we're on tv

the best wine tasting in town

We'd love to see you on Friday, September 23rd from 6pm-9pm at the Birmingham Zoo for Western's Food & Wine Festival so buy your tickets today.  Proceeds benefit the Library.

Advance - $45
At the door the night of the event - $55
Group discount for buying 10 or more tickets together - $40 each

Tickets are available at Emmet O'Neal Library, any Western Supermarkets location, and..................drum roll...................you can now purchase them online!

GRG Recap - School Days Classics

I always make a small bookmark for our Genre Reading Group meetings; something to sort of tie all the different books together. The books don't really have to be similar as most of the fun of our discussions come from searching for, and often finding, a thread of cohesion among the disparate topics. The bookmark is simply intended to help readers get into a helpful frame of mind for making the connections. I am particularly pleased with the selection I found for our discussion of the classics.

"A book is never a masterpiece: it becomes one. Genius is the talent of a dead man."

Edmond de Goncourt

"Do not suppose, however, that I intend to urge a diet of classics on anybody. I have seen such diets at work. I have known people who have actually read all, or almost all, the guaranteed Hundred Best Books. God save us from reading nothing but the best."

Robertson Davies

"A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read."

Mark Twain

I like these quotes most because I don't necessarily agree with them. I do believe a book becomes a masterpiece but don't believe that an author's death is a necessary ingredient. I agree wholeheartedly that reading tastes should range wide and be varied, but the classics can offer that as well. I myself don't read a strict diet of the classics, but I wouldn't frown upon someone who did. And lastly, I disagree with Mr. Twain on his assumption that nobody wants to read the classics. I believe we think we don't want to read them. That was certainly the case with the book I chose to read for our meeting, Moby Dick by Herman Melville.

I decided to read it after hearing an author, Nathaniel Philbrick, talk about his experiences as the disgruntled son of a Melville scholar. He refused to read anything by Melville on general teenage and young adult principles, then ended up really loving the work on its own merits when he finally got around to it as a more mature reader. I decided to give it a try and can honestly say I had a similar experience.

I don't believe I would have ever managed to finish it as a hurried, distracted undergraduate, but as a fairly well read 30-something, it was beautiful and harsh and wonderfully dated all at the same time. Several others who were re-reading something from their own school days had the same impression. It was a vastly different read when viewed through the lens of life experience. I believe that is why the classics are the classics and I look forward to seeing what new classics rise to the top over the course of my life.

Were any of the books listed below among YOUR required reading in school? What did you read during school that you loved? Were there any books you didn't care for at the time but would like to re-visit now?

Our Town by Thornton Wilder

Our Town was first produced and published in 1938 to wide acclaim. This Pulitzer Prize–winning drama of life in the town of Grover's Corners, an allegorical representation of all life, has become a classic. It is Thornton Wilder's most renowned and most frequently performed play.

In general discussion, we talk briefly about another book by Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey.

"On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." With this celebrated sentence, Thornton Wilder begins The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the towering achievements in American fiction and a novel read throughout the world. By chance, a monk witnesses the tragedy. Brother Juniper seeks to prove that it was divine intervention rather than chance that led to the deaths of those who perished in the tragedy. His study leads to his own death -- and to the author's timeless investigation into the nature of love and the meaning of the human condition.

The Pearl by John Steinbeck

Kino is a desperately poor Mexican-pearl diver. When he finds 'The Pearl of the World' he believes that his life will be magically transformed. Obsessed by his dreams, Kino is blind to the greed, fear and even violence the pearl arouses in his neighbours - and himself. This is a haunting and timeless tale of wealth and the evil it can bring.

Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck

With his dog Charley, John Steinbeck set out in his truck to explore and experience America in the 1960s. As he talked with all kinds of people, he sadly noted the passing of region speech, fell in love with Montana, and was appalled by racism in New Orleans.

In general discussion, Steinbeck was a heavy hitter. We also talked about two of his other novels:

The Red Pony

Young Jody Tiflin lives on his father's California ranch. He is thrilled when his father gives him a red pony, and later promises him the colt of a bay mare. Both these gifts bring joy to Jodi's life - but tragedy soon follows. As Jodi begins to learn the harsh lessons of life and death, he starts to understand what growing-up and becoming an adult really means.

