Books

Summer Reading

by

Saturday is the summer reading program kick-off. This year’s theme is Be Creative @ Your Library.

A storyteller on July 2 is also part of the summer program.  See the post about Karen Pillsworth and Stone Soup. Children and teens can sign up at either of these programs or come in to the library during regular hours to sign up.

Linda has programs planned through July and a party in August for those who participated.  The teen program will be described in a later post.

The following information is from the NYS Library:

Summer Reading Programs are Fun and Promote Literacy!

Public libraries across the State encourage reading through the New York Statewide Summer Reading Program. In 2009, kids can Be Creative @ Your Library! Artwork is by children’s book illustrator David Catrow. The teen theme, Express Yourself @ Your Library, features artwork by illustrator Brad Sneed.

Children and families visit public libraries to choose what they want to read as part of a summertime mix of activities. Research shows that children who read during the summer perform better when school resumes in the fall. Kids participate in summer reading fun at their local libraries, and the numbers are growing — in 2008, a record 1.5 million participated.

The New York State Library participates in the national Collaborative Summer Library Program with 46 other member states. The theme, high-quality artwork, and educational activities attract kids to the summer reading program at their local library. The State Library provides the Summer Reading Program manual with creative ideas, projects and reading lists to over 1,100 public libraries, branch libraries and reading centers in New York State.

Pember Presents: a Storyteller

by

Stories from Stones…Stone Soup and a Little Bit More
color head shot KarenPillsworthA “Be Creative @ Your Library” program. Children and teens will be able to sign up for summer reading after the performance.

Karen says:

“Listen…and you will hear stories from long ago and far away, and stories from today, as we go on an adventure into a world where friends are made and magic abounds. Some stories will find us in magical places and some will happen right in your backyard.

“Listen…and I will take you on a voyage of discovery into a place where time stands still and happily ever after is still a possibility.

“Come with me — I will take you there!”

Karen Pillsworth has been enchanting audiences all over the Northeast with her stories for over 25 years. She has performed in libraries, camps, churches, parks, schools, historic sites and at festivals. She is regularly featured at Mohonk Mountain House and has shared her stories on National Public Radio.

Best Selling Books of the Twentieth Century

by

Here’s a continuation of the best seller list I found last week (it’s from Publisher’s Weekly).

Best sellers for the second decade of the twentieth century were:

* 1910
The Rosary, Florence Barclay

* 1911
The Broad Highway, Jeffrey Farnol

* 1912
The Harvester, Gene Stratton Porter

* 1913
The Inside of the Cup, Winston Churchill

* 1914
The Eyes of the World, Harold Bell Wright

* 1915
The Turmoil, Booth Tarkington

* 1916
Seventeen, Booth Tarkington

* 1917
Mr. Britling Sees It Through, H. G. Wells

* 1918
The U. P. Trail, Zane Grey

* 1919
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, V. Blasco Ibañez

OnLine Book Club

by

I have been reading with the DearReader online book club for several years. Recently, the Friends of the Library agreed to sponsor the club through the Pember Library website / blog. I just finished reading the nonfiction selection for the week, Write it when I’m gone : remarkable off-the-record conversations with Gerald R. Ford by Thomas M. DeFrank. Over five days, I was able to read the first 19 pages of the book and get a feel for whether or not I would like to finish it.

Ford is interesting because of his unique position as the only unelected president of the United States. I realize that even though I lived through those years, I didn’t really understand what was happening. I was a teenager, after all, and there were certainly more interesting things in the world than politics!  I would like to read more of this book and perhaps gain some insights into that period of our history.

I definitely want to hear other people’s opinions of the books they might have read through DearReader this week. Reply to this post or send me an email.

The books that will be featured next week are :

Man vs. Weather by Dennis Diclaudio, nonfiction
Washington’s Lady by Nancy Moser, good news
Dead is a State of Mind by Marlene Perez, teen
Roastbeef’s Promise by David Jerome, fiction
Nice Guys Can Get the Corner Office by Russ Edelman, Tim Hiltabiddle & Charles Manz, business
Captain Wentworth’s Diary by Amanda Grange, romance
Murder on Bank Street by Victoria Thompson, mystery

To join, click on the “Online Book Clubs, Click Here” icon to the left, put in your email address, and choose which club(s) you would like to get in your email.  Thanks to the Friends of the Library for sponsoring this wonderful service for our readers out there!

Libri Grant

by

The Pember Library received 78 new books for toddlers through high school in May. The books were awarded to the library through the Libri Foundation of Eugene, Oregon “Books for Children Grant.” The grant is a matching funds grant in which the library can receive up to $1050 worth of books provided they raise one third of the cost outside of the library’s regular budget process.

The Friends of the Pember Library gave the $350 needed to receive the full amount of the grant. The Friends raise funds through their annual book sale. Thanks to a generous donation The Libri Foundation received from Hal Berenson and Laura Ackerman, our library also received a bonus of $350 worth of math and science books.

