is based on solar and lunar movements. Literally translating to the “Spring Festival,” this significant holiday emphasizes good luck and fortune in the coming year. To celebrate, people often travel long distances to see their families and participate in traditional Chinese practices such as enjoying Chinese cooking, watching fireworks, handing out red envelopes with money inside, and decorating with flowers and lanterns. This year is the year of the water snake.

Since this popular holiday lasts for 15 days, you can take part by checking out our Chinese language collection or related materials, such as traditional folk music, interpretive music, Ni Hao, Kai-lan on dvd, and cookbooks in English or Chinese. AADL also has a wealth of materials on this topic in English for children!

For more information, check out this article by BBC or Wikipedia.

Are you confused about what to eat? Many people are. One person who is not confused is Jacques Pepin. As you can see from the title of his newest cookbook, Essential Pepin: 700 Favorites from My Life in Food, there are a lot of things he likes to eat, and he hopes you will too, and there is no fear in him. Sugar, chocolate, gluten, grains, red meat, salt, butter, wine, fruit, shellfish: bring it all on! He cooks like he learned to growing up in France, at his family’s restaurant. His exuberance about cooking and his pure enjoyment of food is refreshingly captured in the companion dvd series of the same name.

Watching Jacques cook is pure fun. Though he has lived in the US for ages, and speaks perfect English, he is so French. And he is an expert. With knives flashing (sharp ones at that), and one dish in the oven and two on the stove, he is masterful in the kitchen. Food obeys him. Sauces hold together and omelets flip and onions practically chop themselves. (How does he do that? I have a feeling taking notes doesn't help.) He is always sipping the ubiquitous glass of wine, a la Julia, and carrying on an amusing narrative while he creates his numerous, delectable dishes. He exhorts all cooks, all fear aside, to have a love affair with good food. His motto: “Happy cooking!”.

It was 200 years ago this month that Jane Austen published her second, and perhaps most beloved, novel: "Pride & Prejudice." The official publication date was January 28, 1813.

Austen wrote it between October 1796 and August 1797, but publishers at first declined to look at it. After she went back and revised her manuscript, originally titled "First Impressions," nearly fifteen years later between 1811 and 1812, it was finally accepted for publication. Although she never married, Jane Austen loved her books like they were her family and was so excited when "Pride & Prejudice" arrived, she wrote to her sister Cassandra, "I want to tell you that I have got my own darling child from London."

The first edition sold out quickly and has been popular the world over ever since. It has been translated into dozens of languages and adapted for both television and the big screen. It's been given modern twists in Hollywood movies and Bollywood, too. It even has its own popular web series and been adapted into graphic novels and zombie apocalypse stories.

And of course, there are the books. From the original to all the adaptations and continuations, it's clear something about that story of misunderstandings and seemingly impossible happy endings still has a grip on us. It's easy to wonder what Miss Austen would have thought of the stages her "child" has gone through and how the world still holds such love for its characters even now, 200 years later.

Looking for more ways to celebrate Jane Austen? The library has a large collection of her other books or other movie adaptations of her work!

Today Michigan celebrates its 176th birthday! On January 26, 1837 Michigan became the 26th state in the union. How will you be celebrating?

To feel the local love, check out AADL's local creators lists, which include a list of movies made in Michigan, and books set in Michigan, among others. Or perhaps read up on Michigan history or plan a trip in this fine Mitten State.

Whether you’re a native or a transplant, it’s a great wintery day to be in the Great Lakes State.

Actor Robert Chew, who infused complicated humanity into the character Prop(osition) Joe on The Wire, has died.

Chew had strong ties to Baltimore, where he was born. His first love was music, which he studied at his hometown university, Morgan State.

HIs love for Baltimore translated into three high-profile roles that defined his career. In addition to Prop Joe, the verbally gassy, somewhat sympathetic drug dealer on The Wire, Chew also played Wilkie Collins, a drug supplier in the sixth season (1997-1998) of Homicide: Life on the Streets in a three-part episode, Blood Ties. He also brought to life a shoe salesman in the the TV mini-drama The Corner, based on the book, The corner : A year in the life of an inner-city neighborhood by David Simon and Ed Burns, writers and producers for both The Corner and The Wire.

Chew (52), who suffered from cardiovascular disease, died from a heart attack at his home in Baltimore.

Movie goers, musical fans, and book lovers alike have fallen in love with the new film “Les Miserables,” which premiered on December 25 of this past year. Already “Les Mis,” as it is affectionately called by fans, has earned 8 Oscar nominations. To complement seeing the film, try checking out some related materials, including other movie adaptations, broadway performances, complete and abridged books, and sheet music. If you have the gift of understanding French, AADL even has the original novel and a French version of the movie.

For more information about the new movie, please visit their website for photos, production notes, trivia, videos, and more.

Whether it's discussion of the Fiscal Cliff or debates over local governmental priorities, money matters are on the minds of many citizens.

The 2012 Sundance Film Festival documentary, "We're Not Broke" argues that multibillion-dollar American corporations like Exxon, Google and Bank of America are making record profits via "non-taxation through extraordinary representation."

Variety calls this film a "well-researched, brightly presented and provocative argument that the U.S. isn't overtaxed and profligate, but rather a paradise for corporate tax cheats," and now Sundance's Artist Services Program and Hulu have teamed up to make the film available for free online.

The Sundance Artist Services site keeps an updated list of this and other "Now Playing" titles accessible for free via various streaming platforms.

Jack London was born John Griffith Chaney on January 12th, 1876 in San Francisco, CA. An author, journalist, and activist, he was one of the first fiction authors to make a large fortune off of his works and to gain worldwide fame for his writing. His most popular works include Call of the Wild and White Fang, which are available in AADL's collection, along with many of his other works. Call of the Wild and White Fang were also adapted into films.

He died on November 22nd, 1916 in Glen Ellen, CA from what may have been kidney stones.

Elvis Presley was born today on January 8th, 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi. Known to many as the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis got his start in the music industry singing for Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun Records, in 1954. Phillips, who had hoped to find someone who could do justice to the songs and sound of African-American musicians and provide those songs with a broader audience, took Presley under his wing and had him record a few cover songs that made their way onto the radio. They were an instant and overwhelming hit.

Elvis went on to become one of the most important artists in 20th century pop culture and the best-selling solo artist in the history of popular music, releasing dozens of albums and singles, including From Elvis in Memphis and Elvis's Christmas Album. His unique voice, style, and his interpretations of songs from African-American sources made him a wildly popular and highly controversial figure. He made his film debut in Love Me Tender in 1956 and continued to appear in many other films in the years following. Nominated for 14 Grammys, he won three, and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36. He has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame.

Follow the links and you'll find many of Elvis's albums (and a few biographies!) in AADL's collection.

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If you check out the Amazon Best Sellers in Teen Books you'll see #5 is The Hobbit, by J.R.R Tolkien and #7 is Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I'm thinking that the popularity of these books on teens' Kindles may be fueled by their having seen the two new-ish movies by the same titles and then deciding to read the books. Hurray for reading the books!