Book Giveaway!

I have been lucky enough to stumble across a copy of The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, and I've decided to pass the luck along to you, our patrons. This is one of my new favorite books, and I thought What good is a good book if it isn't shared with others, which happens to be a little mantra of mine - hence my employment in a library :-)

So what do you have to do to win your very own copy of this glorious book? Simply leave a comment on this post with the title of one of your favorite books. The contest is open until Tuesday, February 16th at 5:00pm. I will randomly select a comment and announce the winner the following day. To leave a comment, just click the "comment" link below .

Based on the Book

I went to the movies and watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button last night and it was amazing. So I thought to myself "I bet the book is better" because they usually are, as any reader would know, and I became even more excited when I discovered the book was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books.) At first it didn't look like we had the story, but with some digging I found it in Fitzgerald: Novels and Stories 1920-1922, and was surprised to discover it is actually a short story about 30 pages long. The movie was pretty lengthy (about 2&1/2 hours) so it will be interesting to see what the differences are.

But I don't plan on checking the book out until I finish the one I started a few days ago, so come on in, read the story and then go downtown and watch the movie. It is definately worth the $6.

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and your loved ones a Very Merry Christmas!



The Library will close on Christmas Eve at 3:00 and will open again on Friday, December 26th with regular hours.

Stop in the library and check out one of these new Books on CD!

THE HOST by Stephanie Meyer: The earth has been invaded by a species that takes over the minds of their human hosts. But Melanie refuses to give up her mind and Wanderer, the invader, can't overcome it. Melanie loves Jared who is in hiding and Wanderer eventually loves him too. Together they set off to find Jared.

TWILIGHT by Stephanie Meyer: When seventeen-year-old Bella leaves Phoenix to live with her father in Forks, Washington, she meets a handsome boy at school for whom she feels an overwhelming attraction and who she comes to realize is not wholly human.

NEW MOON by Stephanie Meyer: When the Cullen’s, including beloved Edward, leave Forks rather than risk revealing that they are vampires, it is almost too much for eighteen-year-old Bella to bear, but she finds solace in her friend Jacob until he is drawn into a "cult" and changes in terrible ways.

BREAKING DAWN by Stephanie Meyer: Continues the story of the human Bella and the vampire Edward whose love is threatened by their difference, a werewolf named Jacob, and other outside influences.

ECLIPSE by Stephanie Meyer: As Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger.

THE PRIVATE PATIENT by P.D. James: Rhoda Gradwyn goes to a famous plastic surgeon to have a scar removed and a pleasant recovery at the old manor. Two days later, she is dead. Adam Dalgliesh is called to investigate and few things make sense. Suspects multiply all too rapidly and then there is a second murder.

DIVINE JUSTICE by David Baldacci: Former CIA assassin Oliver Stone, having assassinated the two men who were responsible for the death of his wife and being hunted by friends and enemies, finds himself embroiled in the secrets of a small Virginia mining town and falling for a widow.

DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW by Mary Higgins Clark: In New Hampshire, four employees of Conklin's Market win the lottery by using numbers they had gotten from a man who is now missing and amateur sleuth Alvirah Meehan and private investigator Regan Reilly, visiting on holiday, go out in search of him.

THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON by Stephen King: Trish is nine and wonders off into the woods to escape her family's bickering. Her shortcut back pulls her deeper into the woods where she listens to the Boston Red Sox game and imagines that her hero, Tom Gordon is with her. It explores our deep dread of the unknown and the extent to which faith can conquer.

RITUAL IN DEATH by J.D. Robb: When a high-society party is crashed by a naked, knife-wielding, blood-covered man who "thinks" he might have killed someone, Eve Dallas must track down the crime, and the criminals. Everything points to satanic ritual, but Eve doesn't believe in devil worship.

YOUR HEART BELONGS TO ME by Dean Koontz: Ryan Perry, an Internet entrepreneur, falls suddenly ill and needs a heart transplant. A year later he has never felt better and begins to get letters and gifts from someone -- a stalker who wants her heart back.

BRISINGER by Christopher Paolini: Eargon and his dragon, Saphira, have narrowly escaped with their lives, but unrest claims the rebels and Eragon must make choices. He is the greatest hope to rid the land of tyranny.

