March 2008

New Fiction

• Life Class - Pat Barker
  
• Death of a Gentle Lady - M.C. Beaton
  
• Blue Heaven - C.J. Bop
  
• The Purrfect Murder - Rita Mae Brown
  
• His Illegal Self - Peter Carey
  
• The Deporters and Other Stories - Roddy Doyle
  
• Plum Lucky - Janet Evanovich
  
• Irish Tiger - Andrew M. Greeley
  
• Dakots – Martha Grimes
  
• The Appeal - John Grisham
  
• The Killing Ground
  
• Lady Macbeth – Susan Fraser King
  
• Sizzle and Burn - Jayne Ann Krentz
  
• 1999: a Novel of the Celtic Tiger and the Search for Peace - Morgan Llwelyn
  
• Dangerous Laughter: 13 Stories – Steven Millhauser
  
• David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn, The Courilof Affair - Irene Nemirovsky
  
• The First Patient – Michael Palmer
  
• Stranger in Paradise - Robert B. Parker
  
• L.A. Outlaws - T. Jefferson Parker
  
• 7th Heaven - James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
  
• Light of the Moon - Luanne Rice
  
• Lady Killer – Lisa Scottoline
  
• An Irish Country Village - Patrick Taylor
  
• The Chameleon's Shadow - Minette Walters
  
• The Spa – Fay Weldon
  
• The Spare Wife - Alex Witchel
  
• Beverly Hills dead - Stuart Woods

New Non-Fiction

• Native Ferns Moss & Grasses: From Emerald Carpet to Amber Wave: Serene and Sensuous Plants for the Garden - William Cullina
• The Garden Primer: The Completely Revised Gardener's Bible - Barbara Damrosch
  
• The Fighting 69th: One Remarkable National Guear Unit's Journey from Ground Zero to Baghdad - Sean Michael Flynn
• Wallace Stegner and the American West - Philip L. Fradkin
• Stitch Style Mittens: Twenty Fashion Knit and Crochet Styles
  
• Save Energy Save Money: 210 Do-It-Yourself Projects, Tips, and Ideas - The Family Handyman
  
• Lonely Planet Italy - Damien Simonis
• The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic - Darby Penney and Peter Stastny
• Wood Carving Basics - David Sabol
• Fodor's Guatemala - Jeffrey Van Fleet

New Audios

All CDs unless noted

• The Fire Next Time - James Baldwin
• The Reserve- Russell Banks
  
• Life Class - Pat Barker
• Deportees - Roddy Doyle
• Stranger in Paradise - Robert B. Parker

New DVD's

• 2 Days in Paris
• Across the Universe
• Anthony Bourdain - No Reservations
• Becoming Jane
• Darjeeling Limited
• Eastern Promises
• Elizabeth: The Golden Age
• Gone Baby Gone
• In the Valley of Elah
• The Jane Austen Book Club
• Margot at the Wedding
• Michael Clayton
• My So Called Life - complete series

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BOOKLISTS

Every month in this spot we feature reading suggestions. These include historic fiction, science fiction, mysteries, and more. Many of these titles can be found in the Mid Hudson Library System.

Local Authors

Loosely defined as the area north of Westchester, south of Albany.Thank you to Nina Shengold of The Chronogram for this list. Nina adds that this list is far from complete. Any authors who’d like to be added to the library’s Local Author list please contact Nina at the Chronogram

Stone Ridge Vicinity

• Barbara Bash - True Nature
• Jon Bowermaster - Alone Against the Sea
• Mathhew Cantello - Communing With Music
• Steve Clorfeine - Field Road Sky
• Laura Shaine Cunningham - A Place in the Country
• Maya Gold - Harriet the Spy, Double Agent
• Steve Hamilton - Night Work
• Dave Horowitz - Five Little Gefiltes
• Keith Kachtick - Hungry Ghost
• Roger Kahn - The Boys of Summer
• Casey Kurtti - Three Ways Home
• Jana Martin - Russian Lover & Other Stories
• Bruce Murkoff - Waterborne
• Jon J Muth - Zen Shorts
• Janet Neipris - To Be a Playwright
• Mary Beth Pfeiffer - Crazy in America
• Melissa Holbrook Pierson - The Place You Love is Gone
• Nicole Quinn - Odds&Ends
• Susan Richards - Chosen by a Horse
• Charley Rosen - The House of Moses All-Stars
• Luc Sante - Kill All Your Darlings
• Nina Shengold - Clearcut
• Matthew Silverman - Baseball : the biographical encyclopedia
• Corinne Trang - Essentials of Asian Cooking
• Nancy Van Laan - Busy Busy Moose
• C.L. Watson - Eating the Shadow
• Scott Wolven - Controlled Burn
• Kim Wozencraft - The Devil’s Highway