The Grapes of Wrath

At once naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck's, The Grapes of Wrath is perhaps the most American of American classics. Although it follows the movement of thousands of men and women and the transformation of an entire nation during the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s, The Grapes of Wrath is also the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads, who are driven off their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. From their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of this new America, Steinbeck creates a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, tragic but ultimately stirring in its insistence on human dignity.

And of course, for epic struggles, there's always Hemingway too.

The Old Man and the Sea

Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal -- a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss. Written in 1952, this hugely successful novella confirmed his power and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Awe and exhiliration--along with heartbreak and mordant wit--abound in Lolita, Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America. Most of all, it is a meditation on love--love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.

In general discussion, the audio version of another of Nabokov's novels, Pnin, was mentioned. We almost unanimously decided we wanted to see the 1962 movie adaptation of Lolita. Plus, did you know that Nabokov was an amateur butterfly expert? Butterflies were all the time popping up in Pnin and in Lolita, quite possibly in all of his other works as well.

Anne's House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery

This is Lucy Montgomery's last book of the Anne series. Gilbert has become a doctor and now Anne has a wedding day set. Anne has found her "House of Dreams" and decides to leave Green Gables. The story is filled with a cast of quirky small town characters sure to delight.

Don't let the "Anne of Green Gables" moniker fool you. Some other great classics are quoted and/or referenced in this rather sweet and lighthearted work: James Joyce's Ulysses, the works of Robert & Elizabeth Browning, Shakespeare's Hamlet, and Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar." Classics within classics!

What a treat! One reader brought in a vintage (1950's) oversize New Basic Readers edition of Sally, Dick, and Jane! Boy, did that bring back memories for us all. I remember clearly the delight I felt when I got my first reader in elementary school and could read the adventures of that happy little trio all by myself, without help. Thanks MFJ!

Moby Dick by Herman Melville (The audio edition narrated by William Hootkins is spectacularly done!)

A masterpiece of storytelling and symbolic realism, this thrilling adventure and epic saga pits Ahab, a brooding sea captain, against the great white whale that crippled him. More than just the tale of a hair-raising voyage, Melville's riveting story passionately probes man's soul. A literary classic first published in 1851, Moby Dick represents the ultimate human struggle.

What are YOU reading?

Cabinet of Curiosities

Temperatures are rising making it neccessary to spend some of those precious summer days and nights (gasp) indoors. Not willing to let a retreat indoors bring on summer doldrums, Holley and I have scoured the stacks for some of the most intriguing books here at EOL.

Seeking inspiration from the Cabinets of Curiosities, or Wunderkammer (meaning "wonder-rooms") of Renaissance Europe, we set up our very own curio of curiosities display featuring wondrous books that upon opening, take you to a whole other time, place, and even world.

Here is just of the sampling of the offerings:

Lewis Carroll: Photographer by Roger Taylor and Edward Wakeling

Through the Lens: National Geographic Greatest Photographs

Mythical Beasts of Japan by Kano Hiroyuki

Voyages of Discovery: a Visual Celebration of Ten of the Greatest Natural History Expeditions by Tony Rice

America in Space: NASA's First Fifty Years edited by Stephen J. Dick

The Poster in History by Max Gallo

Ice Palaces by Fred Anderes and Ann Agranoff

Holy Terrors: Gargoyles on Medieval Buildings by Jenetta Rebold Benton

Monuments by Judith Dupre

Amanda

GRG Recap - Salon Discussion

What books were required reading when you were in school? Have a favorite you want to revisit? Do you remember one that was awful at the time but which you would like to reassess now? Here’s your chance! The August 30th (6:30pm) meeting topic is School Day Classics! Fiction or nonfiction, you decide! I have a small selection pulled, but as always you are free to make your own selection! If you’d like some help making your selection, I’m happy to assist!

Last evening we met for our biannual Salon Discussion. During our Salons, readers bring any book they’d like to discuss and we had a great variety at the table last night!

