Sidewalk Reading Companion Part 1

This weekend brings us another strong lineup of documentaries and narrative films at one of the country's best film events, Birmingham's very own Sidewalk Film Festival. Now in it's 15th year, the festival will be held August 23-25, 2013 at multiple locations in downtown Birmingham. The amazing crew behind Sidewalk work all year round to put on a world-class festival and this year they have really outdone themselves! Since our lovely EOL patrons are avid movie-watchers AND readers, I've compiled suggested reading to some of this year's Sidewalk Film Festival selections.

Sidewalk's opening night film Lil Bub & Friendz proves that big starz can come in little packages. If you haven't already met the internet sensation Lil Bub, be prepared to fall in love. Click here to view the trailer.
(From Sidewalkfest.com) "Lil Bub & Friendz, the doc about the cutest toothless, deformed kitty in the known universe (and potentially beyond) also features some of your favorite feline meme generators — Grumpy Cat, Nyan Cat and Keyboard Cat — and Bub’s adorkable owner Mike Bridavsky.

Lil Bub is a tabby riddled with deformities, from misshapen leg bones to a perpetual toothless overbite that makes drool prevention impossible. Her tongue hangs out. Her bug-eyes engulf her forehead and give her a look of unwavering surprise. In other words, she’s adorable. And she’s unbelievably famous.

Starring Lil Bub and Bub’s owner, Mike Bridavsky, along with Grumpy Cat, Nyan Cat, Keyboard Cat, and meme-manager supreme Ben Lashes, the movie follows the life and times of Bub and examines the internet cat phenomenon with an amazing soundtrack that features Spiritualized, Vernon Elliott, Mort Garson, Steve Reich, and Integrity."


To get you in the Lil Bub spirit, here's a selection of cat-tastic books that can be found at EOL: (all book descriptions from Amazon.com unless otherwise noted.)

I Am Maru by Mugumogu Maru, the mischievous male Scottish Fold cat, is an international YouTube sensation—an adorable ball of fur with a penchant for finding remarkably cozy hiding places. Compiled by Maru’s owner, the user-named mugumogu, I Am Maru celebrates the unique abilities of this unforgettable feline contortionist with photographs and text, in English and Japanese. Cat lovers everywhere and readers who made Dewey, Zooborns, and I Can Has Cheezburger phenomenal hits will be delighted to get to know better this endearing celebrity cat with a big personality and an enormous established online fanbase.

A Street Cat Named Bob: And How He Saved My Life by James Bowen James is a street musician struggling to make ends meet. Bob is a stray cat looking for somewhere warm to sleep. When James and Bob meet, they forge a never-to-be-forgotten friendship that has been charming readers from Thailand to Turkey. A Street Cat Named Bob is an international sensation, landing on the bestseller list in England for 52 consecutive weeks and selling in 26 countries around the world. Now, James and Bob are ready to share their true story with the U.S. in this tale unlike any you’ve ever read of a cat who possesses some kind of magic. When street musician James Bowen found an injured cat curled up in the hallway of his apartment building, he had no idea how much his life was about to change. James was living hand to mouth on the streets of London, barely making enough money to feed himself, and the last thing he needed was a pet. Yet James couldn't resist helping the strikingly intelligent but very sick animal, whom he named Bob. He slowly nursed Bob back to health and then sent the cat on his way, imagining that he would never see him again. But Bob had other ideas.
Perfect for fans of Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog and Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat That Changed the World, this instant classic about the power of love between man and animal has taken the world by storm and is guaranteed to be a huge hit with American fans as well.

I Can Has Cheezburger?: A LOLcat Colleckshun by Professor Happycat
The Internet has provided us with many wonders, from skateboarding dogs to Chuck Norris facts. Over the past year, though, one sensation has dominated the Web: LOLcats. Here’s how it works: First you find a picture of a cat online, and then you add a caption that reflects the cat’s point of view. Just remember that although cats can speak English, their spelling and grammar is not so hot. Once you’re done, you have a LOLcat (laugh out loud cat). Since its founding in January 2007, icanhascheezburger.com (named after the most famous LOLcat of all) has been the center of the LOLcat world. I Can Has Cheezburger? collects 200 LOLcats from the enormously popular site, some classic and some new, in glorious and glossy full color.
The book also highlights legendary LOLcat forms recognizable to fans everywhere (including “Do Not Want,” “Monorail Cat,” and “Oh Noes!”), and offers a guide to the finer points of LOLspeak. Packed with witty and endearing images and published into a proven cat-egory, I Can Has Cheezburger? is sure to delight feline aficionados and Internet nerds alike.

Dewey: The Library Cat by Vicki Myron and Bret Witter
How much of an impact can an animal have? How many lives can one cat touch? How is it possible for an abandoned kitten to transform a small library, save a classic American town, and eventually become famous around the world? You can't even begin to answer those questions until you hear the charming story of Dewey Readmore Books, the beloved library cat of Spencer, Iowa.

Dewey's story starts in the worst possible way. Only a few weeks old, on the coldest night of the year, he was stuffed into the returned book slot at the Spencer Public Library. He was found the next morning by library director Vicki Myron, a single mother who had survived the loss of her family farm, a breast cancer scare, and an alcoholic husband. Dewey won her heart, and the hearts of the staff, by pulling himself up and hobbling on frostbitten feet to nudge each of them in a gesture of thanks and love. For the next nineteen years, he never stopped charming the people of Spencer with his enthusiasm, warmth, humility (for a cat), and, above all, his sixth sense about who needed him most. 

As his fame grew from town to town, then state to state, and finally, amazingly, worldwide, Dewey became more than just a friend; he became a source of pride for an extraordinary Heartland farming town pulling its way slowly back from the greatest crisis in its long history.

Not content to be a film star, Lil' Bub is an author, too. Her book comes out next month:

Lil Bub's Lil Book: The Extraordinary Life of the Most Amazing Cat on the Planet by Lil Bub
Lil Bub is a star. The adorable “perma-kitten” might look a little different than other felines, but her tiny size, toothless mouth, and extra toes have made her the darling of cat lovers around the world.Aided by her human, this celebri-cat is finally satisfying her demanding public with a book. Showcasing 100 captioned full color photos of Lil BUB —traveling through space, exploring the Earth, flying in hot air balloons, napping, and even skateboarding—Lil BUB’s Lil Book is exactly what her millions of fans want. Sure to please fans of LOLcats and Boo: The Life of the World’s Cutest Dog, Lil BUB’s Lil Book is the perfect book for anyone who needs more cute in their lives.

