April is Autism Awareness Month

"April is Autism Awareness Month," and Bernardsville Public Library has marked this observance with a special display.  Our Youth Services librarians have assembled a book display offering an informative collection of reading material. This display is located in the Parenting Corner at the entrance to the fiction wing.

There you will find resources for adults and children which may help to identify, understand, and manage the range of behavior involved with autistic and Asperger's disorders.  There are picture books for the very young as well as literature for teens and adults, along with medical and educational resources.  Please stop by for a look.

Have You Had Your "Date" Yet?

"Go on a Blind Date with a Book"  is an on-going display at Bernardsville Public Library celebrating National Library Week.   It is designed to entice you, just like the concept behind a blind date, to take a chance on a book you might have overlooked before.  The display features beautifully wrapped packages tied up with red bows- all mysterious, all with the potential to excite and please you.  These "packages" are new fiction and nonfiction books, but they are truly anonymous "suitors."  You won't know a book's title until you have checked one out, taken it home and pulled on that red ribbon.  If you don't like what you see, simply return the book.  If you are pleased with your "blind date," use the enclosed sheet to write a brief comment or review about it.  Go ahead and flirt; it can't hurt!

Library Book Group to Read The Good Soldiers

The Good Soldiers by Pulitizer Prize-winning reporter David Finkel tells the true and harrowing story of a U.S. battalion's deployment to an Iraqi town during the "surge."  The author was embedded for eight months with the 2-16 soldiers out of Fort Riley and recounts their experiences in the dusty, but dangerous town of Rustamiya, outside the relative safety of Baghdad's Green Zone.

David Finkel is a Washington Post writer and knows how to report what he sees.  What he saw in Iraq was the daily assault upon these good soldiers of boredom, outrage, hope, fear, substance abuse, despair and grave bodily injury. Finkel places quotes by President G.W. Bush at the beginning of each chapter to remind us of  the administration's mindset about the war's progress, letting these statements stand in contrast to what the soldiers actually experienced and endured.

Fiction author Geraldine Brooks comments that The Good Soldiers is "an incandescent and profoundly moving book: powerful, intense, enraging.  This may be the best book on war since the Iliad."  Bernardsville Public Library's book group, Memoirs & Coffee, will discuss The Good Soldiers next Tuesday, April 26th, at 10:30 a.m. in the Community Room.  Copies of the book are now available at the library. New members are welcome to attend.

David Foster Wallace

The Pale King, an unfinished novel by the late, laureled American author David Foster Wallace, will be released in bookstores next week.  Because the premise of the story deals with the routine (or not) of work in an IRS center, the publisher set the release date to coincide with the normal deadline for tax filing, April 15th.  Well, there are always those creative types who know their way around deadlines, and in this case, both Amazon and Barnes & Noble are selling the book online at this very moment.  Bernardsville Public Library will have a copy of the book available after the release date.

Book News and More posted a piece about David Foster Wallace at the time of his suicide in 2008.  As is often the case, interest in this talented, but tormented writer increased posthumously.  Just today a very extensive and unusual article was posted online at The Awl entitled, "Inside David Foster Wallace's Self-Help Library."  Some of the self-help books Wallace heavily read and reread were highlighted here and interesting references were made to his mother, grammarian Sally Foster Wallace, as well.  These books are among the  collection of the author's papers at the University of Texas at Austin.

As this article states, "David Wallace was a person who dwelt in darkness either by nature or compulsion, or maybe even by mere habit, or maybe just because he'd been given the wrong medication. Depression is a very inward-turned and self-loathing thing: he trapped himself in this sort of interior abattoir.  But like all depressed persons, Wallace loathed himself in error.  He had a real value that others could see, but he could not." 

Tom Rob Smith

London-born writer Tom Rob Smith just may be the go-to author for people who are ready to move on from Stieg Larsson's Millenium series. Smith's first book, Child 44, bears all the hallmarks of a great crime thriller - enduring suspense, characters who grow with the well-plotted storyline, and a relevant setting of historical authenticity, in this case, post-Stalinist Russia. His subsequent novel, The Secret Speech, and an upcoming publication, Agent 6, carry forward the story of Leo Stepanovich Demidov, former member of the MGB, as he and his family adapt to his new position in the Soviet State security system.

At the heart of Child 44 is the mystery behind a seemingly inexplicable and horrible series of child murders occurring across a wide area of the Soviet Union. A secretive, paranoid regime is unable to acknowledge that such crimes are possible, let alone that they may be connected. Innocent victims face torture, character assassination, gulags and misery, all so that the myth of a perfect political state might be perpetuated. Meanwhile the vicious child slaughters continue unabated.