Last Night at Chateau Marmont by Lauren Weisberger
Brooke loved reading the dishy celebrity gossip rag Last Night. That is, until her marriage became a weekly headline. Brooke was drawn to the soulful, enigmatic Julian Alter the very first time she heard him perform “Hallelujah” at a dark East Village dive bar. Now five years married, Brooke balances two jobs—as a nutritionist at NYU Hospital and as a consultant to an Upper East Side girls’ school, where privilege gone wrong and disordered eating run rampant—in order to help support her husband’s dream of making it in the music world. Things are looking up when after years of playing Manhattan clubs and toiling as an A&R intern, Julian finally gets signed by Sony. Although no one’s promising that the album will ever hit the airwaves, Julian is still dedicated to logging in long hours at the recording studio. All that changes after Julian is asked to perform on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno—and is catapulted to stardom, literally overnight. Amazing opportunities begin popping up almost daily—a new designer wardrobe, a tour with Maroon 5, even a Grammy performance. At first the newfound fame is fun—who wouldn’t want to stay at the Chateau Marmont or visit the set of one of television’s hottest shows? Yet it seems that Brooke’s sweet husband—the man who can’t handle hot showers and wears socks to bed—is increasingly absent, even on those rare nights they’re home together. When rumors about Brooke and Julian swirl in the tabloid magazines, she begins to question the truth of her marriage and is forced to finally come to terms with what she thinks she wants—and what she actually needs.

Shattered by Dick Francis
When jockey Martin Stukely dies after falling in a steeplechase at Cheltenham races, he accidentally embroils his friend Gerard Logan in a perilous search for a stolen video tape. Logan, half artist, half artisan, is a glass blower on the verge of widespread acclaim for the originality and ingenuity of his work. Long accustomed to the frightful dangers inherent in molten glass and in maintaining a glass-making furnace at never less than eighteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit, Logan is suddenly faced with a series of unexpected and terrifying new threats to his business, his courage and his life. Believing the missing video tape to hold some sort of key to a priceless treasure, and wrongly convinced that Logan knows where to find it, a group of villains sets out to force from him the information he doesn't have. Narrowly escaping these attacks, Logan reckons that to survive he must himself find out the truth. The journey is thorny, and the final race to the tape throws more hurdles and more hazards in Logan's way than his dead jockey friend could ever have imagined. Glass shatters. Logan doesn't...but it's a close run thing.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
Hailed by NPR’s Fresh Air as part Testament of Youth, part Dorothy Sayers, and part Upstairs, Downstairs, this astonishing debut has already won fans from coast to coast and is poised to add Maisie Dobbs to the ranks of literature’s favorite sleuths. Maisie Dobbs isn’t just any young housemaid. Through her own natural intelligence—and the patronage of her benevolent employers—she works her way into college at Cambridge. When World War I breaks out, Maisie goes to the front as a nurse. It is there that she learns that coincidences are meaningful and the truth elusive. After the War, Maisie sets up on her own as a private investigator. But her very first assignment, seemingly an ordinary infidelity case, soon reveals a much deeper, darker web of secrets, which will force Maisie to revisit the horrors of the Great War and the love she left behind.

The Meaning of Night: A Confession by Michael Cox
"After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn's for an oyster supper." So begins the "enthralling" (Booklist, starred review) and "ingenious" (Boston Globe) story of Edward Glyver, booklover, scholar, and murderer. As a young boy, Glyver always believed he was destined for greatness. A chance discovery convinces him that he was right: greatness does await him, along with immense wealth and influence. Overwhelmed by his discovery, he will stop at nothing to win back a prize that he knows is rightfully his. Glyver's path to reclaim his prize leads him from the depths of Victorian London, with its foggy streets, brothels, and opium dens, to Evenwood, one of England's most beautiful and enchanting country houses, and finally to a consuming love for the beautiful but enigmatic Emily Carteret. His is a story of betrayal and treachery, of death and delusion, of ruthless obsession and ambition. And at every turn, driving Glyver irresistibly onward, is his deadly rival: the poet-criminal Phoebus Rainsford Daunt. The Meaning of Night is an enthralling novel that will captivate readers right up to its final thrilling revelation.