Stay tuned for Part 2, where I will cover Sidewalk's Saturday selections. Until then, happy reading!

Amanda

The Wild, Wild West

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, August 27th at 6:30pm in the Library's conference room for a discussion of real life adventures.

(From: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0404/adventure_books.html)

What are the essential ingredients in a great adventure story? The Latin root of the word, oddly enough, means "an arrival," but adventure almost always entails a going out, and not just any going out but a bold one: Sail the Pacific on a balsa raft; pit your skills against K2; sledge to the South Pole. It is a quest whose outcome is unknown but whose risks are tangible, a challenge someone meets with courage, brains, and effort—and then survives, we hope, to tell the tale.

"Safe return doubtful," as the famous apocryphal newspaper ad soliciting Antarctica volunteers put it. No matter: There's seldom a shortage of applicants. Humans hunger for adventure, and most is voluntary—people choose to go out and explore or climb or fly alone across vast oceans. But sometimes adventure is thrust upon us: A jet crashes in the high Andes, stranding its passengers in the snows. A whale staves and sinks a ship.

These, too, are tests of courage, endurance, resourcefulness. We stay up all night reading to see what happens. Such stories are as old as civilization. The ancient Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh is an adventure story. So are the Odyssey, the Viking sagas, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. And they have mythological roots: Culture heroes go out into the unknown, endure various tests, bring back a boon—the Golden Fleece; the Holy Grail; the knowledge, at the very least, of strange new lands, strange new people. The adventurer's rewards today are more personal but no less considerable. And those of us who stay behind still ask: What was it like? These are the books that answer that question.

There is a display of adventure books at the 2nd floor Reference Desk.  Stop by and pick one out or bring a treasured favorite on August 27th and tell us about it!

Last night we discussed western novels of all stripes but before I tell you about the books we dished on, I wanted to let you know about Wild West Wednesdays coming up in September!  Each Wednesday evening at 6:30pm in September (4th, 11th, 18th, and 25th), we'll show a classic western film.  For titles or more information, give us a call at 205-445-1121!

(All book descriptions from Amazon.com unless otherwise noted.)

The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains by Owen Wister
Set in the vast Wyoming territory, this masterpiece helped establish the code of the West and its stereotypical characters: the genteel but brave, white-hatted cowboy, the pretty spinster from back East, and villains beyond redemption. The novel is also on record for incorporating the first known "shootout" in American literature.

The Cowboy and the Cossack by Clair Huffaker
Fifteen Montana cowboys sail into Vladivostok with a herd of five hundred longhorns, ready to cross a thousand miles of Siberian wilderness. When a band of Cossacks, Russia’s elite horsemen and warriors, shows up to escort these rough and ready Americans to their destination, the clash of cultures begins. The feud between American six shooter and Russian saber is embodied in two men: Shad, the leader of the Montana cowboys, and Rostov, the Cossack commander. Nature and man are enemies that will force them to work together—and a ruthless Tartar army that stands between them and their destination. The code of the cowboy West and the credo of the Cossack East seem to be two different measures of a man—but honor and courage are the same in any language when a common enemy must be faced. Lonesome Dove meets Dr. Zhivago in this rousing tale of West meets East in the days of the Russian Tsars and the Wild West.

The Chili Queen by Sandra Dallas
Life may have been hard on Addie French, but when she meets friendless Emma Roby on a train, all her protective instincts emerge. Emma's brother is seeing her off to Nalgitas to marry a man she has never met. And Emma seems like a lost soul to Addie-someone who needs Addie's savvy and wary eye. It isn't often that Addie is drawn to anyone as a friend, but Emma seems different somehow. When Emma's prospective fails to show up at the train depot, Addie breaks all her principles to shelter the girl at her brothel, The Chili Queen. But once Emma enters Addie's life, the secrets that unfold and schemes that are hatched cause both women to question everything they thought they knew. With Sandra Dallas's trademark humor, charm, and pathos, The Chili Queen will satisfy anyone who has ever longed for happiness.  The Chili Queen is the winner of the 2003 Spur Award for Best Western Novel.

Wagons West! Idaho by Dana Fuller Ross
It's the wild lawless region beyond the River of No Return. Overrun with gold-crazed prospectors, money-hungry outlaws, and bloodthirsty tribes of Shoshoni and Nez Perce, the Idaho Territory is no place for a family to settle down. Which is why two battalions of cavalry troops are enlisted by the U.S. government to bring law and order to this untamed land. Led by Toby Holt, son of legendary wagon master Whip Holt, and his friend Rob Martin, a new generation of brave men and women are prepared to face whatever dangers lie ahead: hardened criminals overrunning the saloons and bordellos of Boise; marauding tribes spreading murder and mayhem across the mountains; and deadliest of all, an enemy from Toby's past seeking ruthless revenge. Nothing can stand in the way of a pioneer's spirit, a nation's dream, or America's future...

Butch Cassidy: The Lost Years by William and J.A. Johnstone
On November 3, 1908, in the town of San Vicente, suspected of stealing a mining company payroll, Butch Cassidy was killed in a bloody shootout by the Bolivian Army.

Or was he?

In a small Texas town in 1950, a man from the Pinkerton Detective Agency interrupts an old-timer's daily game of dominos to learn the truth about Butch Cassidy--who is still alive and well and sitting right in front of him…

So begins the novel of the West's most legendary outlaw--as told by America's master storytellers, William W. Johnstone and J.A.Johnstone. Butch Cassidy The Lost Years reveals the stunning secret behind that infamous shootout in Bolivia that claimed the lives of the Sundance Kid and, allegedly, Butch himself. For years, there were rumors that Cassidy survived. Now, almost half a century later, an old man playing dominos tells the real story of his life and times, legend be damned.

After fleeing South America and informing the beautiful Etta Place that her beloved Sundance is dead, Butch returns to Texas searching for a place to call home. When he comes across a dying rancher who'd been shot by some rustlers, Butch promises to avenge him--and take over the ranch after his death. Assuming the name Jim Strickland, Butch tries to start a fresh new chapter in his life. But even with his old gang gone and his outlaw past behind him, trouble has a way of finding Butch. Cruel injustice--in the form of a corrupt railroad baron--pulls him into the most dangerous train robbery he's ever attempted. But if Butch Cassidy is going to ride again, it'll have to be with a newer, and wilder, Wild Bunch...

