Used Book Sale

We are having a small used book sale inside the library on Saturday, August 2 to coincide with the Arts & Wine Festival in Courthouse Park.

Hours of the book sale will be 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Fiction books will be offered as well as arts related non-fiction books.

Keeping Current

Before I came to work here, I used to enjoy coming to the library for an hour or two once a month just to peruse the new magazines. I would take a quick look at the current issues of more than 50 magazines and read whatever articles that piqued my interest. Now that I’m working here I grab a couple of mags on my way to lunch.

I’m 99 percent sure we have a magazine that you will want to read.  Whether it’s current events, fitness, history, fashion, travel, business, sports, cars, food, nature, science, music or entertainment, we got you covered. So come on over to the library and enjoy a reading retreat.

I thought I would share with you 10 articles that caught my interest today that are currently on the new magazine racks. If you think I should continue this every month please let me know. – Jan Dempsey

1. “Running Out of Water: A Six-Point Plan to Avert a Global Crisis,” Scientific American, August 2008.

2. “Reimagining the American Dream: What the Good Life Really Means and Why We Can Still Grab It,”
    Utne Reader, May-June 2008.

3. “U.S. Allies Ignore Bush and Opt for Peace,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August 2008.

4. Natural Wonder: There’s Nothing Like Nature to Bring You Back to Your Self,” Yoga Journal, September 2008.

5. “China’s Great Wall: Stories from a Crumbling World Treasure,” Smithsonian, August 2008.

6. “Women and the Negativity Receptor,” Oprah, August 2008.

7. “A Shortage of Democracy, not Food” by Frances Lappe, The Progressive, July 2008.

8. “America’s Best Places to Live,” Money, August 2008

9. “No Place to Hide,” (Google’s Eyes are Watching You), Discover, August 2008.

10. “The Real Question about Oil. Should It be Cheap,” Business Week, August 4.

“People of the Book”

Pulitzer Prize winning author, Geraldine Brooks has written an historical fiction book that is captivating, poignant and hard to put down. In 1996, rare book expert Dr. Hanna Heath gets a call at her home in Australia requesting her to come to Bosnia to analyse a beautifully illustrated 15th century Hebrew manuscript. As she examines the Sarajevo Haggadah she discovers several small artifacts – a fragment of an insect wing, a stain that appears to be from wine, salt crystals and a white hair. Brooks skillfully weaves the past and the present as she relates the dramatic stories of the people who created the manuscript and fought to preserve it.

Jan Dempsey

Upcoming book discussions

Our August book discussion will actually take place the first week in September. We have some staffing issues on August 28 so the date was changed to Wednesday, September 3 at 6:30 p.m. The book pick is still “Marley and Me” by John Grogan, his story of life with the world’s worst dog!

On Wednesday, September 17 at 6:30 p.m. we will be discussing another non-fiction book, “Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv. Louv will be visiting Bailey Hall on the Cornell campus on Wednesday, September 24. Louv is the man who penned the term “nature-deficit disorder.” Here’s how Wikipedia describes it:

“Nature-deficit disorder refers to the alleged trend that children are spending less time outdoors,resulting in a wide range of behavioral problems. Louv claims that causes for the phenomenon include parental fears, restricted access to natural areas, and the lure of the screen. Recent research has drawn a further contrast between the declining number of National Park visits in the United States and increasing consumption of electronic media by children. … He argues that sensationalist media coverage and paranoid parents have literally ’scared children straight out of the woods and fields,’ while promoting a litigious culture of fear that favors “safe” regimented sports over imaginative play.”

On Wednesday, October 15 at 6:30 p.m. our book discussion will focus on a newer fiction book by author Chris Bohjalian called “Skeletons at the Feast.” Some of you may have read his earlier works which include “The Buffalo Soldier,” “Midwives,” and “The Double Bind.” Publisher’s Weekly says about his new book, “In his 12th novel, Bohjalian paints the brutal landscape of Nazi Germany as German refugees struggle westward ahead of the advancing Russian army. Inspired by the unpublished diary of a Prussian woman who fled west in 1945, the novel exhumes the ruin of spirit, flesh and faith that accompanied thousands of such desperate journeys.”

On Wednesday, November 19 at 6:30 we will discuss “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel.
Publisher’s Weekly reviews it this way:  “A fabulous romp through an imagination by turns ecstatic, cunning, despairing and resilient, this novel is an impressive achievement “a story that will make you believe in God,” as one character says.

We are going to go back to an evening only book discussion. The turnout for the Thursday morning group was very low. If you still want the morning group as well, please let me know and if we have enough requests we will reinstate the Thursday morning group.

It’s been a fun first year with the book group. I’m looking forward to another great year.
Tell your friends, bring them along!

Jan Dempsey 

 

“The Cruelest Journey”

I’m into travel narratives in a big way. But even if I wasn’t, I think I still would have enjoyed Kira Salak’s 2005 story of her 600 mile solo kayak trip on the Niger River through Mali, from Old Segou to Timbuktou. Her journey traces one that was made by Scottish explorer Mungo Park in the early 1800s.

The New York Times Book Review calls Salak a “tough, real-life Lara Croft.” When you read how early on in her trip she tears a muscle in her right arm, keeps going again despite a bout of dysentery, and confronts scary hippos and even some scarier natives, you will understand why.

There’s only one copy of this book in the Finger Lakes Library System at the Tompkins County Public Library so you’ll have to reserve it through inter-library loan. But it is well worth it!

Jan Dempsey

Reminder – July adult book discussion group

Our July adult book discussion group meets Thursday, July 17 from 6:30 – 7:30 pm.  We will be discussing Nicholas Sparks’ memoir “Three Weeks with My Brother.” Hope you can join us and bring a friend!

Meet the Artist

Local artist Lyle Pierce’s paintings of Alaska and some additional local scenes are currently on display in the library art gallery. On Thursday, July 24 from 7:00 – 7:45 pm in the art gallery, Lyle will speak about his paintings and will answer questions.

Everyone is welcome.