Elections for Little People

Cast Your Ballots!
Though your grade school kids won't be voting in the upcoming election, we here offer a quick list of lively books with a seasonal flavor. Fiction and non-fiction titles are included, mainly written with a light touch.

Election Day by Margaret McNamara
Grace for President by Kelly DiPucchio
Vote for Me! by Ben Clanton
Duck for President by Doreen Cronin
If I Ran for President by Catherine Stier
Shh! We're Writing the Constitution by Jean Fritz
Vote! by Eileen Christelow
Madam President by Lane Smith
Babymouse for President by Jennifer L. and Matthew Holm
White House Kids by Joe Rhatigan
Bad Kitty for President by Nick Bruel
John, Paul, George and Ben by Lane Smith
Our White House : Looking In, Looking Out with an introduction by David McCullough
Those Rebels, John & Tom by Barbara Kerley
The Democratic Process by Mark Friedman
The U.S. Constitution by Michael Burgan
George vs. George by Rosalyn Schanzer
Who's Haunting the White House? : the President's Mansion and the Ghosts Who Live There by Jeff Belanger
Presidential Races : Campaigning for the White House by Arlene Morris-Lipsman

Surf's Up
Web sites worth a gander...
Congress for Kids : from the Dirksen Congressional Center
Kids in the House : Four levels of content about the U.S. House of Representatives
Kids.gov : A portal to .edu and .gov websites
iCivics.org : A civics education site founded in 2009 by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor; for tweens, teens, and adults!

Thanks to School Library Journal for inspiration!

Reading Rock...

Who Are They?
Who? Who?
Welcome a bunker crop of bios and rock memoirs, and excepting Ozzy's, all with highly inventive black and white cover photos!  Read 'em and rock...

Neil Young -- Bruce Springsteen -- Pete Townshend -- Gregg Allman -- Metallica -- Mick Jagger -- Ozzy Ozbourne -- Carole King.

Scare Up A Good Book

Silly, Spooky, Scary, Splendid!
Autumn's here, Halloween is just around the corner, and now is the time to start rounding up a few good reads to get in the mood for the colorful, boorific days ahead. Here's a few quick lists of latest (or greatest) titles for kids.

Board Books
Gentle or non-threatening stories in board book format, for your littlest people:
Five Little Pumpkins -- It's Pumpkin Day, Mouse! -- Happy Halloween, Biscuit! -- Ghosts In the House! -- Goodnight Goon : a Petrifying Parody -- Horns, Tails, Spikes and Claws -- Mouse's First Halloween

Picture Books, Early and Easy Readers, and Then Some
Do browse our Holiday Book collection for Halloween titles; several of the latest are listed below. Also listed are a few non-seasonal titles with outside-the-box stories about what might be scary, silly scary, or not so scary after all. As always, parents, choose for yourselves or for your kids.

Bedtime for Monsters by Ed Vere
Black Dog by Levi Pinfold
The Boo! Book : A Haunted Picture Book by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer
Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds
Monster School : First Day Frights by Dave Keane
The Monster's Monster by Patrick McDonnell
My First Ghost by Maggie Miller and Michael Leviton
That One Spooky Night by Dan Bar-el
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat by Lucille Colandro
Trick or Treat by Leo Landry
Vampirina Ballerina by Anne Marie Pace

Non-Fiction for Older Kids
Horrogami : 25 Creepy Creatures, Ghastly Ghouls, and Other Fiendish Paper Projects by Chris Marks
Last Laughs : Animal Epitaphs by J. Patrick Lewis and Jane Yolen
A Halloween Cookbook : Simple Recipes for Kids by Sarah L. Schuette

Happy 50th Big Red!

Loved and Larger by the Day...
Scholastic Publishing, the company brings us Norman Bridwell's Clifford books, is this year asking us to help celebrate big red's 50th (in human years) birthday.  Check out Scholastic's site for fun ways to wish your favorite pooch a Happy Birthday, including participating a national sing-along on September 24!

Interview With Norman Bridwell

Free Shred-It Day

Morning to Early Afternoon
The library will offer secure document shredding services to our community on Saturday, September 29 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Why Shred?
Identity theft is a growing national concern and shredding your sensitive documents is one way to reduce the risk of becoming an identity theft victim.