Filled with page-turning action and authentic historic details, Butch Cassidy The Lost Years is a exciting and fitting tribute to a true American original. Robert LeRoy Parker. Butch to his friends. Mr. Cassidy to those on the business end of his gun.

The Quick and the Dead by Louis L'Amour
When Duncan McKaskel decided to move his family west, he knew he would face dangers, and he was prepared for them. He knew about the exhausting terrain, and he was expecting the punishing elements. What he worried about was having to use violence against other men—men who would follow him and try to steal the riches that he didn’t even possess.

Yet bandits were only part of McKaskel’s worries. For a mysterious stranger, Con Vallian, had appeared one night and saved his life. But was Vallian’s true interest Duncan’s wife, Susanna? And, more important, how did she feel about him?

As they push on into the wilderness, Duncan must discover who is the greater threat—the thieves outside his camp or the enigmatic stranger within.…

Spur: Minetown Mistress by Dirk Fletcher
An outsider in the unfriendly town of Timber Break, Idaho Territory, Spur McCoy is determined to track down a missing colonel and conquer both a blonde and a redhead.

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Now a major motion picture from Columbia Pictures starring Matt Damon, produced by Mike Nichols, and directed by Billy Bob Thornton.
The national bestseller and the first volume in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, All the Pretty Horses is the tale of John Grady Cole, who at sixteen finds himself at the end of a long line of Texas ranchers, cut off from the only life he has ever imagined for himself.  With two companions, he sets off for Mexico on a sometimes idyllic, sometimes comic journey to a place where dreams are paid for in blood.  Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction.

Cormac McCarthy interview with Oprah

Truly entertaining movies with the feel of a western, but set in Australia:
The Man From Snowy River
With its unforgettably heroic story, its stunning cinematography, and acting performances that are uniformly excellent, THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER is one thrilling adventure you won't want to miss. Set during the 1880's, when the Australian frontier was as wild and dangerous as the American West, the film follows the exploits of a handsome youth (Tom Burlinson) who sets out to tame a wild herd of horses. Taking on a challenge many men had attempted before him, he rides deep into the treacherous and untamed wilderness of his native timberlands where boys become men fast - or die trying. Featuring Kirk Douglas in a remakable dual role and highlighted by a climactic chase involving 40 horsemen and 90 wild horses thundering across snow-covered peaks, THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER is destined to become a legendary film!

Return to Snowy River
(From Rottentomatoes.com) Romance and adventure abound in this sequel to the popular Australian film The Man from Snowy River. The story takes up five years after the other ended. It is still the 1880s when Jim Craig returns to his humble mountain cabin after he rounds up a heard of mustangs in the hope that he will earn enough money to finally be able to marry Jessica. Unfortunately, Jessica's dad wants her to marry the banker's son. Now the two lovers must work long and hard to be together.

Cities for Life Diabetes Education

Public Libraries In Jefferson County, in partnership with the Birmingham Public Library System, and UAB Lister Hill Library/Health InfoNet of Alabama have been named the recipients of a Cities for Life Collaboration Award. The Collaboration Awards are designed to help expand resources for people living with diabetes or at risk for the disease in Birmingham and Jefferson County. These entities will partner to provide materials on diabetes for the community and house informative displays in each library; host an estimated 35 programs at area libraries on diabetes education involving experts from local universities and health organizations; purchase approximately 100 additional diabetes education titles that will circulate between the 40 public libraries; distribute diabetes education materials via library staff to other community venues (e.g., senior centers).

Granted to 24 organizations in Birmingham, the Collaboration Awards are an initiative of Cities for Life, a diabetes management program led by the American Academy of Family Physicians Foundation with support from Sanofi US. The Collaboration Awards will provide enhanced programs and services for the city of Birmingham to help ensure that people living with diabetes or at risk for diabetes are aware of and have access to the programs they need to effectively manage their condition.

Jefferson County residents can find these enhanced programs and services by visiting the recently launched website, mydiabetesconnect.com, a free searchable database that alerts people to the availability of local programs and services in Birmingham. Check with your local Jefferson County public library also.

To learn more about the Cities for Life program, visit www.aafpfoundation.org/citiesforlife and http://PublicLibrariesInJC.org.

This summer, the Emmet O'Neal Library is partnering with the UAB Nutrition Sciences

Department and the Cities for Life Initiative led by The American Academy of Family 

Physicians to present programs and information to the community about diabetes, 
health, nutrition, and exercise. 



Our first event will be on Thursday evening, August 22nd at 6:30. Dr. Douglas Moellering, 
Assistant Professor in Nutrition Sciences at UAB, will discuss healthy eating for all ages and we will sample some late summer fruits and vegetables.  

Programming will continue on September 12th with a discussion of healthy physical activity, and on October 5th with a program on nurturing healthy families. The series will continue 
throughout the year, a full calendar for the fall will be available at the first program. 



For more information, contact us at 445-1121.

Humor Writing

Last night we laughed and shared stories and talked about what was and wasn’t a bad word as we meandered down the path of humor writing.

The Genre Meeting Group next meets on Tuesday, July 30th at 6:30pm in the Library’s Conference Room for a discussion of western novels. There’s a display of great books at the 2nd floor reference desk so pick one out and plan to join us!

Here’s what we talked about last night (book descriptions from Amazon.com unless otherwise noted):

Bitter with Baggage Seeks Same: The Life and Times of Some Chickens by Sloane Tanen

With more personality than most people have to spare, New York artist Sloane Tanen's tiny yellow chickens negotiate the tricky modern world, filled with three-headed blind dates, menacing KFCs, playground popularity battles, and annoyingly crowded yoga classes. They perch amid doll furniture, in scenes photographed in glorious color and brilliantly captioned- and their lives will strike you as strangely familiar...

Charming, spiky with off-kilter wit (or waxing jobs gone terribly wrong), and somehow larger than life, these chickens win the hearts of all who behold them.

Going for the Bronze: Still Bitter, More Baggage by Sloane Tanen

They’re back! Sloane Tanen treats us to a second installment of her hilarious chicken dioramas in this sequel to her immensely popular Bitter with Baggage Seeks Same.

Join these fluffy, yellow, surprisingly human protagonists as they face a new series of dilemmas in their exquisitely crafted, miniature settings. Whether playing the online dating game, trying couples therapy, dealing with uncooperative children, discovering the melancholy of middle age, dreaming of a better life, or finally grasping the golden (or at least bronze) ring, these chickens encounter everyday troubles and triumphs as painfully recognizable as they are hilarious. Clever, charming, and endlessly entertaining, Going for the Bronze is a brilliant follow-up to a wholly unique bestseller.

Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman by Lisa Scottoline

This one’s for you, extraordinary ordinary women everywhere! It’s time for seriously hilarious girl-talk with New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline. She’s shared this collection of scenes from her real life, and she bets her life sounds a lot like yours . . . if you crave carbs, can’t find jeans that fit, and still believe that these two things are unrelated. Pick up this book—you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll swear off pantyhose. Here are some examples of Lisa’s wit and wisdom:

“Everybody has their pornography, and mine is the real estate ads.”

“We’ll get universal health care before we get beauty salons open on Mondays, and that’s backwards. Ask any woman if she’d rather have a haircut or a mammogram, and you’ll see what I mean.”

“Mothers are a natural force, and maybe an alternative source of fuel.”

“Lately there’s been talk about a religion that allows polygamy, so that a man can have as many wives as he pleases. Where is the religion that allows a woman to have as many husbands as she pleases?”

“I have never been in an accident, if you don’t count my two marriages.”

“My mother taught us that if you eat baked beans from a can that has dents, you’ll die of botulism. This was before people injected botulism into their faces. Nowadays, the dented can will kill you, but you’ll look young.”

Inspired by her wildly popular column in The Philadelphia Inquirer entitled “Chick Wit,” Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog is a book you’ll have to put down—just to stop laughing.

My Nest Isn’t Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman by Lisa Scottoline

Critics and readers loved Lisa Scottoline’s first collection of true-life stories, which only encouraged her—now she’s back with these all-new, exciting adventures. She’s farther down the road now, and the scenery has changed—ex-husbands Thing One and Thing Two are in her rear-view mirror, daughter Francesca has moved into an apartment, and Lisa’s finding the silver lining in her empty nest, which has lots more room for her shoes. And some things have stayed the same—Mother Mary is still the feistiest octogenarian on the planet, who won’t part with her recipe for tomato sauce or her thirty-year old bra.

In this book Lisa and Francesca spill all their family secrets—which sound a lot like yours, if you understand that three generations of women is the formula for spontaneous combustion.

Inspired by her weekly column entitled, “Chick Wit” for The Philadelphia Inquirer, this is a book you’ll have to put down—just to stop laughing.

America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t by Stephen Colbert

Book store nation, in the history of mankind there has never been a greater country than America. You could say we're the #1 nation at being the best at greatness.

But as perfect as America is in every single way, America is broken! And we can't exchange it because we're 236 years past the 30-day return window. Look around--we don't make anything anymore, we've mortgaged our future to China, and the Apologist-in-Chief goes on world tours just to bow before foreign leaders. Worse, the L.A. Four Seasons Hotel doesn't even have a dedicated phone button for the Spa. You have to dial an extension! Where did we lose our way?! It's high time we restored America to the greatness it never lost!

Luckily, AMERICA AGAIN will singlebookedly pull this country back from the brink. It features everything from chapters, to page numbers, to fonts. Covering subject's ranging from healthcare ("I shudder to think where we'd be without the wide variety of prescription drugs to treat our maladies, such as think-shuddering") to the economy ("Life is giving us lemons, and we're shipping them to the Chinese to make our lemon-flavored leadonade") to food ("Feel free to deep fry this book-it's a rich source of fiber"), Stephen gives America the dose of truth it needs to get back on track.

Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel

No one better understands the desire to be bad than Elizabeth Wurtzel. Bitch is a brilliant tract on the history of manipulative female behavior. By looking at women who derive their power from their sexuality, Wurtzel offers a trenchant cultural critique of contemporary gender relations. Beginning with Delilah, the first woman to supposedly bring a great man down (latter-day Delilahs include Yoko Ono, Pam Smart, Bess Myerson), Wurtzel finds many biblical counterparts to the men and women in today's headlines.

In five brilliant extended essays, she links the lives of women as demanding and disparate as Amy Fisher, Hillary Clinton, Margaux Hemingway, and Nicole Brown Simpson. Wurtzel gives voice to those women whose lives have been misunderstood, who have been dismissed for their beauty, their madness, their youth.

She finds in the story of Amy Fisher the tragic plight of all Lolitas, our thirst for their brief and intense flame. She connects Hemingway's tragic suicide to those of Sylvia Plath, Edie Sedgwick, and Marilyn Monroe, women whose beauty was an end, ultimately, in itself. Wurtzel, writing about the wife/mistress dichotomy, explains how some women are anointed as wife material, while others are relegated to the role of mistress. She takes to task the double standard imposed on women, the cultural insistence on goodness and society's complete obsession with badness: what's a girl to do? Let's face it, if women were any real threat to male power, "Gennifer Flowers would be sitting behind the desk of the Oval Office," writes Wurtzel, "and Bill Clinton would be a lounge singer in the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock."

Bitch tells a tale both celebratory and cautionary as Wurtzel catalogs some of the most infamous women in history, defending their outsize desires, describing their exquisite loneliness, championing their take-no-prisoners approach to life and to love. Whether writing about Courtney Love, Sally Hemings, Bathsheba, Kimba Wood, Sharon Stone, Princess Di--or waxing eloquent on the hideous success of The Rules, the evil that is The Bridges of Madison County, the twisted logic of You'll Never Make Love in This Town Again--Wurtzel is back with a bitchography that cuts to the core. In prose both blistering and brilliant, Bitch is a treatise on the nature of desperate sexual manipulation.

Don’t Sit Under the Grits Tree with Anyone But Me by Lewis Grizzard

More down-home humor from the incomparable Lewis Grizzard- ruminations on lardbutts, bra-padders, good ol' boys, and giggling Yankee girls. The joys of white bread and knowing your way around a 1957 Chevrolet. And lots more.

How to Talk Minnesotan: A Visitor’s Guide by Howard Mohr

Based in part on material written for "A Prairie Home Companion," How to Talk Minnesotan will help visitors to Minnesota keep from sticking out like sore thumbs when they don't know the difference between "not too bad a deal" and "a heckuva deal." Illustrated with line drawings.

Growing Up Catholic: An Infinitely Funny Guide for the Faithful, the Fallen, and Everyone In-Between by Mary Jane Frances Cavolina Meara, Jeffrey Allen Joseph Stone, Maureen Anne Teresa Kelly, and Richard Glen Michael Davis

The beloved classic bestseller features a witty, poignant, and downright hilarious potpourri of essays, lists, games, drawings, photos, and quizzes.