Hudson Valley

• Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart
• David Appelbaum - Nieuw Pfalz
• John Ashbery - Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems
• Jo Ann Beard - The Boys of My Youth
• Larry Beinhart - The Librarian
• Fergus M. Bordewich - Bound For Canaan
• John Bowers - The Colony
• Anne Burg - Rebekkah’s Journey
• Ian Buruma - Murder In Amsterdam
• Akiko Busch - Nine Ways To Cross a River
• Benjamin Cheever - Strides
• Da Chen - Colors of the Mountain
• Bruce Chilton - Abraham’s Curse
• Audrey Couloumbis - The Misadventures of Mad Maude March
• Elizabeth Cunningham - The Passion of Mary Magdalen
• John Darnton - The Darwin Conspiracy
• Jeff Davis - Journey to the Center of the Page
• Lydia Davis - Varieties of Disturbance
• Jennifer Donnelly - The Winter Rose
• Sean Michael Flynn - The Fighting 69th
• Elizabeth Frank - Cheat and Charmer
• Martha Frankel - Hats & Eyeglasses
• Mary Gaitskill - Veronica
• Mary Gallagher - Father Dreams
• Alison Gaylin - Trashed
• Gail Godwin - Queen of the Underworld
• Jonathan Gould - Can’t Buy Me Love
• James Gurney - Dinotopia
• Lee Harrington - Rex In the City
• Mikhail Horowitz - Rafting Into the Afterlife
• Hillary Johnson - Mudbound
• Marilyn Johnson - The Dead Beat
• Marshall Karp - The Rabbit Factory
• Bobbi Katz - Once Around the Sun
• Robert Kelly - Lapis
• Elizabeth Cody Kimmel - The Top Job
• Dave King - The Ha-Ha
• Jeff Kisseloff - Generation On Fire
• Michael Korda - Ike: An American Hero
• Alisa Kwitney - Sex as a Second Language
• Dakota Lane - The Secret Life of It Girls
• James Lasdun - The Horned Man
• Barbara Lehman - Museum Trip
• Peter McCarty - Fabian Escapes
• Daniel Mendelsohn - The Lost
• Bradford Morrow - Trinity Fields
• Ron Nyswaner - Blue Days, Black Nights
• James P. Othmer - The Futurist
• Valerie Martin -Trespass
• Malachy McCourt - Singing My Him Song
• Susan Orlean - The Orchid Thief
• Daniel Pinkwater - The Neddiad
• Francine Prose - Reading Like a Writer
• Erin Quinn - Pride & Politics
• Jerry Sander - Permission Slips
• Gene Santoro - Myself When I Am Real
• John Sayles - Dillinger in Hollywood
• Edward Schwarzschild - The Family Diamond
• Danny Shanahan - Bad Sex!
• Michele Slung - A Treasury of Old-Fashioned Christmas Stories
• Russell Shorto - The Island at the Center of the World
• Sparrow - America: A Prophecy
• Scott Spencer - Willing
• Rebecca Stowe - One Good Thing
• Abigail Thomas - A Three Dog Life
• John Thorn - The Complete Armchair Book of Baseball
• Gioia Timpanelli - Sometimes the Soul
• Janine Pommy Vega - The Green Piano
• Donald E. Westlake - What’s So Funny?
• Nancy Willard - In the Salt Marsh

Solas An Lae
(Light of Day)
Irish Dance Troupe

Sunday, March 9 2 – 3pm, Marbletown Community Center

Admission $5 at the door; children free, to benefit the library.

Join us for a welcome to spring and day light savings as we host Solas An Lae’s Student Performance Troupe on Sunday March. A company of eight dancers, veterans of Lowry’s School of Irish Dance, embrace not only the rhythmic power of the tradition’s percussive tap, but draw drama and depth from its graceful counterpart, the soft shoe.

Solas An Lae is a transcending, critically acclaimed dance company based in Red Hook, New York. Their exploration of fresh and exciting choreographic themes, original costuming and progressive musical score has resulted in what critics are hailing as “The New Breed of Contemporary Irish Dance.” Spearheaded by Deirdre Lowry, Founder and Choreographer, Patrick Brown, Artistic and Musical Director and Ellen Verdibello, Choreographer, Solas An Lae has become one of the most moving and exciting advancements in Irish dance performance. Visit solasanlae for more on this exciting dance troupe.

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Spring Clutter Busting

Wednesday, March 12 6:30-8:00 p.m. at the library

The program is free, but registration is recommended.

Maryellen Whittington-Course will offer a program at the library on Wednesday, March 12 designed to help us enter spring clutter free. Maryellen is the creator of What Matters, a locally based time management consulting firm. For more than 20 years, she has consulted with and trained teachers, business and education leaders and non-profit organizations, with a focus on time management, personal effectiveness, and diversity in the workplace. Maryellen is a favorite on the local lecture circuit. Please join us!