ARCTIC DRIFT by Clive Cussler: President Garner Ward must contend with a corrupt Canadian cabal that's subverting efforts to solve America's energy problems. Pitt barely escapes serious injury when a bomb destroys a D.C. lab along with records of research into an artificial photosynthesis process that could, almost immediately, eliminate the threat of global warming. That discovery may be connected with a legendary failed 19th-century sailing expedition to the Arctic

Based on The Book

Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas by Jim Henson was always (and still is) one of my favorite Christmas specials. It is the heartwarming tale of a mother and son otter who both want to give each other the perfect Christmas gift. The movie is based on the children's book by Russell Hoban, which have available in the library.

Rare Books

Do you have a book you think might be rare or valuable? The Rare Books and Manuscript Section of the American Library Association has a website that provides information concerning rare books such as what makes a book rare, how to care for the book and more.

TwitterLit

During my library adventures, I came across the site TwitterLit that "serves up literary teasers twice daily. " The author of the site posts the first line from two diffeerent books each day then links to the book on amazon.com so you can discover the title and author. Some of the posts are quite amusing, and this may be one of the most unique ways of discovering new books and authors that I have seen yet. So explore the site, and if there is a book that intrigues you, just give us call or stop in.

Bookworm

FICTION

HOUNDED TO DEATH by Rita Mae Brown: Jane Arnold searches for the links between the death of handler Mo Schneider, who was found shot after the Mid-America Hound Show, her friend and popular veterinarian Hope Rogers, and the disappearance of a wealthy pet food manufacturer, which happened during the Virginia Hound Show.

TESTIMONY by Anita Shreve: When a sex scandal breaks out at a New England boarding school, a videotape triggers the involvement of men, women, and teenagers, including the headmaster, a young boy who made a mistake, and his mother, while everybody looks for a person to blame.

WHERE ANGELS GO by Debbie Macomber: Angels Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy return to Earth to perform Christmas miracles for an elderly man who wants to know his wife will be taken care of after his death, a young woman who is afraid to risk her heart a second time, and a little boy who longs for a dog.

SABRINA by Lori Wick: Sabrina Matthews, rescued from a life of prostitution in 1880 by police officer Danny Barshaw and his wife Callie, who led her to belief in Christ, decides to leave Denver behind and make a new start in Montana Territory.

WHEN THE SOUL MENDS by Cindy Woodsmall: Two years after leaving her Amish community, Hannah Lapp finds herself returning to help her sister who is suffering from a mental condition and facing the same problems she left, including her father's disapproval and her former fiancé.

THE YEAR OF FOG by Michelle Richmond: Photographer Abby Mason's happy anticipation of a life as a wife and stepmother comes to an abrupt end when Emma, the six-year-old daughter of her fiancé Jake, disappears at the beach while in her care.

ELIZABETH & LEICESTER by Sarah Gristwood: Examines the unusual relationship between Elizabeth I and the Earl of Leicester, Robert Dudley, describing his devotion to her as advisor and unofficial consort, and Elizabeth's rage when he finally remarried.

NONFICTION

KNITTED BEADED JEWELRY by Ruth Herring: How to make stylish and fun projects using a combination of knitting and beading with a variety of materials, from yarn and cotton to beads, sequins and wire. Each project is fully illustrated with step-by-step drawings.

CONTEMPORARY SHEDS by Philip Schmidt: A full-color, illustrated guide to building sheds, with complete plans for twelve projects including a hobby studio, playhouse, and garden outbuilding.

FRAKTUR by Ruthanne Hartung: The Pennsylvania Dutch are noted for the beautiful hand-lettered and designed documents known as fraktur. These include birth and marriage certificates, family trees, bookplates, awards, and house blessings.

ROADS TO QUOZ by William Least Heat-Moon: A travelogue that explores the small towns of America, revealing their depth and character as part of the nation.

THE ASSASSIN’S ACCOMPLICE by Kate Clifford Larson: Chronicles the alleged involvement of Mary Surratt in the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.

THE LAST LINCOLN CONSPIRATOR by Andrew C.A. Jampoler: Despite all that has been written about the April 1865 assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, the story of John Surratt--the only conspirator who got away.

THE DEATH OF RAYMOND YELLOW THUNDER by Stew Magnuson: The long-intertwined communities of the Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation and the bordering towns in Sheridan County, Nebraska, mark their histories in sensational incidents and quiet human connections, many recorded in detail here for the first time.

Santa Claus is coming to Storytime!

A Visit from St. Nick!

Since the librarians here at Alliance Public Library have been so good all year, Santa Claus agreed to come and visit our storytime kids! And he's coming tonight!

