Filmmaker-turned-first-time-novelist, Galt Niederhoffer’s A taxonomy of Barnacles is a charming and sly spoof of the concept of the survival of the fittest, and the nature-versus-nurture debate. Starred review in Booklist.

Barry Barnacle announced to his 6 daughters during a Passover Seder that whoever could immortalize the Barnacle name would be the sole beneficiary of his pantyhose fortune. This challenge plunged Bell, Bridget, Beth, Belinda, Beryl and Benita Barnacle, ranging in age from 10 to 29 into merciless fistfights trying to best each other.

Titled after Darwin's monograph on the arthropods, which he studied before he used the Galapagos finch to illustrate his theory of evolution, this zany 1930s-style romantic comedy will certainly bring to mind The Royal Tenenbaums. Pure Fun.

I am so excited. Kingdom of Hearts II for the PS2 is set to be released March 28, 2006. Some of the voices on the game will be from Haley Joel Osment from The Sixth Sense, Rachael Leigh Cook from Josie and the Pussycats, and Mena Suvari from American Pie. But my husband said he heard that the U.S. release date has been put on hold indefinitely. Has anyone heard anything about that? Are there any other cool games coming out soon?

The Year of Secret Assignments by Jaclyn Moriarty was a thoroughly entertaining book to listen to and I enjoyed it to no end.
Ashbury and Brookfield are two rival high schools in New South Wales, Australia. In an effort to bridge the gap between the schools, the Year 10 students are required to write letters back and forth to a pen pal at the other school. Friendship, romance, humiliation, revenge plots, and a prank war between the schools ensue.
The story is told through letters, emails, diary and journal entries, notes, and notices. The use of different actors helps give each character a more definite personality.

Gwendolyn Brooks was named Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968, served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1985-86, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1950 for Annie Allen. She wrote over twenty books of poetry and is one of the most celebrated American poets. The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks brings her many works together and provides a complete view of her passion, versatility and genius.

Other works by Brooks include: The Bean Eaters, In Montgomery, and Other Poems, and her two-part autobiography, Report from Part One and Report From Part Two.

In alternating chapters, Lilly, a nurse in a London hospital, recounted evocatively life among the immigrant Muslim families and her unimaginable hardship growing up as a “farenji”(foreigner) in Africa. Orphaned at 8, Lilly was left in care of a learned scholar in Morocco by her hippie parents and was brought up a devout Muslim. Civil war forced her to flee to Harar, Ethiopia where she courageously built a life among abject poverty and famine, and eventually fell in love with an idealistic young doctor.

Written with great warmth, clarity and grace, Camilla Gibb examines the concept of home and what it means to be “foreign”. This novel also celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the redemptive ability of Sweetness in the belly (love). A remarkable novel from a young writer on the Orange Futures List.

Julius Lester, author of many books for young people celebrating African American traditions, takes us in his latest story, Day of Tears, to the largest slave auction in U.S. history in 1859 on a Georgia plantation. Told in dialogue and monologue, the story moves back and forth in time. In the present, Pierce Butler, plantation owner, sells Emma, the one who cared for his children, along with other slaves to pay off his gambling debts. Some time later, the characters look back on that painful time and comment on the horrors they experienced. Many characters fictionalized from history speak, including the auctioneer, several runaway slaves and an abolitionist.

AADL-GT: Ann Arbor District Library Game Tournaments

The Season 3 Planning Meeting will take place this Sunday at Malletts Creek Branch from 1-4 PM. We will have plenty of open play, including Super Smash Brothers, Mario Kart, DDR, and, if the gun will work with the projector, a DUCK HUNT TOURNAMENT!

Also, we'll be testing out a crazy idea... we're going to try 8-player Mario Kart with 4 players at Malletts Creek, and 4 players Downtown. So, if any have your own transportation and would like to stop Downtown at 1:00, you can help Kip test the Downtown end of the network, and then head out to Malletts before we start the actual meeting.

Graphic novelist, Gloeckner, will talk about Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Picturesand other works. New York Times Sunday Magazine says Gloeckner is “one of the most accomplished [cartoonists] in terms of mastery of the medium”. Check her out at ravenblond.com.

Hi everyone!

at tonight's animanga club we talked about starting up an anime/manga zine that would have reviews, other features/writing, fan art, your own characters/other art, stuff about Japanese language and culture--really anything related to the world of anime and manga that you all want to contribute.

we also talked about:
1. editorial board! can everyone who expressed interest in either editing writing or coordinating/editing art please post and remind us of your names?

2. frequency! does about once a month sound good? if that's our goal, we've got to get rolling on SUBMISSIONS for our very first issue.

You may have heard about Best Buy's new partnership with independent online music source CDBaby. What else will shape the future of music and the music industry? David Kusek's new book The Future of Music explores the cluster of issues around music and the recording industry as we move into the 21st century, as does the PBS Frontline documentary The Way the Music Died. I certainly don't know where music is heading, but I bet the future will sound something like this...