Thankful for some great books!

It is once again time for Thanksgiving.  Have you done your planning yet?  Here's some great books that can help you enjoy this wonderful holiday:  (Click on the title to place a hold via InfoSoup.)

  The Thanksgiving book:   a companion to the holiday covering its history, lore, traditions, foods, and symbols, including primary sources, poems, prayers, songs, hymns, and recipes, supplemented by a chronology, bibliography with web sites, and index.

  Thanksgiving 101:  celebrate America's favorite holiday with America's Thanksgiving expert.

  Thanksgiving Entertaining

  Betty Crocker's Complete Thanksgiving cookbook: All you need to cook a memorable meal.

  The Book of Thanksgiving:  Stories, poems and recipes for sharing one of America's greatest holidays.

  Tried and True Thanksgiving: Top 200 recipes.

  The Thanksgiving Table: recipes and ideas to create your own holiday tradition.  

  Thanksgiving: festive recipes for the holiday table

  Crafts for Thanksgiving

  Beyond the Turkey:  a Thanksgiving feast of fun, facts, and activities.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

November New Releases

Looking for a new book to read?  Here's some new releases for the month of November:
(Click on the title to place a hold via InfoSoup)

FICTION:

  11/22/63, by Stephen King

  The Wedding Quilt, by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Proof of Heaven, by Mary Curran-Hackett

  Love and Shame and Love, by Peter Orner

  The Angel Esmeralda, Nine Stories, by Don DeLillo

NON-FICTION:

  Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?  by Mindy Kaling

  I Didn't Ask to be Born, by Bill Cosby

  The Ecstasy of Influence, by Jonathan Lethem

  Brewed Awakening, by Joshua M. Bernstein

Happy Reading!  

What is the library staff reading?

You see them in and around the library.

They work with books every day.

What are they reading?

In case you're curious, here's what a few of our library staff members have read lately. (Click on the title to place a hold via InfoSoup.)

  SHARON STUHR 

Sharon says:  

I have just gotten through reading two of Barbara Delinsky books.  The first one is titled The Carpenter's Lady. It's about a successful television writer, Debra Barry,  who went through a painful divorce. She leaves New York for the beautiful countryside of New Hampshire where she hopes to mend her broken heart. After buying a house, which needed much repair, she hires a master carpenter, Graham Reed, to fix up the house. Graham, who is hiding from his own bitter pass, reluctantly agrees to take the job. As the house begins to come together, Graham and Debra unexpectedly find themselves laying their own emotional groundwork.

The second book is titled An Accidental Woman.  Poppy Blake was injured in a long-ago snowmobile accident which took the use of her legs. She was having a hard time believing that handsome reporter, Griffin Hughes, could be interested in her. Griffin is afraid how Poppy will feel about him when she finds out that he inadvertently gave a tip that sent Poppy's good friend, Heather, to jail for a 15- year-old murder of her former lover. Now Griffin must uncover the truth about what really happened in Heather's past and try to clear her of any wrongdoing.

  GAIL KLEMANN 

Gail says:

I just recently finished The Godfather Returns, by Mark Winegardner.  It's a new novel, based on the Godfather series by Mario Puzo.  It's a great read, and I highly recommend it!

  BOB TOMCZYK

Tom says:

Right now, I'm reading The Whole Truth by David Baldacci.  The book is about Nicolas Creel.   He heads up the world's largest defense contractor, The Ares Corporation. Dick Pender is the man Creel retains to "perception manage" his company to even more riches by manipulating international conflicts. But Creel may have an even grander plan in mind.

  ESTHER BURNS

Esther says:

I just finished reading The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins.  All three books are so exciting, and you absolutely won't be able to put them down until you're finished!  I also just started See You in a Hundred Years, by Logan Ward.  It's about a family that decides to live for a year exactly as people did in the year 1900.  It's very interesting!

How about you? What are you reading right now?

Book Club

Book Clubs are very popular these days.  There's tons of people out there, meeting and discussing books.  But in these busy times, it's hard to meet together, isn't it?

That's why we'd like to start a Book Club right here on this blog.  After selecting a book, we'll meet here once a month.  We'll blog some questions for discussion, and then you can discuss the book in the comments.  Before we start, though, we have two questions:

1. Are you interested in participating in this book club?
2. What kind of book would you like to read?  Is there a book out there you've been dying to read and/or discuss with someone?

