August 2008

New Fiction

• Man In The Dark - Paul Auster
• Hit and Run - Lawrence Block
• A Royal Pain - Rhys Bowen
• Swan Peak - James Lee Burke
• America America - Ethan Canin
• The Assassin - Stephen Coonts
• Plague of Doves - Louise Erdrich
• Rough Justice - Jack Higgins
• Pandora's Daughter - Iris Johansen
• The People Who Walk In Darkness - Stuart M. Kaminsky
• The Mercedes Coffin - Faye Kellerman
• World Made by Hand - James Howard Kunstler
• Alfred & Emily - Doris Lessing 
• First Daughter - Eric Lustbader
• Twenty Wishes - Debbie Macomber
• My Sister, My Love - Joyce Carol Oates
• rDevil Bones - Kathy Reichs
• rLast Kiss - Luanne Rice
• Tribute - Nora Roberts
• House of God - Samuel Shem
• Moscow Rules - Daniel Silva

New Non-Fiction

• 2009 Children's Writers & Illustrators Market
• 2009 Novel and Short Story Writers market
• Pickles to Relish - Beverly E. S. Alfeld
• Complete Book of Colleges 2009
• Complete Italian
• Complete Spanish
• Fodor's Carribbean 2009
• Fodors New England
• Fodors New York City 2009
• Fodor's US and British Virgin Islands 2009
• Hats & Eyeglasses: a Family's Love Affair with Gambling - Martha Frankel
• Frommer's Mexico 2009
• What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and What's Wrong with Washington - Scott McClellan
• Books - Larry McMurtry
• Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-up Idealists - Susan Neiman
• The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story - Julia Reed
• On Guerrilla Gardening - Richard Reyonlds
• They Lived to Tell the Tale: True Stories of Modern Adventure from the Legendary Explorers Club - Jan Jarboe Russell, editor
• When You are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris
• Ghost Train To The Eastern Star - Paul Theroux
• Walt Disney World with Kids 2009

New Audios

All CDs unless noted

• BBCLove Poetry - BBC Collection (tape)
• Lemur - Benjamin Black
• Plague of Doves - Louise Erdrich
• The Havana Room - Colin Harrison
• Waiting - Ha Jin (tape)
• Mountains beyond Mountains - Tracy Kidder
• Fluke - Christophe Moore (tape)
• Silent Witness - Richard North Patterson
• Bad Money - Kevin Phillips
• Plenty of Pretty Good Jokes - A Prairie Home Companion
• Phantom Prey - John Sanford
• When You are engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris
• Kitchen God's Wife - Amy Tan
• Armageddon in retrospect - Kurt Vonnegut

New DVD's

• 4 months, 3 weeks, and 2 Days
• The Band's Visit
• The Kids in the Hall, Best of Vol. 1 & 2
  
• Mad Men, Season 1
  
• Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
• Shine a Light
• The Wire, Season 2

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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.

Visit the Library to pick up a copy of the booklist-of-the-month brochure and check out a book from our current display.

Save Gas
Read a Trip

FICTION

Berg, Elizabeth -
Pull of the Moon

Bowles, Paul -
The Sheltering Sky

Campbell, Helen -
Turnip Blues

Chabon, Michael - Gentlemen of the Road

Chalfoun, Michelle - Roustabout

Childress, Mark -
Crazy in Alabama

Creech, Sharon -
Walk Two Moons

Dickinson, Charles -
The Widow's Adventures

Dodge, Jim -
Not Fade Away

Faulkner , William -
As I Lay Dying

Frazier, Charles -
Cold Mountain

Gaiman, Neil -
Stardust

Greene, Bob -
All Summer Long

Greenfeld, Josh -
Harry and Tonto

Juster, Norton -
The Phantom Tollbooth

Kennedy, Pagan -
Spinsters

Kerouac, Jack -
On the Road &
The Dharma Bums

Kingsolver, Barbara -
Bean Trees &
Pigs in Heaven

Lehrer, Jim -
White Widow & Eureka

Lethem , Jonathan - Amnesia Moon

Malone, Michael -
Handling Sin

McCarthy, Cormac -
The Road & The Crossing

McLarty, Ron -
The Memory of Running

McManus, James -
Going to the Sun

McMurty, Larry -
Cadillac Jack & Loop Group

Maguire, Gregory -
Son of a Witch

Morley, Christopher - Parnassus on Wheels

Nabokov, Vladimir - Lolita

Parks, Suzan-Lori -
Getting Mother's Body

Paulsen, Gary -
Pilgrimage on a Steelride

Percy, Walker -
The Last Gentleman

Phillips, Susan E. -
First Lady

Pickett, Rex - Sideways

Radish, Kris -
The Elegant Gathering of White Snows

Simpson, Mona -
Anywhere But Here

Steinbeck, John -
The Grapes of Wrath

Twain, Mark -
Life on the Mississippi &
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Tyler, Anne -
Earthly Possessions & Breathing Lessons