More Growing Up Catholic by Mary Jane Frances Cavolina Meara, Jeffrey Allen Joseph Stone, Maureen Anne Teresa Kelly, and Richard Glen Michael Davis

If you swear you had the strictest nun ever, if you always make the Sign of the Cross when you pass a church, if you still won't call a priest by his first name, if you'll never get used to calling Confession the Sacrament of Reconciliation, then you probably enjoyed the national bestseller Growing up Catholic.

For those who stayed and those who strayed, More Growing Up Catholic presents further revelations of the joyful mysteries of growing up Catholic, including:

* All in the Family: Ethnic Catholics
* Altar Boy Fun
* The Quintessential Catholic Family
* An Insider's Guide to Fourteen Famous Catholic Colleges
* How to Torture a Catholic Mother
* Things Nuns Always Say
* Are You a Catholic?: A Quiz to Make Sure
* Real Lives of the Saints

No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem by Jeff Foxworthy

America's favorite Southern-fried, stand-up comedian and TV sitcom star Jeff Foxworthy brings his humor to the page in this riotous laugh-out-loud book. In No Shirt. No Shoes. No Problem!, Foxworthy examines the hilarity of growing up, love, sex, crazy families, roommates, friendship, mooning, having a crush on your cousin, and the real stories behind many of his favourite Redneck jokes. So get ready...you're in for a helluva good time!

Gettin’ It On: A Down Home Treasury by Lewis Grizzard

Best selling humorist Lewis Grizzard, leads us on a warm, sensitive, and very funny journey through the soul of his beloved South in this collection of three of his favorite works. While extolling the praises of the GA Bulldogs, Southern womanhood, beer joints, butter beans, high school reunions, hayrides and Willie Nelson, he takes the important aspects of life very seriously. This collection of modern Southern life and culture is written with humor, real emotion, and true empathy with the land and its people. Lews Grizzard gives us a down home delight, full of politics, homemade biscuits, plain folks, and more than a little common sense.

Henhouse: The International Book for Chickens and Their Lovers by Buddy Wakefield

This new publication is inspired by hens and the people who love them. Geared toward new chicken owners and created for everyone to laugh with and learn from. This witty book is full of mother clucking facts. The popularity of raising chickens in cities and suburbia continues to grow and Henhouse offers up a wealth of how-tos, tips and advice for this new wave of environmentally conscious chicken owners. Henhouse is a valuable resource for helpful information on all things chicken with a playful, educated and current appeal.

Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls: Essays, etc by David Sedaris

A guy walks into a bar car and...

From here the story could take many turns. When this guy is David Sedaris, the possibilities are endless, but the result is always the same: he will both delight you with twists of humor and intelligence and leave you deeply moved.

Sedaris remembers his father's dinnertime attire (shirtsleeves and underpants), his first colonoscopy (remarkably pleasant), and the time he considered buying the skeleton of a murdered Pygmy.

With Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, David Sedaris shows once again why his work has been called "hilarious, elegant, and surprisingly moving" (Washington Post).

Sex, Drugs, and Gefilte Fish: The Heeb Storytelling Collection edited by Shana Liebman

Scoring weed for your uncle...Hanging out with porn stars on Christmas Eve...Eating nachos with the Mossad...Observing the Dyke Days of Awe...Getting held up at a Weight Watcher's meeting...Spying on your naked Hebrew School teacher.

From Heeb magazine--the definitive voice of a proud, searching, and irreverent new generation of American Jews--this first-of-a-kind fast and fun showcase spotlights the hilarious and heartful raconteurial gifts of many of today's leading writers, comedians, actors, artists, and musicians. Laura Silverman, Michael Showalter, Andy Borowitz, Joel Stein, Ben Greenman, Darrin Strauss, and others navigate sex, drugs, work, youth, family, and, on the lighter side, body and soul. You'll never bleach your arm hair again.

What are YOU reading?
Holley

books made into movies

Get ready to laugh!  The next Genre Reading Group meeting will be Tuesday, June 25, 2013 at 6:30pm in the Library's conference room and the topic up for discussion is humor writing.

This past Tuesday, GRG discussed books that have been made into movies.  In retrospect, there should have been a red carpet arrival event for book group members, but I've only just now thought of it. :-)

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Saferan Foer (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close recasts recent history through the eyes of Oskar Schell, an unusually intelligent nine-year-old on an urgent quest to find the lock that matches a mysterious key belonging to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. This unlikely adventure takes Oskar through every city borough and into contact with survivors of all sorts, and it's his irrepressible voice—one that few writers could conceive as imaginatively as Foer does—that transforms the tragedy of circumstance into an exhilarating tribute to love.

Stuart Little by E. B. White (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Stuart Little is no ordinary mouse. Born to a family of humans, he lives in New York City with his parents, his older brother George, and Snowbell the cat. Though he's shy and thoughtful, he's also a true lover of adventure.  Stuart's greatest adventure comes when his best friend, a beautiful little bird named Margalo, disappears from her nest. Determined to track her down, Stuart ventures away from home for the very first time in his life. He finds adventure aplenty. But will he find his friend?

Charlotte's Web by E. B. White (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Charlotte's Web is the story of a little girl named Fern who loved a little pig named Wilbur—and of Wilbur's dear friend Charlotte A. Cavatica, a beautiful large grey spider who lived with Wilbur in the barn.  With the help of Templeton, the rat who never did anything for anybody unless there was something in it for him, and by a wonderfully clever plan of her own, Charlotte saved the life of Wilbur, who by this time had grown up to quite a pig.  How all this comes about is Mr. White's story. It is a story of the magic of childhood on the farm. The thousands of children who loved Stuart Little, the heroic little city mouse, will be entranced with Charlotte the spider, Wilbur the pig, and Fern, the little girl who understood their language.

The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Like the rest of his family, Louis is a trumpeter swan. But unlike his four brothers and sisters, Louis can't trumpet joyfully. In fact, he can't even make a sound. And since he can't trumpet his love, the beautiful swan Serena pays absolutely no attention to him.  Louis tries everything he can think of to win Serena's affection--he even goes to school to learn to read and write. But nothing seems to work. Then his father steals him a real brass trumpet. Is a musical instrument the key to winning Louis his love?

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Bella Swan's move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Bella's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Bella, the person Edward holds most dear.  Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite.