Let us know in the comments--we can't wait to get started!

Making the most of your time in the car

Once everyone is back in school, it's that season again--car season.  Not only are we taking kids back and forth to school, but there's those added activities like sports, dance, sleepovers, or music lessons.  Some days it feels like you spend your day in the car, just driving kids back and forth.

Why not make most of that time in the car, and read a book!  Of course you won't be able to read a book in the traditional sense, since you have to keep your eyes on the road, but there's many great books on tape, CD and Playaway (MP3 format) that you can listen to in the car.

Listening to books in the car makes that drive time seem so much faster.  Better yet, if you're listening to a book series, it's even more fun!  Here's some popular book series you can check out of the library to listen to:  (Click on the title to reserve a copy via InfoSoup.)

• The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis
• The Magic Treehouse, by Mary Pope Osborne
• A Series of Unfortunate Events, by Lemony Snicket
• Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling
• Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid, by Jeff Kinney
• The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians, by Rick Riordan
• Junie B. Jones, by Barbara Park
• Great Classic Family Favorites (Includes Moni the goat boy, by Johanna Spyri -- An adventure on Island Rock, by L.M. Montgomery-- Torm Thumb, by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm -- The Tinman and the Scarecrow, by L. Frank Baum -- The emperor's new clothes, by Hans Christian Andersen -- How the rhinosceros got his skin, by Rudyard Kipling -- The mouse, by Saki -- Accidental magic, or, Don't tell all you know, by E. Nesbit -- Mermaids, by Louisa May Alcott -- Little Nell, by Charles Dickens-- The little mermaid, by Hans Christian Andersen -- The sun-dog trail, by Jack London.)

Start one of these series, and your next car ride will be the beginning of a wonderful adventure.  You'll find yourself actually looking forward to being in the car with your kids!

Social Networking for Readers

The internet is full of social networking sites these days.  Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Pinterest, they're all out there.  But did you know there's some great Reading social network sites?  Here's a list of some of the best:

• Goodreads: www.goodreads.com  A great place to get book recommendations from people you know.  You can also keep track of books you've already read, and books you'd like to read.  There's also fun ways to start a book club, answer book trivia, and collect your favorite book quotes.

• Shelfari:  www.shelfari.com   Shelfari is a community-powered encyclopedia for book lovers.  Create a virtual bookshelf, discover new books, connect with friends and learn more about your favorite books– all for free.

• Readernaut:  www.readernaut.com  Find the books you’ve read and rate them, store notes about them or review them.  Add books you’re reading and begin tracking your progress or write notes or comments.  Build your wishlist and see what others think of the books you want to read.  Or import your books from other services like Anobii, GoodReads, LibraryThing and Shelfari.

• Library Thing:  www.librarything.com  Join the world’s largest book club.  Catalog your books from Amazon, the Library of Congress and 690 other world libraries. Import from anywhere. Find people with eerily similar tastes.  Find new books to read.  Free Early Reviewer books from publishers and authors.  Enter 200 books for free, as many as you like for $10 (year) or $25 (life).

• Book Crossing:  www.bookcrossing.com  From the website:  "It's the World's Library. It's a smart social networking site. It's a celebration of literature and a place where books get new life. BookCrossing is the act of giving a book a unique identity so, as the book is passed from reader to reader, it can be tracked and thus connecting its readers. There are currently 948,137 BookCrossers and 8,147,968 books travelling throughout 132 countries. Our community is changing the world and touching lives one book at a time."  How does it work?  "Label. Share. Follow.  Breathe new life into books instead of letting your old favorites collect dust - pass them along to another reader. Our online archival and tracking system allows members to connect with other readers, journal and review literature and trade and follow their books as lives are changed through “reading and releasing”. Users are able to tag and track their individual books by marking them with BCIDs (BookCrossing Identity Numbers). Each BCID is unique to each book – once it’s registered on our site, the book can then be followed and journaled forever. BookCrossing is free to join and free to play. So don't be 'shelf'ish with your books!"

Did I miss any?  Do you have a favorite reading website?