We've got a couple of great author visits planned for September, and the book clubs will be discussing a wide range of titles:
Author Events
As part of the North Carolina Literary Festival's Authors on the Road program, author P. T. Deutermann (Sana M. posted about him here) will make an appearance at the Headquarters Library on Tuesday, September 1. A reception and book signing with the author will kick things off at 5:30 PM, followed by a presentation at 6:30 PM.
Audience favorite Dr. Elliot Engel returns to the Headquarters Library on Tuesday, September 22, when he'll talk about Rudyard Kipling, the English novelist and Nobel Prize winner. This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Library, and there is a small admission fee: $10 for the public, $5 for Friends members, and $2 for students. Tickets are sold at the door, and you can join the Friends at the event. Dr. Engel's programs are always very well attended, so come early for the best seating!
Book Club Meetings
September 8:
East of the River Book Club (East Regional Library), will discuss The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, at 7:00 PM.
The McArthur Road Irregulars (North Regional Library) will be talking about Swedish author Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, also at 7:00 PM.
September 9:
North Regional's Wednesday Book Club will discuss Dr. Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture at 10:30 AM.
September 15:
The Gen-X Book Club will meet at 7:00 PM at DeDeaux's Java Shop on Ramsey Street to talk about The Help, a novel by Kathryn Stockett.
The Spring Lake Book Break Book Club gets together at 7:00 PM at the Spring Lake Branch and will discuss Ann B. Ross's Miss Julia Stands Her Ground.
September 17:
The Opened Gates Book Club will meet at the Headquarters Library at 7:00 PM. This meeting will be in conjunction with the newly formed African American Family History Study Group, and will focus on viewing and discussing an abridged version of a documentary film, Traces of the Trade: A Story From the Deep North, which connects a Rhode Island family with their ancestors' role in the slave trade. Contact Wanda Hunter, our Local and State History Librarian and Opened Gates facilitator, for more information.
September 28:
The Great Books Discussion Group will examine The Garden of Forking Paths, a short story by Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges.
Please join us for any of these events! For more information, please call the branch where the event will take place.
--Nora
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Should Be an Interesting Fall
According to this article, publishers and booksellers are cautiously optimistic about the fall book season. There sure are a lot of big names on the list: everything from celebrity memoirs and biographies, to new releases from literary heavy-hitters, to the latest from some popular fiction authors (cough - Dan Brown - cough). Seems like there's going to be something for everybody!
We're happy to reserve a copy of these, and many other new books, for you. Stop by the library and put your name on the list today.
--Nora
We're happy to reserve a copy of these, and many other new books, for you. Stop by the library and put your name on the list today.
--Nora
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Historical Intrigue
Looking for scandal, political intrigue and religious turmoil? Then check out the goings on in England and France by following the escapades of Elizabeth I of England, Princess Alais of France, and the Boleyn sisters. Cloak and dagger, secrets whispered behind tapestries, unrequited love, courtly misadventures and countries in turmoil abound in The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir, The Rebel Princess by Judith Koll Healey and The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory. Be transported.
--Alana F.
--Alana F.
Monday, August 17, 2009
"Amateur Marriage" by Anne Tyler
Being married 27 years myself, I am always entertained by stories of marriage and family, and all the joys and tribulations associated with both. The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler is set in Baltimore and the plot moves effortlessly over a period of sixty years. Known for capturing the tumultuous lives of the ordinary American middle class, the author symbolizes the rocky road of Michael and Pauline Anton’s relationship using the attack on Pearl Harbor as the back drop for their first meeting.
Without getting bogged down in the details of the social issues of the day Ms. Tyler focuses on the complexities of family life within a changing society as the mismatched couple builds their family through the 1950s: having children, moving from the city to the suburbs, taking care of elderly parents, and suffering through adulterous behavior.
The family is torn apart in the sixties as the reader is witness to the effects of the developing counterculture of hippies, beatniks and drugs leaving Michael and Pauline to struggle with abandonment and wondering what they could have done differently.
Eventually the couple and the family reach a middle ground in which ignoring differences and moving past placing blame allows one character to quietly reflect about Michael and Pauline. ''You were ice and she was glass, two oddly similar substances, come to think of it -- and both of them hell on your children.''
I highly recommend “The Amateur Marriage” and others by Anne Tyler including “Ladder of Years” and “The Accidental Tourist”.
--Larry G.