Tuesday, December 16th, 6:30 pm

Stop by the library to see Santa and have some treats!

Storytime will continue with Christmas themed programs on

Thursday, December 18th at 10:00 am and

Tuesday, December 23rd at 6:30 pm

The library will be closed Christmas Day

Based on the Book

This week's Based on the Book feature is the The Christmas Wish written by Richard Siddoway (we have both the book and the DVD)

At the age of four, Will Martin lost his parents and went to live with his grandparents. The warm memories of life in a small town and the old-fashioned Christmas holidays he and his grandparents shared sustain him still as a young man making his way in the world.

Years later, Will takes a leave of absence from his jog in New York City to return home after his grandfather's death to help run the family real estate business. There he discovers something about his grandfather's past that shatters him and the memories of a the life he so loved. As dinner one evening, his grandmother tells Will that she was been reading her husband's journals and learned that every Christmas Eve, when she and Will were out doing their traditional last-minute shopping, her husband was seeing a woman named Lillian. This year his grandmother's Christmas wish if for Will s to find out who Lillian is and why Will's grandfather, a seemingly devoted husband, saw Lilliand every year for more than twenty-seven years and never mentioned her name.

Classic Literature Quiz

Think you know classic literature? Try your hand at this quiz and find out! Simply match the one liner with the correct classic novel and see how you fair.

I scored a 50% and I have to admit that I haven't yet read the majority of the classics referenced. Though you could never pay me enough to read War and Peace.

2008 National Book Awards

The 2008 National Book Awards were announced on November 20th, and I have been meaning to post the results. So here they are:

Peter Matthiessen’s Shadow Country won Fiction

Inspired by a near-mythic event of the wild Florida frontier at the turn of the twentieth century, Shadow Country reimagines the legend of the inspired Everglades sugar planter and notorious outlaw E. J. Watson, who drives himself relentlessly toward his own violent end at the hands of neighbors who mostly admired him, in a killing that obsessed his favorite son. Click here for a review from the New York Times.

Annette Gordon-Reed's The Hemingses of Monticello won Non-Fiction

The enthralling multigenerational story of Thomas Jefferson's hidden slave family. Click here for a review from the New York Times.

Judith Blundell What I Saw and How I Lied won Young Adult

When Evie's father returned home from World War II, the family fell back into its normal life pretty quickly. But Joe Spooner brought more back with him than just good war stories. When movie-star handsome Peter Coleridge, a young ex-GI who served in Joe's company in postwar Austria, shows up, Evie is suddenly caught in a complicated web of lies that she only slowly recognizes. She finds herself falling for Peter, ignoring the secrets that surround him . . . until a tragedy occurs that shatters her family and breaks her life in two.As she begins to realize that almost everything she believed to be a truth was really a lie, Evie must get to the heart of the deceptions and choose between her loyalty to her parents and her feelings for the man she loves. Someone will have to be betrayed. The question is . . . who? Click here to read a review.

Mark Doty's Fire to Fire won Poetry

Mark Doty's Fire to Fire collects the best of Mark Doty's seven books of poetry, along with a generous selection of new work. Doty's subjects—our mortal situation, the evanescent beauty of the world, desire's transformative power, and art's ability to give shape to human lives—echo and develop across twenty years of poems. His signature style encompasses both the plainspoken and the artfully wrought; here one of contemporary American poetry's most lauded, recognizable voices speaks to the crises and possibilities of our times. Click here for an excerpt.

Fiction Connection

Today I would like to introduce you to the online service Fiction Connection, which is accessible through the Nebraska Library Commission's NebraskAccess website.

Fiction Connection is an excellent way to discover new books and authors. You can search for books based on a myriad of different criteria such as topic, genre, setting, characters, timeframe and location. Within those catagories the possibilities are virtually endless with subcatagories such as animals, 20th century, rescue missions, small town life, good vs. evil and so much more!

Fiction Connection is the perfect tool for discovering new authors based on subjects of interest and it can be accessed either through the NebraskAccess website or by going directly to Fiction Connection at http://www.fictionconnection.com/welcomeclouds.asp?

Check it out and have fun browsing!

December Display

Wally Seiler has generously provided his exquisite Presidential and Royal Christmas cards and blown glass ornaments for our December display. Make sure to stop by the library to view this festive and elegant collection, to be displayed through the end of the month.