The Passage by Justin Cronin
An epic and gripping tale of catastrophe and survival, The Passage is the story of Amy—abandoned by her mother at the age of six, pursued and then imprisoned by the shadowy figures behind a government experiment of apocalyptic proportions. But Special Agent Brad Wolgast, the lawman sent to track her down, is disarmed by the curiously quiet girl—and risks everything to save her. As the experiment goes nightmarishly wrong, Wolgast secures her escape—but he can’t stop society’s collapse. And as Amy walks alone, across miles and decades, into a future dark with violence and despair, she is filled with the mysterious and terrifying knowledge that only she has the power to save the ruined world.

In the Woods by Tana French
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours. Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox—his partner and closest friend—find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past. Richly atmospheric, stunning in its complexity, and utterly convincing and surprising to the end, In the Woods is sure to enthrall fans of Mystic River and The Lovely Bones.

Free-Born John: A Biography of John Lilburne by Pauline Gregg
This is the biography of the leader of the Levellers, whose unflagging opposition to authority resulted from a fight for civil liberty. Although pilloried by the Star Chamber, imprisoned by the Long Parliament and twice put on trial for his life, he never ceased his fight for the ordinary citizen.

During the discussion of this book, the reader mentioned an oft-ignored event in British history, the Putney Debates.

Here is an article from the Guardian newspaper on the 360th anniversary of the debates.

Here is a webpage on British civil wars.

If you are really interested, here is a link to a 78 page transcript of the debates.

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army. The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce--and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding. Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets. John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.

The Flavia de Luce mysteries of Alan Bradley
The first in the series is The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, followed by The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag and A Red Herring Without Mustard.
It is the summer of 1950–and at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, young Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, is intrigued by a series of inexplicable events: A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Then, hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens. Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

What have YOU been reading lately?

Potluck Movie tomorrow afternoon!

Attention adult Summer Readers!

Bring a dish to share and join us tomorrow for our summer Potluck Movie, the film adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's book, "Eat, Pray, Love." The film is PG-13 but this is an Adult Summer Reading Program, so adults only!

GRG Recap - Biographical Fiction

Our topic last night was biographical fiction, which are novels based on real people. This is another of my favorite types of novels to read because I love to see in what ways an author’s imagination will twist and bend perceived reality. I would consider alternate history, like Naomi Novik’s wonderful Temeraire series (the Napoleonic Wars fought with dragon air forces), to be offshoots of both biographical fiction and science fiction/fantasy.

Next month’s topic, or rather non-topic, is our biannual Salon Discussion! Please make a note on your calendars that our July meeting has been moved up one week to July 19^th at 6:30pm. Bring any book (on any topic) you would like to share with the group! I am in the process of tallying the votes for our next six months of reading, so I should have an August selection of books ready to go when we meet on July 19^th!

The World Before Her by Deborah Weisgall

A stunning novel about two women and two marriages -- George Eliot at the end of her life, and another woman a century later.

The year is 1880 and the setting is Venice. Marian Evans -- whose novels under the pen name George Eliot have placed her among the famed Englishwomen of her time -- has come to this enchanted city on her honeymoon. Newly married to John Cross, twenty years her junior, she hopes to put her guilt to rest. Marian lived, unmarried, with George Henry Lewes for twenty-five years, until his death. She took a tremendous risk and paid a high price for that illicit union, but she also achieved happiness and created art. Now she wants to love again. In this new marriage, in this romantic place, can this writer give herself the happy ending that she provided for Middlemarch’s Dorothea Brooke?

The parallel story of a sculptor named Caroline Spingold brings us to Venice one hundred years later, in 1980. Caroline’s powerful, wealthy older husband has brought her to the city against her will, to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary. Having spent a perfect childhood summer in Venice with her parents, before her father left her mother, Caroline had vowed never to return.

In alternating chapters linked by the themes of art, love, and marriage, The World Before Her tells of these two women -- and their surprising similarities. In a city where the canals reflect memory as much as light, they both confront desire and each assesses what she has and who she is. At the heart of this sumptuously and evocatively written novel lies the eternal dilemma of how to find love and sustain it, without losing one’s self.