Without getting bogged down in the details of the social issues of the day Ms. Tyler focuses on the complexities of family life within a changing society as the mismatched couple builds their family through the 1950s: having children, moving from the city to the suburbs, taking care of elderly parents, and suffering through adulterous behavior.
The family is torn apart in the sixties as the reader is witness to the effects of the developing counterculture of hippies, beatniks and drugs leaving Michael and Pauline to struggle with abandonment and wondering what they could have done differently.
Eventually the couple and the family reach a middle ground in which ignoring differences and moving past placing blame allows one character to quietly reflect about Michael and Pauline. ''You were ice and she was glass, two oddly similar substances, come to think of it -- and both of them hell on your children.''
I highly recommend “The Amateur Marriage” and others by Anne Tyler including “Ladder of Years” and “The Accidental Tourist”.
--Larry G.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Author Visit: P.T. Deutermann!!
P.T. Deutermann, although not a Southerner by birth, is one by choice. After a 26-year career as a Naval officer, Mr. Deutermann retired to Rockingham county to write full-time. His first nine novels are suspense thrillers, many of them having some type of connection to the navy. In 2006, he released The Cat Dancers, the first of the series featuring retired Sheriffs’ Deputy, Cam Richter. The series is set primarily in western North Carolina, in the fictional Manceford County, which is somewhat north and west of Charlotte. The Cat Dancers are a shadowy group of vigilantes, who have an initiation ritual of a face-to-face encounter with a wild mountain lion. Lt. Richter becomes personally involved when his ex-wife, a sitting judge, is killed.
In the next installment, Spider Mountain, Deputy Richter is now ex-deputy Richter, and he has opened his own private investigation business, assisted by the two best sidekicks in crime fiction, a pair of German Sheperds named Frick and Frack. He agrees to help a friend out by looking into the brutal assault on a female forest ranger in a remote area of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. There, he runs into a sinister Appalachian matriarch named Ginny Creigh who controls the local crystal meth trade, and owns most everything and everyone in their neck of the woods.
In The Moonpool, one of Cam’s investigators is found dead in a convenience store restroom in Wilmington, North Carolina. When her body sets off radiation alarms, a heavily guarded nearby nuclear power plant, becomes suspect. Racing against time, Cam uncovers an inside threat, a plan to use the plant's own systems to initiate an unstoppable, disastrous series of events.
In the most recent novel, Nightwalkers, released this past June, Cam decides to retire (again) and purchases a 700-acre antebellum plantation in the North Carolina countryside. He almost immediately finds himself targeted by a determined stalker, who holds Cam responsible for some unknown crime. Cam will need all of his resources, including his redoubtable German Shepherd companions, to stay alive as he deals with the stalker, some very eccentric people, and all the entanglements of a place suddenly alive with ghostly secrets and the fruits of a bloody past.
P.T. Deutermann is currently at work on his 14th book, a historical novel about World War II, to be called Glory. He is part of the Authors on the Road program, and will be speaking at the Headquarters Library on Tuesday, September 1st at 6:30 pm. This event is free to the public and is sponsored by the the North Carolina Literary Festival, which will be held in Chapel Hill on September 10th through the 13th.
--Sana M.
In the next installment, Spider Mountain, Deputy Richter is now ex-deputy Richter, and he has opened his own private investigation business, assisted by the two best sidekicks in crime fiction, a pair of German Sheperds named Frick and Frack. He agrees to help a friend out by looking into the brutal assault on a female forest ranger in a remote area of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. There, he runs into a sinister Appalachian matriarch named Ginny Creigh who controls the local crystal meth trade, and owns most everything and everyone in their neck of the woods.
In The Moonpool, one of Cam’s investigators is found dead in a convenience store restroom in Wilmington, North Carolina. When her body sets off radiation alarms, a heavily guarded nearby nuclear power plant, becomes suspect. Racing against time, Cam uncovers an inside threat, a plan to use the plant's own systems to initiate an unstoppable, disastrous series of events.
In the most recent novel, Nightwalkers, released this past June, Cam decides to retire (again) and purchases a 700-acre antebellum plantation in the North Carolina countryside. He almost immediately finds himself targeted by a determined stalker, who holds Cam responsible for some unknown crime. Cam will need all of his resources, including his redoubtable German Shepherd companions, to stay alive as he deals with the stalker, some very eccentric people, and all the entanglements of a place suddenly alive with ghostly secrets and the fruits of a bloody past.