The new books include both fiction and nonfiction. Historical and scientific topics are covered in the nonfiction. The fiction consists of picture books for little ones, early reader books, and juvenile and young adult fiction. There should be something for everyone. The books are processed and ready for checkout and will be on display at the library for the rest of the month. They will then be shelved with the rest of the children and youth collections.

The Libri Foundation, which awards the Books for Children Grant, was established in 1989 with the sole purpose of helping rural libraries acquire new, quality, hardcover books for children and young people. Since October of 1990, the foundation has donated over $3,500,000 worth of new books to more than 2,600 libraries in 49 states.

The Pember Library received the following books from The Libri Foundation:

Children’s Fiction

Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?
Best Best Friends
Big Bad Bunny
A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever
Cowboy Slim
Diary of a Fly
Garmann’s Summer
A Good Day
Good Enough to Eat
Hickory Dickory Dock
Hurry! Hurry!
Julia Gillian
Just in Case
A Kitten Tale
Leaves
Leonardo, the Terrible Monster
Library Lion
Lilly’s Big Day
The Moon Over Star
Mouse Shapes
My Colors, My World
Not a Box
Olivia Forms a Band
One Boy
Ruby Lu, Empress of Everything
Rules
Skunkdog
Stinky Stern Forever
Thank You, Bear
A Visitor for Bear

Children’s Nonfiction:

A is for Art
Ain’t Nothing but a Man
Animal Poems
Cookies
Good Brother, Bad Brother
Heavy Equipment up Close
Here’s a Little Poem
How High Can a Dinosaur Count
Jazz on a Saturday Night
Knucklehead
Ladies First
Listen to the Wind
Mother Goose Numbers on the Loose
Our Eleanor
Ox, House, Stick
Paleo Bugs
The Real Mother Goose
A Second is a Hiccup
Sisters and Brothers
The Three Snow Bears
Tracking Trash
Tuttle’s Red Barn
Washington at Valley Forge
The Way We Work
What the World Eats
Who Was First?

Young Adult:

Guys Write for Guys Read
Here Lies the Librarian
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey
A Small White Scar
Waiting for Normal

Math & Science:

Albino Animals
American Women Inventors
Animals on the Edge
Cool Stuff and How It Works
Cryobiology
Forensic Science
Full House
Go Figure!
Killing Germs, Saving Lives
Learning from Fossils
Medicine in the Middle Ages
Nontechnology
One Hundred Hungry Ants
One Well
Recycling
Where in the Wild?
The Wishing Club

Library Launches Online Book Club

by

Finding a Great Book to Read Just Got Easier

So many books, so little time. For all those busy people, the Pember Library has a new service sponsored by the Friends of the Pember Library: an Online Book Club that delivers books electronically. Each day, Monday through Friday, the library e-mails subscribers a portion of a book that takes about 5-minutes to read. They’re able to read two or three chapters from a book during the week. If they like a book, they can check it out of the library.

Each week the library features new books, so if the current book is not one that interests you, the editor/moderator, Suzanne Beecher, encourages you to “hit the delete key without guilt”.  Suzanne also has a personal message at the beginning of the read every day. It is like getting a note from a close friend every day.

There’s a book club for just about everyone, including: fiction, non-fiction, romance, mystery, science fiction, audio, business, pre-publication (be the first to see these soon-to-be-released books), teen, good news, and thriller. Now you can discover great books, even if you’re too busy to visit the library.

On Mondays and Thursdays, Suzanne, your book club editor, offers a link to AuthorBuzz, where she introduces you to three or four authors and their books. Suzanne also holds giveaways where you can win funny or cool prizes–and once a month, Suzanne bakes homemade chocolate chip cookies for the winners of her monthly Chocolate Chip Cookie giveaway. This new service makes it easy for people to get back into the habit of reading. It only takes 5-minutes a day and it’s fun.

Currently subscribers are reading the following books:

Furious Improvisation by Susan Quinn, nonfiction;
Suspicious Minds by Christy Barritt, good news;
Boot Camp by Todd Strasser, teen;
Daemon by Daniel Suarez, fiction;
Habit: The 95% of Behavior Marketers Ignore by Neale Martin, business;
The Rebel and the Lady by Kathryn Albright, romance;
What Lies in Shadow by Tina Wainscott, mystery.

Next week the following books are featured:

Write It When I’m Gone by Thomas M. DeFrank, nonfiction;
Don’t Let Me Go by David W. Pierce, good news;
Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost, audio;
Triskellion by Will Peterson, teen;
The Wednesday Letters by Jason F. Wright, fiction;
Create Marketplace Disruption by Adam Hartung, business;
High Noon by Nora Roberts, romance;
Chambers of Death by Priscilla Royal, pre-pub;
Scone Cold Dead by Kaitlyn Dunnett, mystery;
Invincible (Star Wars Legacy of the Force) by Troy Denning, sci-fi;
The Illumination by Jill Gregory & Karen Tintori, thriller.