What to Bring
Bring your papers for shredding in a safe and secure environment. This is terrific opportunity for you to safely dispose of sensitive documents such as bank statements, old cancelled checks, credit card statements, tax papers, and medical records.

Shred-It truck will be located in the upper lot of the Community Center complex.

Please do check with your financial advisor for information on how long documents must be kept.

There Is Always a Catch
Shred for free but not without a donation to the East Hampton Food Bank.

Send It Around
Click here for another way to add to your calendar or send the news around.

Clutter

Image courtesy of the
Mid-Continent Public Library, MO

Loving Your Stuff ...
Do you have what you might affectionately refer to as a junk drawer? How about a closet with a corner akin to an explorer's great unknown? Love shoes, do you? Have enough toys to open a branch of Santa's workshop?  Are you looking to downsize and fit your stuff into a smaller space? You are not alone...

Here's a quick list of recent, on-the-way, or well-known clutter-busting titles you might enjoy, each written from a different perspective. As always, pick and choose.

Unstuff Your Life! : Kick the Clutter Habit and Organize Your Life for Good by Andrew J. Mellen

Unclutter Your Life in One Week by Erin Rooney Doland
Clutter Busting by Brooks Palmer
To Much Stuff : Winning the War Against Clutter by Kathryn Porter
Soulspace : Transform Your Home, Transform Your Life.. by Xorin Balbes 
Organize for a Fresh Start : Embrace Your Next Chapter in Life by Susan Fay West
10,001 Ways to Declutter Your Home on a Small Budget by Ed Morrow, Sheree Bykofsky, and Rita Rosenkranz
Stop Throwing Money Away : Turn the Clutter Into Cash, Trash Into Treasure.. by Jamie Novak
Smart Office Organizing : Simple Strategies for Bringing Order to Your Workplace by Sandra Felton and Marsha Sims

Boo!

Spooky Stories
Many love a good ghost story now and again. If you are one of them, join us at the library on Saturday, September 15, for an afternoon Ghosts and Hauntings program presented by author and lecturer, Jeff Belanger.  Jeff is the writer and researcher for the Ghost Adventures show on the Travel Channel and hosts popular Web and cable talk show 30 Odd Minutes.

Ghost Stories : Believe 'Em or Not
Here's a quick list of adult non-fiction books, of all different stripes, about the topic.  As always, choose for yourself or for your kids.

Connecticut's Seaside Ghosts by Donald Carter
Ghost Stories and Legends of Southwestern Connecticut by Donna Kent

Ghost Hunters of New England by Alan Brown
Kids Who See Ghosts : How to Guide Them Through Fear by Caron Goode
Picture Yourself Ghost Hunting by Jeff Belanger
Picture Yourself Legend Tripping by Jeff Belanger
Yankee Ghosts by Hans Holzer
The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson
The Ghosts of Nantucket : 23 True Accounts by Blue Balliett
Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits and Haunted Places by Brad Steiger

The Demonologist : The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren by Gerald Brittle
The Paranormal Caught on Film : Amazing Photographs of Ghosts, Poltergeists and Other Strange Phenomena by Melvyn Willin
Haunted Hikes : Spine Tingling Trails and Tales from North America's National Parks by Andrea Lankford

Ghosts in Fiction Books
Another quick list, classic and contemporary, shelved in adult fiction or story collections:

Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

The Tell-tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Shining by Stephen King
Ghost Story by Peter Straub
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian
Ghosts : Recent Hauntings, edited by Paula Guran
Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie

Telling Stories...

Reading Memoirs
Memoirs are immensely popular and can sometimes go a long way in helping us illuminate our own lives.

We offer a quick roundup of memoirs published this year. Several have achieved best-seller status and/or critical acclaim. Click on a title for book descriptions and reviews. As a lead in, you might enjoy an article about the history of memoirs, courtesy of The New Yorker.

