Ages 18+.
Blog Post
More new Chinese adult books at all branches!
by Tara LS
Here is a selection of more new Chinese books available at the library. Remember that selection varies from branch to branch. You can browse the shelves on the 3rd floor of the downtown branch or in the foreign language collection at the other branches. Questions, comments or suggestions, contact stantont@aadl.org
Chinese books:
誓鸟 by 张悦然著
a碧奴孟姜女哭长城的传说 by 苏童著
中国点心制作图解/Chinese dim sum in pictures
喜宝 by 亦舒著
英文, 非學好不可 by 成寒著
生日快乐 by 刘若英著
Blog Post
New adult books in Chinese at all branches
by Tara LS
There will soon be many new Chinese books for adults at all branches. The selection varies from branch to branch and includes original Chinese works and works translated into Chinese from other languages. Browse the shelf for new books or place holds through the library catalog. Questions, comments or suggestions, please contact stantont@aadl.org
A selection of new titles:
心中有鬼 by 枚糖果
大明王朝1566 by 刘和平著
花自飘落水自流 by 王朝著
最佳食物搭配方案 by 何计国, 车会莲编著
不存在的女兒/The Memory Keeper's Daughter
大唐帝国隋乱唐盛三百年 by 陈舜臣著
大象的眼淚/Water for Elephants
Blog Post
2006 winner of the "Premio Tusquets Editories de Novela"
by Tara LS
Evelio Rosero, the Columbian author of several novels as well as stories for children and teens and previous winner of the Columbian National Literature Award, won the Premio Tusquets Editories de Novela in 2006 for his book Los Ejercitos, a novel about a small Columbian town that is devastated by fighting that erupts between various armed factions in Columbia. Told through the narrator Ismael, a retired teacher who is losing his memory, Criticas Magazine says the book has "undeniable elegance and a masterly command of the Spanish language, and offers a profound exploration of human life in the face of irrational violence."
Reserve this book through the library catalog or look for it on the shelf on the third floor of the downtown library in the foreign language collection.
Blog Post
Power Play By Joseph Finder
by detra
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Joseph Finder is a best-selling author known for his business thrillers (Paranoia and Company Man). Power Play is another white-knuckle tale of suspense. This time Finder focuses on the aviation industry, telling the story of Jake Landry, a low-level executive at Hammond Aerospace.
When Landry's boss is called away, he is invited to attend the company's team-building retreat with the rest of the company's top management. The retreat is held in a remote lodge in the British Columbia wilderness. What is supposed to be a fun and challenging weekend quickly turns into a nightmare when a gang of woodsmen take over the lodge and hold the executives hostage.
Finder hooked me with an alluring premise: watching overconfident, swaggering businessmen recoil into the shadow of the story as Landry, a smart-mouthed, former juvenile delinquent, takes on the woodsmen.
Blog Post
A Dungeon Too Many
by anned
What happens to the Keeper's lucrative business of luring, plundering, then massacring adventurers when a competing dungeon (complete with balloons, cotton candy, and puppet shows) is built next door? Get an inside look at the workings of a fantasy dungeon, run CEO style by a bird in a top hat. Full of heroes such as Marvin, an anthropomorphic vegetarian dragon who loves to bake, and Herbert, a timorous duck. Joann Sfarr has teamed up with other French cartoonists, Lewis Trondheim, and Manu Larcent to create the wonderful universe that is Dungeon. Larcent's panels are dense with informative details. Including gory cartoon-violence! The subtle jokes involving Grogro the monster are particularly wonderful.
Cliquez ici pour visiter le site officiel du Donjon (en Français).
Blog Post
New Fiction on the New York Best Sellers List (8/26/07)
by Mazie
Years ago William Gibson found a cult following with his prescient first novel Neuromancer which introduced the world to the idea of a virtual matrix and coined the term cyperspace. The cyperpunk subgenre of science fiction was born.
Neuromancer was the first novel to win the trifecta of major science fiction awards: the Nebula, the Hugo, and Philip K. Dick Award.