For more information about Maryellen and her work, go to timetransformation.

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Writing Workshop with Rosemary Deen

Saturdays, April 5, 12, and 19
1:30 to 3PM
in the Library Reference Room.

Registration is requested; please call 687-8726, or drop in at the library. This popular spring workshop is led by education, author and library trustee Rosemary Deen.

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Tea Time Book Group

Wednesday, March 12,
4pm in the Reference
Room

The selection this month is The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham. A tale of one man's search for enlightenment from WWI through the Great Depression.

Join us in the Reference Room for lively Discussion and light refreshments.

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Medieval Book Group

Wednesday, March19,
7-9pm in the Reference Room

The topic is Wars of the Roses, set in the 15th century. There is a wealth of history, biography and fiction on this exciting period in English history. Read several different accounts for this meeting. An excellent bibliography of historical accounts can be found at Richard III. Some fictional accounts:

• Sharon Kay Penman - Sunne in Splendour
• Wm. Shakespeare - Richard III
• Robert L Stevenson - The Black Arrow
• Anne E. Smith - a Rose of the Crown
• Josephine Tey - The Daughter of Time

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HOLMES & CO.
Mystery Lovers Book Group

Thursday, April 10,
4pm in the Reference Room

The selections for the April meeting include two books: Murder Duet: a Musical case by Batya Gur and Three Coffins by John Dickson Carr, and a short story: The Adventure opf the Copper Beeches - a Sherlock Holmes mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle

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Scrabble

Mondays, March 3, 10, 17, 24, 31

6-8pm in the
Reference Room

Scrabble players meet every Monday in the Library's Reference room. Newcomers are welcome!

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Knitting Group

Saturdays, March 1, 8, 15, 22, 29
10am-noon

The Stone Ridge Library Knitters meet every Saturday morning from 10am - 12noon. All ages and experience levels can join us and drop-in knitters are also welcome. We each bring our own supplies and do our own work, but one of the best things about us is that whatever obstacle or confusion you might encounter, you're likely to receive as much comment and advice as you need to get where you're going with a project. Some of us can help toward the repair of knitted or crocheted items too.

The group is sociable and lively, and our conversation and sharing is just as wide-ranging as our projects. We are especially interested in the UFOs (Un-Finished Objects) that members bring in and love the show and tell of projects under way and being finished, new or old, simple or complex. Though knitting is our love and mainstay, we graciously adapt ourselves to stray crocheters and those of us who simply must take to the hook when the spirit moves. We share articles, magazines and books on knitting. Donations of yarn to the Library get made up into items for sale at the Library Fair and during the winter holidays for the benefit of the Library. Some of us also knit things for local hospitals or for the U.S. troops.

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ON THE SHELVES

Poughkeepsie Journal 2.3.08
On the Shelves with Tom Lawrence

These Titles Will Keep Managers Thinking

On the Shelves is a monthly column by a rotating list of mid-Hudson Valley library directors who comment on notable books coming to your local public library.

The field of people management is ripe with new thinking. Some of it based on societal fads and some based on research into human behavior.

The new-book shelf at most local libraries will turn up titles such as the following:

The Ugly Truth about Managing People, by Ruth King; Sourcebooks, Inc.

This book of 50 management challenges reads like a series of confessions by people who blundered their way through some difficulties in their careers as managers.

The truth is many managers are in their position by default and having a tome like this handy is useful. In addition to the "confessions," the second part of the book shares some critical survival strategies, advice on how to successfully groom the next generation of managers and seven management myths.

While there is some logic behind the argument more managers need a PhD in common sense instead of pop psychology books on the topic, a quick read of this book will give one some refreshing approaches to common problems faced in the workplace.

What Were They Thinking?, by Jeffrey Pfeffer; Harvard Business School Press

Based on his Business 2.0 magazine column, The Human Factor, this book tries to challenge the conventional management wisdom.

The book encourages readers to think more deeply and intelligently about a wide range of critical management topics from people management and leadership to performance measurement and the development of a competitive strategy.

The Carrot Principle, by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton; Free Press

Following the publication of their books A Carrot a Day and The 24-Carrot Manager, the authors use this book to explain the philosophy and why "carrotphobia" needs to be reversed.

Essentially, they urge managers to recognize the importance of employee recognition and that the time spent engaged in that activity results in higher productivity, more employee engagement with their work, better retention and increased customer satisfaction.

Again, those with common sense already understand that happy employees make a world of difference to an organization and its success in meeting its mission.

Punching In, by Alex Frankel; Collins

Frankel, a contributor to Wired, goes undercover to find what makes employees tick at several high-profile companies.

So instead of conducting a case study of the firms he worked for, Frankel lives inside the company and can report from the field what management works and what fails. Punching In reads as a narrative with a hip attitude. Managers need to get the bottom-up perspective and should take some time to read this book.