NON-FICTION

Brinkley, David -
Majic Bus: an American Odyssey

Bryson, Bill -
A Walk in the Woods 917.404 bry &
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America

Cahill, Tim -
Road Fever: A High Speed Travelogue

Clark, Marian -
The Route 66 Cookbook

Codrescu, Andre -
Road Scholar: Coast to Coast Late in the Century

Geist, Bill -
Way off the road: Discovering the Peculiar Charms of Small Town America

Harris, Eddy L. -
Mississippi Solo

Hubbell, Sue -
Far-Flung Hubbell

Jenkins, Peter -
A Walk Across America

Kuralt, Charles -
A Life on the Road 917.304 kur

Kurtz, Irma -
The Great American Bus Ride: An Intrepid Woman's Cross-Country Adventure

Least Heat Moon, William - Blue Highways 917.3hea

McAdoo, Richard - Eccentric Circles Around America in a House on Wheels

McPhee, John -
Uncommon carriers 388.044 mcp

Paterniti, Michael -
Driving Mr. Albert: a Trip across America with Einstein's Brain

Peck, M. Scott -
In Search of Stones : a Pilgrimage of Faith, Reason, and Discovery BIO Peck

Peterson, Dale -
Storyville, USA

Pham, Andrew X. -
Catfish and Mandala
BIO Pham

Pirsig, Robert M -
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Savage, Scott -
A Plain Life: Walking My Belief 248.4 sav

Steinbeck, John -
Travels with Charley

Stern, Michael and Jane - Two for the Road &
Road Food 647.9573ste

Sullivan, Robert -
Cross country : Fifteen Years and Ninety Thousand Miles on the Roads and Interstates of America

Wallis, Michael -
Route 66: The Mother Road

How to Save Energy in the Home

Wednesday, August 6
6pm in the Library Reference Room.

Tom Heffernen from the Cornell Cooperative Extension will discuss saving energy in your home.

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Library Budget Vote and Trustee Election

Marbletown voters will go to the polls Aug. 11 to pick two Stone Ridge Library trustees from three candidates and to consider a budget increase of about $5 a family.

The 2008 budget would rise 14.8% to $217,642 from $189,567 in 2006, the most recent year an increase was sought. Suzanne Hauspurg, president of the board of trustees, said the Library had no choice but to request the rise. “Our oil bill will nearly doubt this winter, to more than $9,000,” she said, “and other expenses are soaring as well.” She added that the popularity of borrowing Library materials over the Internet had increased vastly, requiring an additional circulation clerk. “On top of that,” she said, “the troubled securities markets have hurt our endowment.”

Marbletown Assessor Barbara Galloway said the increase would bring a typical household’s library tax to between $50 and $60, up about $5 from 2006.

Candidates for the two four-year trustee seats are incumbents Ms. Hauspurg and Jim Hoover and a challenger, Alan Marker. Click here for their bios.

The election will be held at the Library from 2 pm to 8 pm. Absentee ballots are available at the Library and must be returned by the close of business Aug. 11. For more information about the election or the budget please contact Library Director Jody Ford at 687-7023 or Suzanne Hauspurg at 687-0736.

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Tea Time Book Group

Emily Dickinson
A Little About Her Life

Wednesday, August 13, 4pm, Reference Room

Rosemary Deen will discuss Dickinson and will read some of her poems.

HOPE
by Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

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HOLMES & CO.
Mystery Lovers Book Group

Thursday, August 21,
4pm in the Reference Room

The selections for this meeting are: Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, and a short story: The Yellow Face - a Sherlock Holmes mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle

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Medieval Book Group

Wednesday, September 17th, 7pm in the Reference Room

The summer reading book for the Medieval Reading Club is Ken Follett’s World Without End, the sequel to his highly popular Pillars of the Earth. The setting is 14th century England.