Bookworm

FICTION
THE BRASS VERDICT by Michael Connelly: Attorney Mickey Haller, tapped to take over when his former colleague Jerry Vincent is murdered while in the middle of defending Hollywood producer Walter Elliot against a charge of killing his wife and her lover, scrambles to prepare a case while also working with detective Harry Bosch to find Vincent's killer who has apparently targeted Haller as his next victim.

A SPOONFUL OF POISON by M.C. Beaton: Middle-aged private detective Agatha Raisin and her young assistant, Toni, investigate two murders by poisoned jam at a near-by church festival.

THE GATE HOUSE by Nelson DeMille: The story returns to the Gold Coast of Long Island and the changing world of ultra-Wasp John Sutter to tell a stunning tale of love and lust, redemption and retribution.

EXTREME MEASURES by Vince Flynn: Counterterrorism operative Mitch Rapp, on the trail of a terrorist cell whose leader is obsessed with the notion of becoming the next head of al-Qaida, struggles to prevent another attack on the country after he finds himself hobbled by select members of Congress who are suddenly concerned about Rapp's unorthodox methods.

THE ELEVENTH MAN by Ivan Doig: The "Supreme Team" was Treasure State University's 1941 undefeated football team whose WWII exploits are reported by teammate Ben Reinking--the eleventh man--whose war record tests the law of averages.

THE WHISKEY REBELS by Davis Liss: Ethan Saunders, a former spy, is hired by his former fiancée to find her missing husband, which also means working for his former enemy--Alexander Hamilton.

THE GLASS OF TIME by Michael Cox: In 1876, nineteen-year-old orphan Esperanza Gorst goes undercover, at the request of her guardian, as a maid working for Emily Duport, the widowed Baroness Tansor, and uncovers secrets about her employer's past as well as her own.

NONFICTION
GREETING CARDS IN STITCHES by Sharon Jankowicz: A detailed basics section includes general embroidery information plus an overview of all techniques and tools.

AMERICAN PRINCE by Tony Curtis: The motion picture actor's memoir of his life, rise to the top of his profession, and insiders look at Hollywood and its stars.

CHARLES GOODNIGHT COWMAN AND PLAINSMAN by J. Evetts Haley: Chronicles the life of nineteenth-century American cattle business legend Charles Goodnight, discussing his childhood on the frontier and his rise to immortality among rangers in Texas.

DOGOLOGY by Vicki Croke: Discusses the personality types of dog owners and examines the connection between canine pets and their owners with quizzes, psychological insights, and humorous analysis of people's selection of certain breeds as companions, and contains checklists, tips for training, and exercises for bonding with one's dog.

LIFE OF A SOLDIER ON THE WESTERN FRONTIER by Jeremy Agnew: Young men joined the frontier army only to endure a life of tedious drills, bad meals, uncomfortable quarters, and ill-fitting uniforms all for $13 a month.

TRIED BY WAR by James M. McPherson: Chronicles the military leadership of President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, his strategic insight, and how he often overstepped the boundaries of his political office to assume the role of commander in chief, ultimately changing the course of the war and saving the Union.

CREATING CANDLES by Luisa Sacchi: How to make 104 different kinds of candles is described and illustrated with concise text and more than 1,000 beautiful color photographs.

CHRISTMAS MERRYMAKING by Barbara Hallman Kissinger: A collection of over 150 illustrations depicting holiday traditions from Europe and the United States, capturing the many faces of Father Christmas, children enjoying their Christmas toys, and other symbols of the season.

Storytime!

Learn About the Boston Tea Party! Tuesday, December 9th at 6:30pm

and

Thursday, December 11th at 10:00am

Back with Based on the Book!

After a week long absence, I am back and posting! The library was very busy last week and I was off on Thursday and Friday, so I apologize for the lag in posts.



This week I thought I would feature a timeless Christmas Classic . . . Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. This story has been made into numerous movies, too many to count here, and continues to be retold in various movie and TV formats. At the library, we have both the original classic novel and the original black and white 1951 cinema version.

Based on the Book Christmas Style!

I am a sucker for Christmas movies. It's pretty much a constant stream of Christmas movie goodness from Thanksgiving on, so I will be focusing "Based on the Book" on the holidays for the next few weeks. We have both of the below items in the library, so stop in and check them out today!


Skipping Christmas by John Grisham










AKA



Christmas with the Kranks (I watched this on Thanksgiving and it was really good.)

Storytime

Celebrate Walt Disney's Birthday!

Tuesday, December 2nd at 6:30 pm

and

Thursday, December 4th at 10:00 am