Dune by Frank Herbert (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Here is the novel that will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Muad'Dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family--and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream. A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what it undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.

The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Begun in 1959 by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s. The narrator, freelance journalist Paul Kemp, irresistibly drawn to a sexy, mysterious woman, is soon thrust into a world where corruption and get-rich-quick schemes rule and anything (including murder) is permissible. Exuberant and mad, youthful and energetic, this dazzling comedic romp provides a fictional excursion as riveting and outrageous as Thompson’s Fear and Loathing books.

About Schmidt by Louis Begley (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
As he tries to make his life habitable again--after the devastating loss of his wife--retired lawyer Albert Schmidt finds the possibility of regeneration in a new love the old "Schmidtie" would never have dreamt of. Set in the Hamptons and Mahnattan, and laced with black humor, About Schmidt casts a cold, pitiless eye on the eastern seaboard upper class, the last vestiges of once-ascendant WASPs, and the newcomers whose fortunes are rising.

Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Ree Dolly's father has skipped bail on charges that he ran a crystal meth lab, and the Dollys will lose their house if he doesn't show up for his next court date. With two young brothers depending on her, 16-year-old Ree knows she has to bring her father back, dead or alive. Living in the harsh poverty of the Ozarks, Ree learns quickly that asking questions of the rough Dolly clan can be a fatal mistake. But, as an unsettling revelation lurks, Ree discovers unforeseen depths in herself and in a family network that protects its own at any cost.

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920s, The Painted Veil is the story of the beautiful but love-starved Kitty Fane. When her husband discovers her adulterous affair, he forces her to accompany him to the heart of a cholera epidemic. Stripped of the British society of her youth and the small but effective society she fought so hard to attain in Hong Kong, she is compelled by her awakening conscience to reassess her life and learn how to love.  The Painted Veil is a beautifully written affirmation of the human capacity to grow, to change, and to forgive.

Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy by Frances Mayes (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Frances Mayes—widely published poet, gourmet cook, and travel writer—opens the door to a wondrous new world when she buys and restores an abandoned villa in the spectacular Tuscan countryside. In evocative language, she brings the reader along as she discovers the beauty and simplicity of life in Italy. Mayes also creates dozens of delicious seasonal recipes from her traditional kitchen and simple garden, all of which she includes in the book. Doing for Tuscany what M.F.K. Fisher and Peter Mayle did for Provence, Mayes writes about the tastes and pleasures of a foreign country with gusto and passion.

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Macon Leary is a travel writer who hates both travel and anything out of the ordinary. He is grounded by loneliness and an unwillingness to compromise his creature comforts when he meets Muriel, a deliciously peculiar dog-obedience trainer who up-ends Macon’s insular world–and thrusts him headlong into a remarkable engagement with life.

Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.  Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.  Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Lily is haunted by memories–of who she once was, and of a person, long gone, who defined her existence. She has nothing but time now, as she recounts the tale of Snow Flower, and asks the gods for forgiveness.

In nineteenth-century China, when wives and daughters were foot-bound and lived in almost total seclusion, the women in one remote Hunan county developed their own secret code for communication: nu shu (“women’s writing”). Some girls were paired with laotongs, “old sames,” in emotional matches that lasted throughout their lives. They painted letters on fans, embroidered messages on handkerchiefs, and composed stories, thereby reaching out of their isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments.

With the arrival of a silk fan on which Snow Flower has composed for Lily a poem of introduction in nu shu, their friendship is sealed and they become “old sames” at the tender age of seven. As the years pass, through famine and rebellion, they reflect upon their arranged marriages, loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their lifelong friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a brilliantly realistic journey back to an era of Chinese history that is as deeply moving as it is sorrowful. With the period detail and deep resonance of Memoirs of a Geisha, this lyrical and emotionally charged novel delves into one of the most mysterious of human relationships: female friendship.

What are YOU watching/reading?

It's Time To Refresh Your Reading List!

Hi Readers!

I'm introducing a new feature to our blog - each week I'll post some new titles for you to refresh your reading list, and links to bookish websites. Enjoy!

The titles below have been published in the last few weeks. Emmet O'Neal owns copies, but they may be checked out. Click on the title to be taken to the library's website where you can check the status of the book and place a hold. In most cases we have multiple copies of the books available in multiple formats!

 The Apple Orchard by Susan Wiggs

 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs brings listeners to the lush abundance of Sonoma County in a novel of sisters, friendship and how memories are woven like a spell around us. Tess Delaney makes a living restoring stolen treasures to their rightful owners. People like Annelise Winther, who refuses to sell her long-gone mother’s beloved necklace — despite Tess’s advice. To Annelise, the jewel’s value is in its memories. But Tess’s own history is filled with gaps: a father she never met, a mother who spent more time traveling than with her daughter. So Tess is shocked when she discovers the grandfather she never knew is in a coma. And that she has been named in his will to inherit half of Bella Vista, a hundred-acre apple orchard in the magical Sonoma town called Archangel. The rest is willed to Isabel Johansen. A half sister she’s never heard of. Against the rich landscape of Bella Vista, Tess begins to discover a world filled with the simple pleasures of food and family, of the warm earth beneath her bare feet. A world where family comes first and the roots of history run deep. A place where falling in love is not only possible, but inevitable. And in a season filled with new experiences, Tess begins to see the truth in something Annelise once told her: if you don’t believe memories are worth more than money, then perhaps you’ve not made the right kind of memories. From one of America’s most beloved writers, The Apple Orchard is a story of family ties — both old and new — and of the moments that connect our hearts.

 –-Publisher’s Summary

Best Kept Secret by Jeffrey Archer

 

Jeffrey Archer's mesmerizing saga of the Clifton and Barrington families continues...
1945, London. The vote in the House of Lords as to who should inherit the Barrington family fortune has ended in a tie. The Lord Chancellor's deciding vote will cast a long shadow on the lives of Harry Clifton and Giles Barrington. Harry returns to America to promote his latest novel, while his beloved Emma goes in search of the little girl who was found abandoned in her father's office on the night he was killed. When the general election is called, Giles Barrington has to defend his seat in the House of Commons and is horrified to discover who the Conservatives select to stand against him. But it is Sebastian Clifton, Harry and Emma's son, who ultimately influences his uncle's fate.

-Publisher’s Summary

Inferno by Dan Brown

In the heart of Italy, Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon is drawn into a harrowing world centered on one of history’s most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces . . . Dante’s Inferno.

