Quote of the Week

"People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading."

- Logan Pearsall Smith

Staff Picks
Check the blog every Wednesday for updates on what our staff is reading and watching and recommendations for our new and all-time favorite books and movies. What is your favorite book or movie? Post your answer in the comments section below. To see all previous Staff Picks posts, simply type "Staff Picks" in the search box at the top left of this blog and click the "search blog" button.

Rabbit, Run by John Updike - recommended By Cheryl
Harry Angstrom was a star basketball player in high school and that was the best time of his life. Now in his mid-20s, his work is unfulfilling, his marriage is moribund, and he tries to find happiness with another woman. But happiness is more elusive than a medal, and Harry must continue to run--from his wife, his life, and from himself, until he reaches the end of the road and has to turn back.... Library Catalog.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole- recommended by Stephanie
This anniversary edition of the classic novel that won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for fiction features a Foreword by Walker Percy that looks back on the history of this humorous story set in New Orleans about a slob named Ignatius Reilly and his relationship with his mother. - Library Catalog. The weirdest character but very well written- you will feel very normal after reading this book. - Stephanie.

The Unlikely Spy by Daniel Silva - recommended by Diane
Catherine Blake is the beautiful widow of a war hero. She is also a London hospital volunteer and a Nazi spy. Her mission, under direct orders from Hitler, are to uncover the Allied plans for D-Day and seal the German victory. Fumbling history professor Alfred Vicary is Churchill's confidante and leader of Britain's counterintelligence operations. His mission is to stop the unknown traitor at any cost, including his life. - Library Catalog.

MOVIE WATCH: Life is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni
In 1930s Italy, a carefree Jewish book keeper named Guido starts a fairy tale life by courting and marrying a lovely woman from a nearby city. Guido and his wife have a son and live happily together until the occupation of Italy by German forces. In an attempt to hold his family together and help his son survive the horrors of a Jewish Concentration Camp, Guido imagines that the Holocaust is a game and that the grand prize for winning is a tank. - Anthony Hughes.

Quote of the Week

No two persons ever read the same book
- Edmund Wilson

Staff Picks
Check the blog every Wednesday for updates on what our staff is reading and watching and recommendations for our new and all-time favorite books and movies. What is your favorite book or movie? Post your answer in the comments section below. To see all previous Staff Picks posts, simply type "Staff Picks" in the search box at the top left of this blog and click the "search blog" button.

Holes by Louis Sachar - recommended by Cheryl
As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself. -library catalog.

The Shield of Three Lions by Pamela Kaufman - recommended by Thea
Shield of Three Lions unfurls amidst the plagues, poxes, sackings, banquets, leeches, jousts, and processions of Medieval England–and tells the fresh, at times hilarious tale of an unflappable heroine caught in a web of politics, sex, and psychology. - Random House Book Guide.

Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo - recommended by Stephanie
A story of three families in a small upstate New York town who's lives are interwoven to create a beautiful narrative of the joys and tragedies of life. It captures the unanticipated events in childhood that forever define one's adulthood. You will feel a strong bond with these families and their town.

MOVIE WATCH: The Waitress written and directed by Adrienne Shelly - recommended by Megan

Jenna is unhappily married. She squirrels away money and is hoping to win a pie-baking contest so, with the prize money, she'll have enough cash to leave her husband Earl. She finds herself pregnant and her plans are thrown awry. She bakes phenomenal pies at Joe's diner, listens to old Joe's wisdom, tolerates her sour boss Cal, is friends with her fellow waitresses, Dawn and Becky. She, also, finds a mutual attraction with the new doctor in town. Life with Earl becomes less tolerable as her pregnancy advances. Her way out of the marriage is less clear and her affair with the doctor is complicated by his marriage. - library catalog.

Quote of the Week

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.

-Groucho Marx

Staff Picks
Check the blog every Wednesday for updates on what our staff is reading and recommendations for our new and all-time favorite books. What is your favorite book? Post your answer in the comments section below. To see all previous Staff Picks posts, simply type "Staff Picks" in the search box at the top left of this blog and click the "search blog" button.

How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read by Pierre Bayard - recommended by Stephanie
In this provocative, witty book, literature professor and psychoanalyst Bayard argues that non-reading can be just as useful an act as reading. He states that the truly cultivated person is not the one who has read a book, but the one who understands the books place in culture. - Library Catalog

Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt - recommended by Cheryl
Now that the four abandoned Tillerman children are settled in with their grandmother, Dicey finds that their new beginnings required love, trust, humor, and courage. - Library Catalog

Dies the Fire by S.M Sterling- recommended by Thea

In an instant marked by a blinding flash of light, the world changes forever as modern technology ceases to function. Those who survive the initial Change include pilot Michael Havel, who leads his stranded passengers out of the wilderness in search of civilization's remnants. Wiccan folksinger Juniper Mackenzie, her daughter, and a few friends flee to the Mackenzie's cabin, where they hope to relearn old skills and grow food to feed themselves and others. The author of The Peshawar Lancers once again starts with a global catastrophe, this time building a stunning speculative vision of a near-future bereft of modern conveniences but filled with human hope and determination. Highly recommended. - Library Journal

Quote of the Week

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.
- Dr. Seuss