P.T. Deutermann is currently at work on his 14th book, a historical novel about World War II, to be called Glory. He is part of the Authors on the Road program, and will be speaking at the Headquarters Library on Tuesday, September 1st at 6:30 pm. This event is free to the public and is sponsored by the the North Carolina Literary Festival, which will be held in Chapel Hill on September 10th through the 13th.
--Sana M.
Monday, August 3, 2009
What Might Have Been...
Fragment by Warren Fahy is a story about what might have been.
The story opens on a ship called the Trident that happens to be the backdrop for a show called SeaLife. SeaLife chronicles the adventures of a team of scientists as they explore the uncharted reaches of the south Pacific. Unfortunately, the show has lousy ratings, no drama and is basically wrapping up. The Trident is heading home when they get a distress signal coming from Henders Island. They decide to answer the call and from here on out in the story their lives, shortened though they will be, take a turn for the worse.
Henders Island is what the rest of the Earth might have been like if it hadn’t broken up into the continents we know today. Strange and violent species have evolved in a hypercompetitive environment where everything eats everything else. Humans are no match for any of the animals, as some of the Trident’s crew find out the hard way. After the inauspicious and bloody landing of some of the show’s scientist is broadcast on television, the military sends a fleet to the island with their own handpicked experts. Their plan to destroy Henders Island is complicated by the discovery of a benign and intelligent species and the race to save it from destruction.
Fragment is a great read in the same vein as Jurassic Park or Relic. I would highly recommend it.
--Mike N.
The story opens on a ship called the Trident that happens to be the backdrop for a show called SeaLife. SeaLife chronicles the adventures of a team of scientists as they explore the uncharted reaches of the south Pacific. Unfortunately, the show has lousy ratings, no drama and is basically wrapping up. The Trident is heading home when they get a distress signal coming from Henders Island. They decide to answer the call and from here on out in the story their lives, shortened though they will be, take a turn for the worse.
Henders Island is what the rest of the Earth might have been like if it hadn’t broken up into the continents we know today. Strange and violent species have evolved in a hypercompetitive environment where everything eats everything else. Humans are no match for any of the animals, as some of the Trident’s crew find out the hard way. After the inauspicious and bloody landing of some of the show’s scientist is broadcast on television, the military sends a fleet to the island with their own handpicked experts. Their plan to destroy Henders Island is complicated by the discovery of a benign and intelligent species and the race to save it from destruction.
Fragment is a great read in the same vein as Jurassic Park or Relic. I would highly recommend it.
--Mike N.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
What Did You Read on Your Summer Vacation??
Where did the summer go?
Wasn't it just yesterday that the kids were STARTING their summer vacation? Now begins the madness that is Back to School Season, rivaled only by Holiday Season in its chaos. Moms and dads begin that mad rush to get school supplies, new clothes, and those last-minute required reading books the kids need for their projects.
Before you get lost in the world of pencils, sneakers, paper, and Trapper Keepers (do they still make those?) take a moment to appreciate all the wonderful things you did this summer: the beach, the movies, and especially the books!
With so many wonderful books having been released this summer, I spent many days reading by the pool. My favorite summer read would have to have been Relentless by Dean Koontz. I absolutely love books that scare me, and this one definitely did the trick! It was his best since Velocity, if you ask me.
But enough from me. I want to know what made it into you're beach bag this summer. Did Pahlaniuk's new book thrill you? Did you fall in love with Danielle Steel's new release? Let us know! Either way, we hope you had a safe and happy summer. =)
--Jenn C
Wasn't it just yesterday that the kids were STARTING their summer vacation? Now begins the madness that is Back to School Season, rivaled only by Holiday Season in its chaos. Moms and dads begin that mad rush to get school supplies, new clothes, and those last-minute required reading books the kids need for their projects.
Before you get lost in the world of pencils, sneakers, paper, and Trapper Keepers (do they still make those?) take a moment to appreciate all the wonderful things you did this summer: the beach, the movies, and especially the books!
With so many wonderful books having been released this summer, I spent many days reading by the pool. My favorite summer read would have to have been Relentless by Dean Koontz. I absolutely love books that scare me, and this one definitely did the trick! It was his best since Velocity, if you ask me.
But enough from me. I want to know what made it into you're beach bag this summer. Did Pahlaniuk's new book thrill you? Did you fall in love with Danielle Steel's new release? Let us know! Either way, we hope you had a safe and happy summer. =)
--Jenn C
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