Author: lpcl2014

The leading prize for quality fiction in English, the Man Booker Prize, has announced the 2015 longlist.  First awarded in 1969, the prize is recognized as the leading prize for high quality literary fiction written in English.

The 2015 longlist, or Man Booker ‘Dozen’, of 13 novels, is:

Author (nationality) – Title 

Bill Clegg (US) – Did You Ever Have a Family 

Anne Enright (Ireland) – The Green Road

Marlon James (Jamaica) – A Brief History of Seven Killings

Laila Lalami (US) – The Moor’s Account 

Tom McCarthy (UK) – Satin Island 

Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria) – The Fishermen 

Andrew O’Hagan (UK) – The Illuminations 

Marilynne Robinson (US) – Lila 

Anuradha Roy (India) – Sleeping on Jupiter 

Sunjeev Sahota (UK) – The Year of the Runaways 

Anna Smaill (New Zealand) – The Chimes 

Anne Tyler (US) – A Spool of Blue Thread

Hanya Yanagihara (US) – A Little Life 

 

Harper Lee’s highly anticipated novel, Go Set a Watchman, was released today. Written in the mid-1950’s, this novel was submitted to her publishers before Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning American classic, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Go Set a Watchman brings twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch “Scout” back to Alabama, her father and the town that helped shape her.

We have four copies currently circulating.

 

Summer reads can be both relaxing and light, and alternatively, more in depth and weighty. If you’re interested in the latter, I highly recommend Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives by Gretchen Rubin. I read this book in one sitting and found it fascinating to learn how each person is motivated by different things in different ways. Even though the topic of understanding and changing habits is deep, Rubin has written a book that is easy to grasp and truly fun to read. This is an excellent read if you are interested in making changes, whether big or small, in your life.

The 2015 Summer Reading Program for children, teens and adults begins this Monday, June 22 here at the library. Beginning this Monday, children and teens will receive a gift bag when they register and will also receive a free prize or a raffle ticket for every two hours they read.  This year there is no online registration. Children’s raffle prizes are given on a weekly basis and will be displayed on the front table. Teen prizes are a free DVD rental, a free book from the book sale, or a raffle ticket for a $25 gift card drawn weekly. Additionally, there will be many exciting programs held at the library during the summer reading months.

For the Adult Summer Reading Program, simply fill out a review for each book you read or listen to and be entered in a weekly drawing to receive $10 gift cards to local establishments. Place reviews in the box near the Reference Desk.  The reading programs end on August 15.

Join in and get reading!

Looking for a summer read to help you get away from it all?  Enchanted August by Brenda Bowen has been getting rave reviews.  Read the enticing description from Amazon.

Set on a picture-perfect island in Maine, a sparkling summer debut that offers readers a universal fantasy: one glorious month away from it all.

On a dreary spring day in Brooklyn, Lottie Wilkes and Rose Arbuthnot spot an ad on their children’s preschool bulletin board:   Hopewell Cottage Little Lost Island, Maine. Old, pretty cottage to rent on a small island. Springwater, blueberries, sea glass. August.  

Neither can afford it, but they are smitten—Lottie could use a break from her overbearing husband and Rose from her relentless twins. On impulse, they decide to take the place and attract two others to share the steep rent: Caroline Dester, an indie movie star who’s getting over a very public humiliation, and elderly Beverly Fisher, who’s recovering from heartbreaking loss. If it’s not a perfect quartet, surely it will be fine for a month in the country.   When they arrive on the island, they are transformed by the salt air; the breathtaking views; the long, lazy days; and the happy routine of lobster, corn, and cocktails on the wraparound porch. By the time of the late-August blue moon, real life and its complications have finally fallen far, far away. For on this idyllic island they gradually begin to open up: to one another and to the possibilities of lives quite different from the ones they’ve been leading. Change can’t be that hard, can it?  

It finally feels like summer and the kids are nearly finished school for the year. That can only mean road trips to the shore, to the mountains and everything in between. Books on CD are a perfect way to make the ride to your destination even more enjoyable. We have an extensive collection for you to browse. Books on CD circulate for three weeks and we have current bestsellers like The Girl on The Train by Paula Hawkins. Next time you’re in take a look and pick up something for your next trip or to use driving to and from work and errands. You will look forward to getting in your car. Happy almost summer!

Have you ever heard a story that seems impossible to be true yet is? A Long Way Home is such a story. This extraordinary memoir by Saroo Brierley tells the journey of being a poor five-year-old Indian boy who becomes separated from his brother at a train station at night. Scared, he jumps on the next train and arrives alone in Calcutta where he lives on the streets for several weeks. He miraculously finds his way to an adoption agency where he is adopted by a loving family in Australia. That in itself is amazing but then, after 25 years, he goes in search of his family back in India with the aid of Google Earth. A Hindu saying Saroo mentions in the book highlights much of his journey: “Everything is written.” A movie is currently in the works based on this book. You will finish this book with great respect for the destiny of all our lives.

The 2015 Pulitzer Prize winners in the category of books were announced early this afternoon. The winning titles for fiction and general nonfiction are listed below.

Fiction

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

General Nonfiction

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

 

 

April is National Poetry Month – another great reason to get your children reading. Some ways to encourage your children to start enjoying poetry are:

Hand your kids one poetry book this month.  A Pizza the Size of the Sun by Jack Prelutsky and Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein are perennial favorites

Check out novels in verse.  The National Book Award winning memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson and Love That Dog by Sharon Creech are two fine examples.

Encourage your children to write their own poems.  Children usually enjoy writing haikus, 3 lines that are 5 syllables, 7 syllables and 5 syllables respectively.

And, of course, take your kids to the library and let them choose their own poetry book to take home!

Did you know we have an extensive collection of large print books?  Currently, we have some great new releases including, Saving Grace by Jane Green, The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins and (on April 21) Memory Man by David Baldacci.  Next time you’re in the library take a moment to browse the large print collection located near the new releases.