Sharp by David Fitzpatrick

Dan Gets a Minivan by Dan Zevin

A Wedding in Haiti by Julia Alvarez

Dropped Names by Frank Langella

By the Iowa Sea by Joe Blair

The Cost of Hope by Amanda Bennett

Full Body Burden by Kristin Iversen

Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel

The Great Northern Express by Howard Frank Mosher

Dying To Be Me by Anita Moorjani

Burn Down the Ground by Kambri Crews

Bloom : Finding Beauty in the Unexpected by Kelle Hampton

No Cheating, No Dying. I Had a Good Marriage Then I Tried to Make It Better by Elizabeth Weil

MWF Seeking BFF : My Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend by Rachel Bertsche

People Who Eat Darkness : the True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo and the Evil that Swallowed Her Up by Richard Lloyd Parry

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Paris : A Love Story by Kati Marton

Read the Book... Watch the Film

Books-to-Film
Here's to exciting days ahead as many great books find their way to the big screen.  Several books-to-film are already generating Oscar buzz though all we can find are a couple of trailers on YouTube. Go figure...

Now Showing
Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo
Robert Pattinson as a Wall Street master of the universe in freefall.

The Bourne Legacy by Eric Van Lustbader
After Robert Ludlum's death, Lustbader took over the franchise. In the film, Jeremy Renner is the new Matt Damon, er... Jason Bourne.

September 14
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Everyone's favorite summer reading selection now featuring Harry Potter favorite, Emma Watson, as a spot-on American teen.

October 12
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The objectivist classic gets its long-awaited Part 2 film treatment.

October 19th
Killing Them Softly (Originally Cogan's Trade) by George V. Higgins
Brad Pitt plays a hitman on the trail of two hoodlums who've robbed the wrong people. Tyler Perry also takes a turn as Alex Cross, the guy from James Patterson's thrillers.

November 16
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The tenth or so adaptation (Jane Eyre anyone?), this one with Keira Knightley and Jude Law. Let's not forget Breaking Dawn, Part 2 from the Twilight Saga series.

November 21
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Martel's beloved novel won 2002's Man Booker Prize.

December 14
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo and The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Dueling blockbusters...

Bricks + Imagination = Limitless Possibilities

Still Loving LEGO™

Now's the time to watch for latest information on how your kiddo can participate in East Hampton's FIRST LEGO League [FLL], 2012. Soon to start its second year, our local league is open to girls and boys ages 9-14, with an interest in cutting-edge science, robotics, technology, and exploring and recommending engineered solutions to real-world problems.

If the student(s) in your home are interested and have not already signed up to participate, give us a call and we'll put you in touch with our league's coordinator. Cost to your family is $25. League sponsors currently include the East Hampton Rotary Club, the league's first organizer, and the library.

Surf's Up
Check out the Connecticut FIRST web site to see what it's all about and hey there parents, there are oodles of ways to help mentor a team. Please do offer your time if you can.

Books and Reading and Games, Too
Click here for an abbreviated list of LEGO-related titles available at the library. Recommendations welcomed.

Just for Fun : Legos ROCK!
Need another way to think about Bricks + Imagination = Limitless Possibilities? Always make time to dance!

And by request...

Happy Birthday Julia!

Julia Child Born
August 15, 1912

Don Your Apron and Cook a Little Something
Though tributes to Julia Child are aplenty today, we offer a round-up of local resources by or about a woman who helped many a cook get in touch with their inner French chef.  Cookbooks first :

Mastering the Art of French Cooking
Julia Child and More Company
The Way to Cook
Cooking with the Master Chefs
Julia's Kitchen Wisdom

All About Julia
Appetite for Life by Noel Riley Fitch
My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme
Julia Child by Laura Shapiro
A Covert Affair : Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS by Jennet Conant
Dearie : the Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz

Don't forget the wildly entertaining Julie and Julia : 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell, book or book-to-film; the latter featuring a spot-on performance of Julia by Meryl Streep.

For Your Little Kitchen Assistant
Two charming books for kids:
Bon Appetit! the Delicious Life of Julia Child by Jessie Hartland
Minette's Feast : the Delicious Story of Julia Child and Her Cat by Susanna Reich

Surf's Up
Julia's TV program, French Chef, premiered on PBS station WGBY in 1962. Catch a snappy tune tribute to Julia below, then click on over to PBS Food to watch Cooking With the Master Chefs, including episodes with Jacques Pepin, Emeril Lagasse, Nancy Silverton, Alice Waters, and Lidia Bastianich, among many others. Also find info and video tributes to Julia on Biography.com or try a virtual tour of Julia Child's Kitchen at the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

In With the Old?