The reader’s description of this novel, both the topics and format, brought to mind several other great reads! Loving Frank by Nancy Horan chronicles the long-term affair between renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney, the wife of one of his clients. Michael Cunningham’s The Hours (movie adaptation available) is formatted in a similar way to Weisgall’s novel, reflecting on the last days of Virginia Wolff while paralleling her tale with a contemporary plotline. This novel is beautifully written but does not contain any happily-ever-afters. Shopgirl (movie adaptation available), by comedian/actor/musician Steve Martin, explores the complexities of a modern relationship between Mirabelle, a lowly salesclerk at a department store glove counter, and Ray Porter, a wealthy businessman almost twice her age. In Tracy Chevalier’s first novel, The Virgin Blue, the New York Times best-selling author of Girl With a Pearl Earring (movie adaptation available) relates the parallel stories of a young girl involved in the Huguenot-Calvinist conflicts of the 16^th century and a modern American woman unhappy with her transplanted life in southwestern France.

Speaking of George Eliot and Steve Martin in the same conversation also brought to mind Martin’s excellent movie adaptation of Eliot’s Silas Marner, A Simple Twist of Fate. This is not the only book-to-movie adaptation in which Martin has been involved. His film Roxanne was an adaptation of Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac.

The Blood Countess by Andrei Codrescu

Andrei Codrescu, NPR commentator and journalist, has written a fascinating first novel based on the life of his real-life ancestor, Elizabeth Bathory, the legendary Blood Countess. Codrescu expertly weaves together two stories in this neo-gothic work: that of the 16th-century Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory, a beautiful and terrifying woman who bathes in the blood of virgin girls; and of her distant descendent, a contemporary journalist who must return to his native Hungary and come to terms with his bloody and disturbing past.

Drake Bathory-Kereshtur, a Hungarian-born journalist who has lived in the United States, returns to his native Hungary, only to be the target for recruitment among a patriotic group that wants to restore the glory--and the horror--of the Hungarian aristocracy. As a descendent of the Countess Elizabeth Bathory, he is heir to all that is wonderful and terrible about his country and his family's past. Codrescu brilliantly explores Drake's anguish, as he realizes the truth behind his gruesome family history. But more importantly, Codrescu also creates a convincing and historically accurate picture of a sadistic woman obsessed with youth, vigor, beauty, and blood – a woman with enough power to order the deaths of 650 virgins so that she could bathe in their blood.

The Blood Countess is a bizarre and compelling book about the horrors of the past, shown so effectively in the monstrous yet attractive personality of Elizabeth, and what pull these horrors have on those who live now.

Tilting at Windmills: A Novel of Cervantes and the Errant Knight by Julian Branston

In seventeenth-century Valladolid, Spain’s new capital, Miguel de Cervantes is busy writing episodes of his comic masterpiece, Don Quixote. His comedy is quickly making him the most popular author in the country, when three potential disasters strike: Cervantes discovers that there is a real Don Quixote, exactly like the character he thought he’d invented; a jealous poet’s plots involving one of the novel’s other characters make Cervantes a laughingstock; and Cervantes falls in love with a beautiful, widowed, but unavailable duchess. Many duels, misunderstandings, and betrayals later, Don Quixote himself comes to Cervantes’ rescue.

This sparkling tale of crazed knights, thwarted love, and literary rivalry is imbued with all of the spirit, verve, and humor of the classic novel to which it pays playful tribute. Tilting at Windmills is a dazzling evocation of Cervantes’ life and times, and a brilliant weave of fact, fiction, and farce.

Happy reading!

Holley

June is National Audiobook Month!

June is almost over but you still have time to celebrate National Audiobook Month! If you've never listened to an audiobook, now is a great time to check one out. Audiobooks are perfect for entertainment on a road trip or daily commutes, but you can also enjoy them while exercising, cooking, crafting, and relaxing at home. The possibilities are endless!

At EOL, audiobooks come in a few different forms. Not only can you

check out compact disc audiobooks, we have Playaways as well. Playaways are pre-loaded digital audiobook players -the audiobook is loaded onto a portable device, complete with earphones and battery.

Don't forget that you can now enjoy downloaded audiobooks on your computer, mp3 player, or smartphone from our growing downloadable collection! Also, you can stay informed of the latest and greatest audiobooks by signing up for our monthly audiobook newsletter here.

To celebrate National Audiobook Month I've asked Holley and Katie for a few of their favorite audiobooks and I have added some of my favorite listens as well.