One man, Leo Demidov, develops the conscience and courage to investigate these murders as crimes of a serial killer. As the author notes on his Web site, "How a crime is investigated is a very useful litmus test for larger forces within a society, the priorities and prejudices of that world. I guess with CHILD 44 I wanted to combine both those elements, the puzzle and the period in which this puzzle is unraveling." Although the novel's child murders are based on the true crimes of Ukrainian serial killer Andre Chikatilo, Tom Rob Smith fits them into his own web of cause and effect, and once again it is Leo Demidov who is at the center of it all.

Smith shares that he was always a reader, loved adventure stories and took them in whatever form they came - mythology, history, science fiction, television, drama or film. Perhaps the author's work as a storyliner for various British television shows following his graduation from Cambridge helped shape Child 44 into a story that would translate well cinematographically. Apparently Ridley Scott, director of "Alien" and "Blade Runner," thinks so too, as he has bought the rights to the book for a future film production.

~Evelyn Fischel~

The library book group Saturday Samplers will discuss Child 44 on April 2nd at 3:30 p.m. in the small meeting room.

Child 44

Bernardsville Library book group, Saturday Samplers, will be discussing Tom Rob Smith's exciting crime thriller Child 44 at its next meeting this Saturday, April 2, at 3:30 p.m.  Look here for a new posting coming shortly about the author and the book.

Saturday Samplers is an open-invitation book group which reads a varied selection of works, including nonfiction, fiction, short fiction and teen novels.  Library staff member Evelyn Fischel leads the group and writes a blog, Saturday Samplers, on which you can access more information about the group and its reading list.

Mind Your Brain

Mind your brain. Stop by the new book display "Mind: Your Brain" at Bernardsville Public Library to browse the latest information on the brain, the mind.  Find books on neuroscience, brain disease and disorder, brain health and associated literature.  Read what it's like to have a stroke in My Stroke of Insight, learn about bipolar and depressive conditions in The Unquiet Mind, key into what happens to your brain when you listen to music in the books This is Your Brain on Music and Musicophilia.  There are many other interesting selections, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Left Neglected. This display is located in the center area of the library.

You're Never Too Old To Recall Your Past

Harry Bernstein, now 100 years old, wrote his first memoir in 1997 entitled The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers.  Describing his impoverished youth in a working class English mill town, Bernstein recalled with vivid and painful memories the religious prejudice on his street and within his family which kept Jews and Christians apart. Not everyone was so closed-minded; however, and so a tender love story emerges from this personal history.  How this love grew and what happened to those involved makes for a wonderful story, but it is counterbalanced by the cruelty and oppressive presence of Harry's father and his damaging influence on the family.  The Invisible Wall will be discussed by the library book group Memoirs and Coffee on Tuesday, February 22, at 10:30 a.m. in the Community Room.  If you have read this book and would like to join the discussion, please feel free to attend.

New Cookbooks with Great Photos and Recipes

Finally cookbook publishers are realizing that readers want to visualize the finished product before making an attempt at a recipe, especially one with a lot of ingredients and steps.  The cookbooks shown below, new to Bernardsville Public Library, will not disappoint in that regard because they are heavily illustrated with beautiful color photographs for almost every recipe. 

Try a young Irish blogger's first cookbook, Good Mood Food, for some delightful dishes.  Donal Skehan's book features simple recipes with wholesome ingredients. For a great introduction to coffee - how to brew it in different manners - as well as delicious cake recipes, why not try (what else?) Coffee and Cake by Rick Rodgers?  While you have the oven on, whip up a wide range of cookies from Crazy About Cookies by Krystina Castella.  Each of the recipes will entice you with its accompanying photo.  Then it's on to breadmaking. Peter Reinhart's book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice,  is a James Beard Foundation Book Award winner as well as The IACP Cookbook Awards winner.  In it you will find many recipes and detailed photographs illustrating the breadmaking techniques required to turn out wonderful breads. Lavash, muffins, ciabatta, limpa, and brioche are just some of the bread recipes included in this lovely book.
 

 

Staff Pick: Unbearable Lightness

Library staff member Linda Sexton has written the following review of actress Portia De Rossi's new book, which is available at Bernardsville Public Library.