Image courtesy of the
Wesleyan Writers Blog

Hidden Treasures
If you like the smell and feel of old books -- absent a whiff of nasty -- here's a short list of memorable library oldies, all great reads, on which we'd like to shine a little not-UV light.  We'll follow with a video on why old books have a distinctive smell and with contemporary pointers on dabbing your e-reader behind the ears for an old-new-new-old olfactory experience.

Kon-Tiki : Across the Pacific by Raft by Thor Heyerdahl
Aku-Aku : The Story of Easter Island by Thor Heyerdahl
Nook Farm : Mark Twain's Hartford Circle by Kenneth R. Andrews
Connecticut Beautiful by Wallace Nutting
The Poetry of Robert Frost by Robert Frost; edited by Edward Connery Lathem
Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint Exupery
Letters from the Field, 1925-1975 by Margaret Mead
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
Great Adventures and Explorations from the Earliest Times to the Present, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, ed.
Another Country by James Baldwin
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Why Do Old Books Smell?
From AbeBooks, an online seller of new, used, old and out-of-print titles.

Smells Like Book Spirit?
Yes indeed there is a scent called In the Library which offers "a scent of old books; Russian & Moroccan leather bindings, worn cloth and a hint of wood polish." Listen to the story of the scent, courtesy of NPR.

You can also try Paper Passion, a smell that promises to replicate the smell of a "freshly printed book." Click here for info, via Roger Ebert.

The debate about the fate of the printed book continues, with perfumes...

Fountain of Knowledge

Page Turning Public Fountain Will Remind Future Generations of How Printed Books Worked

From Budapest, courtesy of the folks at Gizmodo.

The Next Best Thing to Being There...

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte -- 1884
Georges Seurat

Google Art Project
Art lovers will surely appreciate Google's latest collaboration with museums from around the world and the endeavor to make great art more accessible to real people. The images are delivered in super high resolution; so much so that you can often use a 'zoom' function to see a master painter's brushwork details.

Featured museums include The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musée d’Orsay (Paris). For some museums, you can even take a virtual tour, similar to the street view feature used on Google Maps.

Though online comments indicate not everyone loves virtual reproductions and there is surely a little cumbersome clunk in the project's search engine, truth is many of us won't be flying to Paris anytime soon. Have some fun with this one.

Regional Museums
Good news is the MetMuseum, MOMA, the Whitney, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum are not that far away.

Connecticut Art Trail and Library Passes
Also good news is you can enjoy the Connecticut Art Trail. The library offers discount admission passes to three museums on the Trail: Florence Griswold Museum, New Britain Museum of American Art, and Wadsworth Atheneum. These plus discount passes to the nationally renowned homes of Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe...

Passes are funded by the Friends of the Library. Join the Friends today for as little as $5 to keep the program going.

Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge Update

Still Spreading the Clean Energy Word
If you have not done so lately, check out the Neighbor to Neighbor CT Energy Challenge website and learn about how 14 Neighbor to Neighbor communities, ours included, are working to reduce home energy use by 20%.

Visit the Take Action or Resource Center pages and use them as gateways to info about home energy issues; home energy assessments (HES); lighting upgrades, and incentives and rebates. You can take the Challenge and earn points for our town through April 2013. Very cool...

Politics : Read All About It

Talking Heads
There are books a plenty about the upcoming election, its principals and primary season also-rans, written from all sides of the political spectrum. Here's a short list of recent titles. Pick and choose...

Selecting a President by Eleanor Clift & Matthew Spieler
The book explains the mechanics of the electoral system and includes historical anecdotes from past campaigns. Clift writes for Newsweek; Spieler for VoterPunch.org

How to Win an Election : an Ancient Guide for Modern Politicians by Quintus Tullius Cicero
Have some fun with this ancient Roman guide to winning an election, which reads like a 21st century political playbook. Quintus advises his brother Marcus on how to win the office of consul (he did) in 64 BC.

Where They Stand : the American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians by Robert W. Merry
A veteran political journalist examines how and why presidents succeed and fail. Merry also authored a regarded biography of our 11th President, James K. Polk.