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Knitting Group

Saturdays, August 2, 9, 16, 23, 30
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 7.6.08
On the Shelves with Ellen Tannenbaum

Young adult novels explore love, loss
and living

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.

No One You Know, by Michelle Richmond; Delacorte Press

When Ellie was growing up, Lila, her mathematician older sister, was mysterious. She kept things private and made everything she shared special for those she shared it with. In her death, Lila turned into a true mystery. She became an unsolved crime and her murder ruined many lives.

Now many years later, Ellie is a professional coffee buyer traveling the globe in search of special beans. While in Nicaragua, she meets up with an old acquaintance of Lila's, a man whose life was ruined by suspicions
surrounding him. When he returns Lila's old journal to Ellie, the puzzle starts. Can Ellie
put together the pieces of Lila's journal and find her murderer? Can Ellie find peace of mind in her own life?

December, by Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop; Knopf

Eleven-year-old Isabelle has stopped talking. No doctor can find anything physically wrong with her. Five different psychiatrists have passed her off as a lost cause. Her private school is going to expel her if she doesn't resume classes and speaking by January. But Isabelle's parents won't give up. They have altered their lives for their child. They're constantly trying to make Isabelle comfortable, to get her to let go of whatever has upset her and open up.

Despite the effort, her parents' lives are being torn apart. No longer are they happy professionals. Isabelle's mom has given up her law practice; her dad cancels business meetings for doctor appointments. They are known as the parents of the little girl who doesn't talk. December is not just the story of why Isabelle stopped talking. It is about a family who tries to communicate and never gives up hope, despite not knowing if they are getting through.

How to Build a House, by Dana Reinhardt; Random House Children's Books

Harper is 17 years old. She lives in California with her father. In order to escape from his divorce and the effect it has on her life, Harper goes to Tennessee for the summer to help build a new home for a family who lost everything in a tornado.

She finds a whole new world away from her ex-stepfamily and ex-boyfriend. Harper learns about priorities and the things we take for granted. In this tearjerker, many heartwarming characters come together to make this more than a young-adult novel.

Ellen Tannenbaum is the director of the Dover Plains Library in Wingdale and co-chairwoman of the Anne Izard Storyteller's Choice Awards.

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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MORE BOOK LISTS

50 Best Ever Summer Holiday Books

This 2008 listing of summer reading suggestions "encompasses ancient and modern, fiction and non-fiction. All they have in common is that we're confident that if you take any one of these on holiday, you are in for a huge treat." Includes links to related lists of the best new books (UK publishers) and celebrity book picks. From the British newspaper The Telegraph. more

Urban Planning Summer Reading List

This summer reading list features urban and regional planning titles covering topics such as poverty, suburbs, redevelopment, and land use. Includes lists going back to 2003 (with overlap between titles on lists from year to year). From the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. more

Ultimate Travel Library

Collection of annotated booklists based upon selections in which "dozens of travelers (writers, photographers, explorers, editors, and others) ... name[d] the books that have most enriched their sense of place and best informed their peregrinations." These are "not guidebooks, but novels and narrative nonfiction and classic photography books." Browsable by region of the world. Also includes an "Around the World in 80+ Books" feature. From National Geographic Traveler magazine. more

GREAT WEBSITES!

Olympic Fever!

The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 8-24, 2008

Information about the Beijing summer Olympic Games scheduled for 2008. Features an overview of the sporting events and the sports venues, information about the local Olympic committee, and ongoing news. Also includes images. In English, French, and Chinese. more

Online Newshour: China Prepares for 2008 Olympics

Reports and news coverage by the PBS Online NewsHour about China's preparations for hosting the 2008 summer Olympic Games. Covers topics such as an odd-even car ban during Olympics to reduce traffic congestion and pollution, efforts to increase press freedoms for foreign journalists, and human rights and Tibet. Also includes a comparison of demographic factors for Olympic host cities back to 1980, slideshow about Olympic stadiums around the world, and more. more

TV Coverage

NBC tv news coverage of the Beijing Olympics more

The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games ... An Insider's Guide