"I just finished the memoir Unbearable Lightness by Portia De Rossi. I wasn't sure what to expect since she is a celebrity, but the book was written with honesty and courage. The book is about her long battle with anorexia and subsequent binging and purging.  Portia De Rossi also discusses the underlying fear she had that her homosexuality would be exposed to the public.  It is nearly impossible to understand what it is like for someone to struggle with an eating disorder, but she lets us inside her mind and we can see what an unbearable burden it is. Her ultimate goal is to give hope to those who need it and to show that recovery is not easy, but possible. Once again I remember not to judge those whose lives look perfect on the outside."

Reflections on the 50 Book Challenge

The first year of Bernardsville Public Library's 50 Book Challenge has drawn to a close, but a new year means a new challenge!  The kick-off meeting for the next 50 Book Challenge will take place in the library on Saturday, January 22nd at 3:30 p.m., with Karen Vaias once again leading the program.

For those readers who participated in the 2010 Book Challenge, it's  time to reflect on what the challenge has meant to them and how it has affected their reading choices. Several participants shared their insights through the following comments: "I undertook this challenge to actually GET myself reading again, and to think about what I was reading, and to that end, it has been very helpful. What I found myself doing, however, was "cheating" a bit, in terms of engaging with harder, more thought-provoking books."  Another reader notes the same behavior in that she was not as selective in her choices as she used to be.  Perhaps the competitive spirit drove these readers toward books they knew they could finish rather than longer texts.

One reader stated, "I love fiction, but I discovered new books in Spanish and English that I really enjoyed. I had neglected for about 20 years reading books in Spanish, but now I try to read some during the year."  Several challenge participants discovered Young Adult literature to be very appealing, and others enjoyed listening to recorded books (for the narrators as much as for the stories.)  In addition, the simple act of keeping a reading journal proved beneficial to many people. For one participant, reviewing her journal enabled her to see how these reading choices related to her emotional or intellectual needs over the past year. She noted that her books truly reflected a year in her life.

What to Read, What to Read...

For those who like to read book reviews online, there are a number of good resources posted on the sidebar of  Book News and More. Scroll down and look to the left for the heading, Book Links. Among the linkable sites listed is the American Library Association's resource, Booklist.  Booklist Online allows you to read a large amount of free content in an organized and comprehensive format.  For instance, from the current home page you can select "Booklist Editors' Choice: Adult Books 2010" to open an expansive, annotated list of the best books in fiction and nonfiction from last year.  The nonfiction titles are grouped by categories such as Arts and Literature, Poetry, Social Science, etc.  Clicking on a title will bring up publication information as well as a review of the book.  For a deeper search experience, you will be required to subscribe, but this is not necessary for general browsing purposes. Give it a try!

Short Stories Have A New Collection Area

Bernardsville Library's short stories have been separated from the fiction shelves and now have their own collection area within the Fiction Wing.  They are attractively showcased there to make quick browsing possible for our patrons and are marked with special spine labels.  Short stories pack a punch, but don't drag out the punchline. As Polonius stated in Hamlet, "...brevity is the soul of wit..."

Feather Your Nest....

with some nice holiday reading at Bernardsville Public Library.  We have three different displays of books bound to bring cheer to this season of the year.  In addition, a special array of holiday movies has been put on display for easier browsing as well.

Library Book Groups Meeting Next Week

There will be two opportunities next week to join in book discussions at Bernardsville Library. Both library book groups will be meeting to discuss their respective selections, and you are welcome to participate.

Memoirs and Coffee book group will be discussing Temple Grandin's memoir, Thinking in Pictures: and other reports from my life with autism.  Dr. Grandin is Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University and is a noted advocate of improved lifestock handling.  She has designed numerous lifestock facilities around the world which are intended to reduce stress on animals and improve their productivity.  Dr. Grandin also has autism, and in Thinking in Pictures, she reveals what it is like to live with autusm and think in picutres rather than words. Her memoir will be discussed this Tuesday, November 30, at 10:30 a.m. in the library Community Room.

Saturday Samplers book group will discuss The Invisible Wall: a love story that broke barriers by Harry Bernstein on Saturday, December 4, at 3:30 p.m. in the Small Meeting Room.  Mr. Bernstein is a late-blooming author, having published this biography at the age of  96 in 2007.  He has subsequently written two more books.  The Invisible Wall recalls his youth in a Lancashire working class town where Jews and Christians lived on the same street, but separated themselves according to sides of the street.  The author paints a very bleak picture of his brutish father, oppressed mother, and struggling siblings, and yet he counterbalances this with a very touching love story that indeed broke barriers.