Tom Lawrence is executive director of the Poughkeepsie Public Library District.

Can't decide on what to read? Visit
Mid Hudson for links to lists of titles that might attract your interest.

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GREAT WEBSITES!

LibraryThing

“Meet the world's largest book club. Find people with eerily similar tastes.” Library Thing is a social network for book-lovers. It's "an online service to help people catalog their books easily. You can access your catalog from anywhere. Because everyone catalogs together, LibraryThing also connects people with the same books, comes up with suggestions for what to read next, and so forth." more

A Piece of My Soul: Quilts by Black Arkansans

This collection of images of quilts created by African Americans from Arkansas can be explored by looking at quilting families, individual quilters, and quilt types such as log cabin, center star or medallion, combined patterns, and miniature and doll quilts. Provides biographies of the quilters and quilting families, and related links (a few broken). From the Old State House Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas. more

Red Room

This website's goal is to create a social network for authors and readers. It features pages for authors including Maya Angelou, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Khaled Hosseini, and Amy Tan, with author biographies, lists of published works, blog entries, and audio and video clips (such as the 1988 San Francisco high school graduation speech by Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket). Browsable by author or genre. Also includes an events listing. more

Green Guide

"Dubbed the 'green living source for today's conscious consumer,' the Green Guide makes living in an environmentally-aware way easy, understandable, and practical." The site features product reviews (for items such as shoes, appliances, bedding, cosmetics, household cleaning supplies, personal care items, and pest control techniques), lists of ingredients to avoid, articles (such as on what happens to donated clothes), videos, blogs, and more. Also includes information about the associated print publication. From National Geographic. more

Global Voices

A project "that collects, summarizes, and gives context to some of the best self-published content found on blogs, podcasts, photo sharing sites, and videoblogs from around the world, with a particular emphasis on countries outside of Europe and North America." Browse by country, topics, or contributors. Available in several languages. Founded at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. more

The Making of a Homemaker

Presentation about comprehensive domestic guidebooks from the 19th century. "These books were primarily aimed at the middle and upper class female, who saw keeping a healthy and happy home her role in life. Not only did they detail the day-to-day activities of a homemaker, but also prescribed the appropriate moral and religious outlooks." Explore book contents on topics such as care of the sick, decorating, etiquette, fashion, and raising children. From the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. more

American Visionaries: Thomas Moran

Online exhibit of works by artist Thomas Moran "who was instrumental in securing our heritage of national parks." Features introductory essays about Moran on the trail and Moran as a lobbyist, and Moran watercolors of Yellowstone National Park. Also includes William Henry Jackson photographs. From the National Park Service (NPS). more
Frederic Edwin Church, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape
Companion to a 2006 exhibit that "explores the promotion of scenic tourism in nineteenth-century America" through works by Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran. Click on the map of the U.S. to see images and associated text about how "these painters recorded, romanticized, and sometimes embellished views of Niagara, Maine, the Catskills, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and other scenic locations, stimulating a burgeoning America to become a nation of tourists." From the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. more

Moving from Analog to Digital TV

Questions and answers about the digital television transition occurring in February 2009, where "television stations will broadcast using digital signals only, which means your old analog set won't work" (receive broadcasts) without a converter box or subscription to cable or satellite service. Discusses the basics of digital television (DTV), options for owners of analog TV sets, and resources for further reading. From the Federal Citizen Information Center, U.S. General Services Administration. more
TV Converter Box Coupon Program
Details about this federal government program for households wishing to continue using their analog TV sets after February 17, 2009, when "all full-power television stations in the United States will stop broadcasting in analog and switch to 100% digital broadcasting." Learn whether you need a converter box, how to obtain coupons to be applied towards the cost of the box, where to purchase one, and related information. Available in several languages. more

Project StoryKeeper

An orginazition whose mission is to "preserve the past, enrich the present & strengthen The future for families." This is done by "providing programs to train, equip and support an army of StoryKeepers". They are looking for 100,000 volunteers to be trained to interview their elders. more

Memory for Justice

Collection of documents about former president of South Africa and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela, including a narrative biography, chronology, bibliography, photo essay, database of speeches, tributes, and more. From the Nelson Mandela Foundation, which (among other projects) collects and curates Mandela's personal archive. more
Mandela: An Audio History
Website for a "five-part radio series documenting the struggle against apartheid through rare sound recordings, the voice of [anti-apartheid leader] Nelson Mandela himself, as well as those who fought with him, and against him." In addition to audio and transcripts of the series, the site features interview biographies, an audio timeline, and suggestions from educators for using the program in a classroom. From Radio Diaries, a nonprofit radio production company. more

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Phone: 687-7023

E-Mail: Webmaster

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