"Beijing has never welcomed travelers as eagerly as it is welcoming them now [for the 2008 Olympics]. The Chinese capital is determined to make a fantastic impression during its moment in the global spotlight. The following Web exclusive articles offer a fresh look at Beijing -- plus some practical travel tips." Topics include China tourist visa policies, staying healthy in China, Chinese etiquette, arranging transportation to and within China, and more. From Budget Travel magazine. more

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100 Useful Web Tools for Writers

"Turn to this list for 100 useful Web tools that will help you with your career, your sanity and your creativity whenever your write." Includes collections of links to sites about getting organized, finding inspiration, finding writing jobs, communicating with vendors, networking and marketing, forums, productivity tools, and more. From a website promoting online colleges. more

Intelligent Travel

This blog "about authentic and sustainable travel" provides updates about items related to ecotourism. Topics include how to take photographs of landscapes, sea turtles in danger in Mexico, and restoration of James Madison's Montpelier home in Virginia. Entries may be browsed by categories such as regions of the world and U.S., family friendly, and "voluntourism." From National Geographic Traveler magazine. more

Frida Kahlo

"Available in both English and Spanish, this online feature [a companion to a 2008 exhibit] highlights the artist's extraordinary life and work through video commentary by artists and art historians, as well as zoom-enabled images of Kahlo and husband Diego Rivera at their home, Casa Azul [in Mexico City]." Topics include the faces of Frida, Kahlo's experience in the U.S., and Kahlo's artistic legacy. From the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). more

Hulu

Watch video content, including complete television shows and excerpts of recent programs. View complete list of show alphabetically, by network, or by genre. A limited number of full-length movies are also available for viewing. Some content requires free registration for an account. Copyright is protected, and users of the site must be at least 13 years old. Founded by NBC Universal and News Corp, and operated independently. more

Offbeat Travel

This "travel guide to offbeat places and unusual destinations world-wide, with a fresh look at old favorites" features articles on topics such as the birdmen of Beijing, Star-Spangled Baltimore, cruising Norway, and the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Also includes an essay on "The Function of Travel Websites and How to Evaluate Them," travel book reviews, and hotel news. Also links to sites about New York and New Mexico. more

Special Report: Water

This series of stories from June 2008 explores current water-related issues, including water scarcity, drought, waterborne diseases, dams and hydro-electricity, the global water industry, and bottled water. Also includes a map showing world water use and some articles on "lighter" water topics, such as "extreme beach toys" and windsurfing. From Forbes. more

UCSF Japanese Woodblock Print Collection

This digitized collection of almost 400 Japanese woodblock prints "illustrates a wide variety of health-related topics. The prints provide a window into traditional Japanese attitudes toward illness, the human body, women, religion, and the West." Searchable; or view prints by themes such as contagious disease, drug advertisements, and religion and health. From the Library and Center for Knowledge Management at the University of California, San Francisco. more

Vaudeville Nation

Companion to an exhibit of photos, posters, and related material on vaudeville, "called the most influential entertainment genre in the nation's history. Between the 1880s and the 1930s, it thrived in large and small urban communities throughout North America." Features short illustrated essays on topics such as 19th century roots, the vaudeville industry, music, dance, comedy, circus techniques, and topical issues (such as war and prohibition). From the New York Public Library (NYPL). more

Ice Cream: Selected Internet Resources

Small collection of annotated links to websites about ice cream, covering history, safety of homemade ice cream, photos, scientific aspects, and ice cream sundaes. Includes historical photos. From the Science Reference Section, Library of Congress. more

Thrifty Fun

This is "an interactive Web site where you can post questions and contribute answers to others who are trying to have fun while saving money." Frugality is the theme reflected in the recipes, crafts for children, creative projects using castoff materials, and general hints for consumers. Free registration is required to post messages or comments. more

Offshore Drilling and Exploration

"News about offshore drilling and exploration, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times." Includes articles on President Bush's July 2008 lifting of "nearly two decades of executive orders banning drilling for oil and natural gas off the country's shoreline," and others back as far as 1981 when a Congressional moratorium on drilling was enacted. more

Top 40 Magazine Covers of the Last 40 Years

This presen-tation, originally presented at the 2005 American Magazine Conference, lists the American Society of Magazine Editor (ASME) picks for the top 40 magazine covers from the previous 40 years. Includes many covers that were controversial at the time of their publication, and covers that have been remembered for their celebrity portraits and for capturing historical events. From the ASME. more

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