Against this backdrop, Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle that pulls him into a landscape of classic art, secret passageways, and futuristic science. Drawing from Dante’s dark epic poem, Langdon races to find answers and decide whom to trust . . . before the world is irrevocably altered.

-Publisher’s Summary

Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella

Lottie just knows that her boyfriend is going to propose during lunch at one of London’s fanciest restaurants. But when his big question involves a trip abroad, not a trip down the aisle, she’s completely crushed. So when Ben, an old flame, calls her out of the blue and reminds Lottie of their pact to get married if they were both still single at thirty, she jumps at the chance. No formal dates—just a quick march to the altar and a honeymoon on Ikonos, the sun-drenched Greek island where they first met years ago.
 
Their family and friends are horrified. Fliss, Lottie’s older sister, knows that Lottie can be impulsive—but surely this is her worst decision yet. And Ben’s colleague Lorcan fears that this hasty marriage will ruin his friend’s career. To keep Lottie and Ben from making a terrible mistake, Fliss concocts an elaborate scheme to sabotage their wedding night. As she and Lorcan jet off to Ikonos in pursuit, Lottie and Ben are in for a honeymoon to remember, for better . . . or worse.

-Publisher’s Summary

Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris

 

 A guy walks into a bar and...

From here the story could take many turns. When this guy is David Sedaris, the possibilities are endless, but the result is always the same: he will both delight you with twists of humor and intelligence and leave you deeply moved. 

Sedaris remembers his father's dinnertime attire (shirtsleeves and underpants), his first colonoscopy (remarkably pleasant), and the time he considered buying the skeleton of a murdered Pygmy. 

With Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, David Sedaris shows once again why his work has been called "hilarious, elegant, and surprisingly moving" (Washington Post).

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

NOS4A2 is a spine-tingling novel of supernatural suspense from master of horror Joe Hill, the New York Times bestselling author of Heart-Shaped Box and Horns.

Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country.

Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing – and terrifying – playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.”

Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. He’s on the road again and he’s picked up a new passenger: Vic’s own son.

-Publisher's Summary

Last, but not least, check out these links to reading ideas from all over the internet:

National Geographic’s Best Travel Books for Spring

Publisher’s Weekly – Most Anticipated Books for Spring 2013

USA Today’s List of Books You Should Read In May

Enjoy your reading!

-katie m.

Holocaust in Poland Film Series

Good Morning Readers!

I wanted to give you an update on a film series we have hosted over the last month that is coming to an end. During the month of April we partnered with The Birmingham International Center and The Birmingham Holocaust Education Center to present a free film series.

On Monday, May 6, we will screen the final movie entitled The Passenger (Pasazerka). This 58 minute film released in Poland in 1963 opens with a German matron taking an ocean voyage with her husband. While roaming the deck, she spots a passenger she thinks she recognizes. The passenger had been an inmate at Auschwitz, where Slaska served as a guard. An alternately realistic and illusory study in guilt and retribution, this film was halfway through production in 1961 when its director, Andrzej Munk, was killed in an auto accident. Munk's friends loyally completed the project, bridging a few scenes with still pictures.

The film will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Library's Meeting Room. As with our other films in the series, we will have an introduction prior to the movie led by Dr. Andre Millard, Professor of History at UAB. After the film, Dr. Millard will lead a brief discussion. In the photo below you can see our previous discussion leader, Dr. Andrew Demshuk, Assistant Professor of History at UAB. Thanks to interesting films and lively discussion, we have had great crowds, averaging between 50-75 people at each program!

For more information on this film, please contact us at the Reference Desk at 205-445-1121. We hope you will join us!

-katie m.

American Plays and Playwrights

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, May 1, 2013 at 6:30pm in the Library’s Conference Room and we will be discussing books that have been made into movies.  Additional threads of discussion may include tv shows adapted from books, movies adapted from books, who we’d like to see cast in certain roles, etc.  The sky’s the limit!

Our discussion last evening was about American plays and playwrights.  

The Rainmaker by N. Richard Nash
At the time of a paralyzing drought in the West we discover a girl whose father and two brothers are worried as much about her becoming an old maid as they are about their dying cattle. For the truth is, she is indeed a plain girl. The brothers try every possible scheme to marry her off, but without success. Nor is there any sign of relief from the dry heat. When suddenly from out of nowhere appears a picaresque character with a mellifluous tongue and the most grandiose notions a man could imagine. He claims to be a rainmaker. And he promises to bring rain, for $100. It's a silly idea, but the rainmaker is so refreshing and ingratiating that the family finally consent. Forthwith they begin banging on big brass drums to rattle the sky; while the rainmaker turns his magic on the girl, and persuades her that she has a very real beauty of her own. And she believes it, just as her father believes the fellow can actually bring rain. And rain does come, and so does love. 

Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Other Plays by Steve Martin
Steve Martin is one of America's most treasured actors, having appeared in some of the most popular moves of our time. He is also an accomplished screenwriter who has in the past few years turned his hand to writing plays. The results, collected here, hilariously explore serious questions of love, happiness and the meaning of life; they are rich with equal parts of pain and slapstick humour, torment and wit.

Stories from Jonestown by Leigh Fondakowski
The saga of Jonestown didn’t end on the day in November 1978 when more than nine hundred Americans died in a mass murder-suicide in the Guyanese jungle. While only a handful of people present at the agricultural project survived that day in Jonestown, more than eighty members of Peoples Temple, led by Jim Jones, were elsewhere in Guyana on that day, and thousands more members of the movement still lived in California. 

Emmy-nominated writer Leigh Fondakowski, who is best known for her work on the play and HBO film The Laramie Project, spent three years traveling the United States to interview these survivors, many of whom have never talked publicly about the tragedy. Using more than two hundred hours of interview material, Fondakowski creates intimate portraits of these survivors as they tell their unforgettable stories.

Collectively this is a record of ordinary people, stigmatized as cultists, who after the Jonestown massacre were left to deal with their grief, reassemble their lives, and try to make sense of how a movement born in a gospel of racial and social justice could have gone so horrifically wrong—taking with it the lives of their sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters. As these survivors look back, we learn what led them to join the Peoples Temple movement, what life in the church was like, and how the trauma of Jonestown’s end still affects their lives decades later.

What emerges are portrayals both haunting and hopeful—of unimaginable sadness, guilt, and shame but also resilience and redemption. Weaving her own artistic journey of discovery throughout the book in a compelling historical context, Fondakowski delivers, with both empathy and clarity, one of the most gripping, moving, and humanizing accounts of Jonestown ever written.