The Candidate : What It Takes to Win -- and Hold -- the White House by Samuel L. Popkin
What does it take to win a campaign for president? The author, an academic and sometime Democratic campaign strategist, offers explanation.

The Real Romney by Michael Kranish and Scott Helman
Try this one or Governor Romney's own, No Apology : the Case for American Greatness. 

Barack Obama : the Story by David Maraniss
One of the latest and one of many in a pro-con collection.

The Next and Last in Line...

The Last Guardian
The eighth and final book in Eoin Colfer's bestselling series, Artemis Fowl, hit the shelves on Tuesday, July 10.  Young adult readers new to the series -- not to mention now 20-somethings who grew up enjoying Arty-boy's adventures -- will be bidding a fond farewell to one of their favorite criminal masterminds.

Read 'Em (or Listen) in Order:
Artemis Fowl -- The Arctic Incident -- The Eternity Code -- The Opal Deception -- The Lost Colony -- The Time Paradox -- The Atlantis Complex -- The Last Guardian.

Click here for a listing of these titles in print or CD book format.
Surf's Up
Catch a cool "8 in 8" minutes book tour on the Artemis Fowl website. The author performs with audience volunteers during his whirlwind promotional tour.

Series and Standalone Read-Alikes
Underland Chronicles Series by Suzanne Collins (life in the underground)
Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series by Rick Riordan (a smart kid's 'odyssey')
The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud (young magician with some serious powers)
The Edge Chronicles Series by Paul Stewart (a magical realm on the 'edge')
Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel Series by Michael Scott (14th century meets the 20th)

For Older Teen Readers
Tithe or Valiant by Holly Black (faerie-centered reads)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (galaxy hop & don't miss the follow-ups)
Stardust by Neil Gaiman

Resources for Book Groups

Great Places to Find Reading Group Suggestions
If you are member of local book group, there are oodles of resources that will help your group find the perfect selection for your next discussion.

Books About Books
1001 Book for Every Mood by Hallie Ephron

Books of the Century : a Hundred Years of Authors, Ideas and Literature from the New York Times

500 Essential Cult Books by Gina McKinnon & Steve Holland

100 Must-Read Historical Novels by Nick Rennison

Also try Book Lust & More Book Lust by Nancy Pearl of librarian action figure fame. Check out her official website for the dish on great books.

Surf's Up : Online Suggestions

Reading Group Choices

Reading Group Guides

Book Group Buzz
Book Movement
LitLovers

The library also offers a monthly newsletter which includes book club suggestions.  The newsletter is published on the 15th of each month.  Click on the cutie image for the current month's selections.


Library Services for Book Groups
If you're running a local book group, the library can help you obtain multiple copies of your club's selected reads, subject to availability. Phone the library for information on how to get started.

Summer Reading and Flowchart Style

Summer Reading Flowchart from Teach.com

Though the chart below went viral in June (in Internet dog years, twenty thousand years ago), it's well worth a July highlight here. The chart's target audience is teens but don't count yourself out if you are, ahem, a little older. Have fun with the chart which includes a great mix of classics and contemporary writing. Please do feel free to ask us for reading suggestions, too; we're always happy to connect you to your next favorite read.




Via Teach.com and USC Rossier Online

Who Is Batman?

Our Favorite Caped Crusader...
The Dark Knight of Gotham City first appeared in Issue #27 of the Detective Comics of 1939. The bat guy has been everywhere in popular culture since then.

Leading up to the much anticipated big screen debut of The Dark Knight Rises, be sure to read or re-read the DC Comics core about this legendary superhero. These graphic novels are shelved in the YA section but adults who grew up enjoying Bruce Wayne's doings and deeds are sure to appreciate them, too.

Best Read With Your Cape or Utility Belt...
Batman : Year One
Batman : The Dark Knight Returns
Batman : Dark Victory
Batman : The Long Halloween
Batman : Knightfall 1
Batman : Knightfall 2

Surf's Up
Batman Through the Years Slideshow (Wrap.com)
Evolution of the Caped Crusader (Oklahoma Daily)
The Id, The Ego, And The Superhero : What Makes Batman Tick? (NPR)
Radio Lovers : Free Old Time Radio Shows : Batman