It also predicted the rise of the internet and its implications for the world as we now know it. In Gibson's latest novel Spook Country, the protagonists include a musician/journalist, a spy and a cryptographer all trying to push back against that world and its technology and bureaucracy.
The other new entries are Devil May Cry by Sherrilyn Kenyon, Sandworms of Dune by Herbert and Anderson, Waking with Enemies by Eric Jerome Dickey, Critical by Robin Cook, The Burnt House by Faye Kellerman and Fourth Comings by Megan McCafferty.
The rest of the List can be found online.
Blog Post
Grace Paley, genius of brevity, has died
by sernabad
Grace Paley, short story writer extraordinaire, died Wednesday, August 22, 2007, in Vermont.
Born in New York of Jewish Russian immigrants, Ms. Paley knew of what she wrote -- Jewish single women, often mothers, just trying to get through the day the best they knew how. Her gift for language was both efficiently economical and magically rich.
Her first collection of stories, The Little Disturbances of Man, was published in 1959. Fifteen years later, Enormous Changes at the Last Minute: Stories was released, followed in 1985 by Later the Same Day.
In 1994, The Collected Stories was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer.
Ms. Paley was 84.
Blog Post
A Dangerous Innocent, An Accidental Heroine
by muffy
It has been a long wait for fans of Amy Bloom, but her new novel since Love Invents Us (1997), will be payback enough. It's heartbreaking, romantic, and completely unforgettable.
Away*, a historical novel set in the 1920s, is based loosely on the life of Lillian Alling, as documented in Cassandra Pybus’ meticulously researched The Woman Who Walked to Russia (2002).
In Away,, Lillian Leyb, a 22-year-old Jewish immigrant arrived in New York City alone, mourning the loss of her young daughter. Sheer determination got her the much sought-after job as a seamstress at the Goldfadn Yiddish Theatre and the attention of the handsome lead actor and his very connected father.
But when word came that her daughter might be alive in Siberia, Lillian was determined to make her way there. The journey was arduous, to say the least.
“Encompassing prison, prostitution and poetry, Yiddish humor and Yukon settings, Bloom's tale offers linguistic twists, startling imagery, sharp wit and a compelling vision of the past. Bloom has created an extraordinary range of characters, settings and emotions. Absolutely stunning.” ~Publishers Weekly
* = Starred Reviews (see the August 20th New York Times Review).
Blog Post
A Camera To Call My Own
by MarilynG
Did you borrow a digital camera to take vacation pictures this summer? Are you ready to buy one for yourself but find the terminology confusing and the options in the digital camera market overwhelming? Then sign up for the Library’s class Buying a Digital Camera. Find out what a megapixel really is. Discover the difference between optical zoom and digital zoom. This free class will be held on September 17 at the Downtown Library in the third floor Computer Training Lab. Space is limited so register soon at any Branch or by calling 327-8367.
Blog Post
Bradbury and Proulx
by Maxine
Today, August 21st is the birthday of two literary luminaries, Ray Bradbury and Annie Proulx. Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois in 1920 but his family moved to Los Angeles when he was twelve. Hoping to be an actor, he was encouraged by two of his high school teachers who saw promise in his writing to take that road instead. He first published in small science fiction magazines but got his first break when one of his stories was accepted in the 1945 edition of the anthology, Best American Short Stories. Perhaps his best known novel is Fahrenheit 451 about a fireman in a future society whose job it is to burn books. But on taking one home and reading it, he decides to join a revolutionary group that tries to keep literature alive.
Proulx was born in Norwich, Connecticut in 1935. In her fifties, she published her first novel, Postcards. She says about being an older writer: "I think that's important, to know how the water's gone over the dam before you start to describe it. It helps to have been over the dam yourself." Starting out as a non-fiction writer, researching topics like how to make apple cider, helped her become a better writer. When she came across a map of Newfoundland, she knew she had to go and explore places like Dead Man's Cove for her Pulitzer Prize winner, The Shipping News. Proulx's name has become better known since one of her stories, Brokeback Mountain in another Pulitzer winner, Close Range: Wyoming Stories was made into a movie.