Doubt by John Patrick Shanley
In this brilliant and powerful drama, Sister Aloysius, a Bronx school principal, takes matters into her own hands when she suspects the young Father Flynn of improper relations with one of the male students.

GENERAL DISCUSSION: The reader mentioned that “Doubt” is on about 58 pages long and yet a full length play AND feature length film have been adapted from it.  F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, despite its brevity, was also adapted to a lengthy feature film.

Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring
The play, a clever combination of the farcical and the macabre, centers on two elderly sisters who are famous in their Brooklyn neighborhood for their numerous acts of charity. Unfortunately, however, their charity includes poisoning lonely old men who come to their home looking for lodging. The two women are assisted in their crimes by their mentally challenged nephew who believes he is Teddy Roosevelt and who frequently blasts a bugle and yells "charge" as he bounds up the stairs. Matters get complicated when a second nephew, a theater critic, discovers the murders and a third nephew appears after having just escaped from a mental institution. In his adroit mixture of comedy and mayhem, Kesselring satirizes the charitable impulse as he pokes fun at the conventions of the theater.

My Name is Julia by Kathryn Tucker Windham
Kathryn Tucker Windham, who grew up in Thomasville, Alabama, lived in Selma, Alabama.  She told stories in 28 states as well as in Canada and Germany; wrote 26 books in addition to the publication of telling her stories in numerous audiocassettes and compact discs; Recipient of the Helen Keller Literary Award; Recipient of President’s Award for Service to Alabama Libraries; Recipient of the Storytelling Circle of Excellence Award; Recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Storytelling Association. 

Some of her best storytelling ventures have been as an actress…especially in the one-woman she wrote, produced, and acted in, My Name Is Julia, about pioneering social reformer Julia Tutwiler, Kathryn Tucker Windham was also an accomplished photographer, renowned historian, popular public television and radio personality. As a contributor to National Public Radio, Kathryn Tucker Windham won national acclaim for her segments for “All Things Considered.”

Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
This is the book that started it all! The basis for the smash hit Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Gregory Maguire's breathtaking New York Times bestseller Wicked views the land of Oz, its inhabitants, its Wizard, and the Emerald City, through a darker and greener (not rosier) lens. Brilliantly inventive, Wicked offers us a radical new evaluation of one of the most feared and hated characters in all of literature: the much maligned Wicked Witch of the West who, as Maguire tells us, wasn’t nearly as Wicked as we imagined.

The Book of Mormon: The Testament of the Broadway Musical by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone
The biggest Broadway hit in decades—the brilliant brainchild of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and Avenue Q co-creator Robert Lopez—The Book of Mormon is delighting theatergoers nightly with its outrageous irreverent humor and surprising heart. Cleverly designed in the same fun spirit as the show, this official, full-color illustrated coffee table book takes readers behind the scenes with stories from the cast, creators, and crew. Included are the complete book and lyrics to the smash hit Broadway musical, extensively annotated, plus an original introduction by theater critic and author author Steven Suskin about the creation of the show that Rolling Stone declares "is on its march into legend."

The Book of Mormon Script Book: The Complete Book and Lyrics of the Broadway Musical by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone
The only official companion book to the Tony Award winner for Best Musical from the creators ofSouth Park and the co-creator of Avenue Q. Features the complete script and song lyrics, with 4-color spot illustrations throughout, an original introduction by the creators, and a foreword by Mark Harris.

The Book of Mormon, which follows a pair of mismatched Mormon boys sent on a mission to a place that's about as far from Salt Lake City as you can get, features book, music, and lyrics by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone.
Parker and Stone are the four-time Emmy Award–winning creators of Comedy Central's landmark animated series South Park. Tony Award–winner Lopez is co-creator of the long-running hit musical comedy Avenue Q. The Book of Mormon is choreographed by three-time Tony Award–nominee Casey Nicholaw (Monty Python's Spamalot, The Drowsy Chaperone) and is directed by Nicholaw and Parker.

The book includes • an original foreword by journalist Mark Harris (author of Pictures at a Revolution) • an original introduction by the authors on the genesis of the show • a production history • the complete book and lyrics, with four-color spot illustrations throughout.

Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes (Part 1: Millennium Approaches, Part 2: Perestroika) by Tony Kushner
Set in New York City in the mid-1980s, Act One introduces us to the central characters. Louis Ironson is a Jewish homosexual living with his lover, Prior Walter. When Prior contracts Aids, Louis, unable to cope with the strain, moves out. Meanwhile, closeted Mormon and Republican clerk Joe Pitt, is offered a major promotion by his mentor: Roy Cohn. As the play progresses, Prior finds himself being visited by ghosts and angels. Joe, realizing he might be gay, finds himself struggling to reconcile his religion with his sexuality; Louis deals with his remorse and guilt at abandoning Prior; Joe's mother Hannah moves to New York to look after Joe's wife, Harper; and Roy finds himself in hospital, his only companions being his nurse Belize, an ex-drag queen and good friend of Prior, and the ghost of Communist Ethel Rosenberg.

Elephant’s Graveyard by George Brant
Winner of the 2008 Keene Prize for Literature 
Winner of the 2008 David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award Elephant's Graveyard is the true tale of the tragic collision of a struggling circus and a tiny town in Tennessee, which resulted in the only known lynching of an elephant. Set in September of 1916, the play combines historical fact and legend, exploring the deep-seated American craving for spectacle, violence and revenge. 

Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill
Long Day's Journey into Nightis a drama in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1941–42 but only published in 1956. The play is widely considered to be his masterwork. O'Neill posthumously received the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the work.  The action covers a fateful, heart-rending day from around 8:30 am to midnight, in August 1912 at the seaside Connecticut home of the Tyrones - the semi-autobiographical representations of O'Neill himself, his older brother, and their parents at their home, Monte Cristo Cottage.

One theme of the play is addiction and the resulting dysfunction of the family. All three males are alcoholics and Mary is addicted to morphine. In the play the characters conceal, blame, resent, regret, accuse and deny in an escalating cycle of conflict with occasional desperate and sincere attempts at affection, encouragement and consolation.

GENERAL DISCUSSION: Long Day’s Journey Into Night is a brilliant, but inky dark work about a dysfunctional family.  Margaret Atwood’s short story, Stone Mattress, is just as dark, but also equally powerful. 

That's what we talked about.  What are YOU reading?