Holley's Faves:

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

The Incorrigible Children of Ashden Place: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Woods (juvenile title)

Naked in Death by J.D. Robb

Sabriel by Garth Nix (YA title, narrated by Tim Curry!!!)

Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova

Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey & Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell (neither are for sensitive listeners)

Katie's Faves:

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (GREAT reader!)

The Song of Ice & Fire series by George R.R. Martin - start with Game of Thrones.

The Ramona books by Beverly Cleary - Katie says, "The stories are timeless and funny and Stockard Channing reads them and is more amazing than amazing! The voices she can do make this series great for any age REALLY!!!"

Amanda's Faves:

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (YA title)

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris (not for sensitive listeners!)

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

My Name is Memory by Anne Brashares

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Amanda

What is a Locavore?

Around this time of year, many Alabamians are starting to satisfy their cravings for the sweet taste of Chilton County peaches. But what about the fresh flavor of say. . . Shelby Co. tomatoes or Bibb Co. strawberries?

In today's increasingly connected world, we have grown apart from our food. You may be surprised to discover that your food has clocked more frequent flyer miles than you have! According to Sustainabletable.org, "a typical carrot has to travel 1,838 miles to reach your dinner table." Locavores, or those who try to eat mostly local food, swear by a diet of fresh, seasonal food. Eating locally grown food will reinvigorate your dinner table with fresh, vibrant flavors while closing the gap between food production and the community.

We have created a display, as well as a brochure to take home, with locavore titles including cookbooks, how-to, memoirs, books on food politics, and DVDs including:

Clean Food by Terry Walters

The Locavore Way by Amy Cotler

The Garden

The Town that Food Saved by Ben Hewitt

In the Green Kitchen by Alice Waters

American Terroir by Rowan Jacobsen

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

King Corn

The Pepper Place Market has been a Saturday morning staple of fresh-food lovers for over ten years now. Find other farmers markets, roadside stands, and U-Pick farm operators listed by county at the State of Alabama's Farmers Market Authority.

Have you ever seen a box of fresh veggies on your neighbors doorstep and wondered where it came from? CSA stands for Community-supported Agriculture and it works by letting you buy "shares" from a farm in exchange for produce or other food products. Grow Alabama is a multi-farm CSA offering locally grown vegetables, fruits and eggs delivered to your home, office, or to a central pick-up point near you. Localharvet.org maintains a comprehensive CSA finder here.

Still hungry for locally grown food? Get involved! Birmingham has its own Slow Food Movement convivium, or chapter. The Slow Food Movement is a "global global, grassroots organization with supporters in 150 countries around the world who are linking the pleasure of good food with a commitment to their community and the environment." Visit Slow Food Birmingham to join and view upcoming events.

Locavore foodies in Alabama have documented their tasty journeys from farm to fork in these two blogs: Eating Alabama and Gulf Coast Local Food. Take a look and be inspired to start your own!

Visit us at the Reference Desk for a comprehensive list of locavore titles and websites! For more great food titles, sign up for our monthly Food & Cooking newsletter here!

Amanda

Bad Art Night

It is almost time for one of the Library's most beloved, highly anticipated programs, Bad Art Night!

Each year during the Adult Summer Reading Program, we pull out the crayons, glue, pipe cleaners, stickers, paint, googley eyes, and more so that adults everywhere may get back in touch with their inner rapscallion!

Bring a friend and head on over to the Library's Community Meeting Room on Tuesday, June 14th at 6:30pm. There'll be some good eats and chilled wine to get the creativity flowing! If you've signed up for Adult Summer Reading, or you sign up at the program, you'll get another entry in the drawing for the Nook Color as well as being able to mark a square on your Bingo card, getting yourself one step closer to a BINGO and another entry in the drawing for the iPad 2 3G!

There will be four categories of creation available: painting, sculpture, collage, and mixed media. Participants will vote for the absolute worst work of art in each category and winners get a prize! One lucky winner will be awarded a prize for Worst Art of the Night! For more information, contact the Adult Dept at 205-445-1121!

Stay cool!

Holley

Images from the Museum of Bad Art (http://www.museumofbadart.org/)