You can sign up for the service at the library or on our web site. Click on the box at the left that says Online Book Clubs.

The online book clubs are a fun and stress free way to read. And, as Suzanne always ends her columns, “It’s so good to read with friends.”

Best Selling Books of the Twentieth Century

by

Since we are celebrating 100 years as a library, I thought it would be interesting to see what the popular books were 100 years ago. The following is a list I found of the top books for each year of the first decade of the twentieth century. (Please note that Winston Churchill is an American author, not the British statesman.)

* 1900
To Have and To Hold, Mary Johnston
* 1901
The Crisis, Winston Churchill
* 1902
The Virginian, Owen Wister
* 1903
Lady Rose’s Daughter, Mary Augusta Ward
* 1904
The Crossing, Winston Churchill
* 1905
The Marriage of William Ashe, Mary Augusta Ward
* 1906
Coniston, Winston Churchill
* 1907
The Lady of the Decoration, Frances Little
* 1908
Mr. Crewe’s Career, Winston Churchill
* 1909
The Inner Shrine, anonymous (Basil King)

Bestseller List

by

Our list of new and popular books matches pretty well with the NY Times Bestseller lists. We have twelve of the top fifteen from the fiction list and four of the top five from the nonfiction list. Any one who responds to this post with a comment about one of the books or a review will be entered into a contest for a book weight.* You can send your comment or review to us through the email link to the right or by clicking on ‘no comments’ at the bottom of the post.

Fiction:

#1 Title:            Gone tomorrow : a Jack Reacher novel
Call Number:    Fict Chi
Author:             Child, Lee.

Also available as
Title:     Gone tomorrow [compact audio disc (unabridged)]
Call Number:    CD Fict Chi

#2 Title:            Wicked prey [large print]
Call Number:    LT Fict San
Author:             Sandford, John,

#3 Title:            The 8th confession
Call Number:    Fict Pat Mystery
Author:             Patterson, James,

#4 Title:            Dead and gone
Call Number:    Fict Har
Author:             Harris, Charlaine.

#5 Title:            Cemetery dance
Call Number:    Fict Pre
Author:             Preston, Douglas J.

Also available as
Title:     Cemetery dance [compact audio disc (unabridged)]
Call Number:    CD Fict Pre

#6 Title:            First family
Call Number:    Fict Bal
Author:             Baldacci, David.

#7 Title:            The host : a novel
Call Number:    Fict Mey Sci-Fi
Author:             Meyer, Stephenie,

Also available as
Title:     The host [compact audio disc (unabridged)] : a novel
Call Number:    CD Fict Mey

#9 Title:            The sign
Call Number:    Fict Kho
Author:             Khoury, Raymond.

#11 Title:          The help
Call Number:    Fict Sto
Author:             Stockett, Kathryn.

#12 Title:          Tea time for the traditionally built [large print]
Call Number:    LT Fict McC
Author:             McCall Smith, Alexander,

#14 Title:          Road dogs
Call Number:    Fict Leo
Author:             Leonard, Elmore,

#15 Title:          Just take my heart [large print] : a novel
Call Number:    LT Fict Cla
Author:             Clark, Mary Higgins.

Nonfiction:

#1 Title:            Liberty and tyranny : a conservative manifesto
Call Number:    320.52 Lev
Author:             Levin, Mark R. (Mark Reed),

#2 Title:             Outliers [large print] : the story of success
Call Number:    LT 302 Gla
Author:             Gladwell, Malcolm, 1963-

#3 Title:            Resilience : reflections on the burdens and gifts of facing life’s adversities
Call Number:    92 Edwards
Author:             Edwards, Elizabeth,

#5 Title:            Always looking up : the adventures of an incurable optimist
Call Number:    92 Fox
Author:             Fox, Michael J.,

* donated to the library by Sandi R

Book Club

by

The Book Club will be reading The colossus of New York : a city in thirteen parts by Colson Whitehead.

“The Colossus of New York captures the city’s inner and outer landscapes in a series of vignettes, meditations, and personal memories. Colson Whitehead conveys with almost uncanny immediacy the feelings and thoughts of longtime residents and of newcomers who dream of making it their home; of those who have conquered its challenges; and of those who struggle against it cruelties.” “Whitehead’s style is as multilayered and multifarious as New York itself: Switching from third person, to first person, to second person, he weaves individual voices into a jazzy musical composition that perfectly reflects the way we experience the city. There is a funny, knowing riff on what it feels like to arrive in New York for the first time; a lyrical meditation on how the city is transformed by an unexpected rain shower; and a wry look at the ferocious battle that is commuting. The plaintive notes of the lonely and dispossessed resound in one passage, while another captures those magical moments when the city seems to be talking directly to you, inviting you to become one with its rhythms.” “The Colossus of New York is a portrait of life in the big city. Ambitious in scope, gemlike in its details, it is at once an paralleled tribute to New York and the ideal introduction to one of the most exciting writers working today.”–BOOK JACKET.