Blog Category: all
Posted by JDavanza on Thu, Jun 05
Question: What has all the adventuresome buddy appeal of the Hardy Boys, the subtlety of Jane Austen in conveying late 18th, early 19th century European social nuance, and a shipload more of interest besides?
Answer: The British seafaring “Aubrey-Maturin” novels, penned by Patrick O’Brian. These historical naval novels set during the Napoleonic Wars feature ship’s surgeon, avid naturalist and intelligence agent Stephen Maturin, along with masterful English tar Jack Aubrey, who...
Posted by JDavanza on Thu, Jun 05
Istanbul, Turkey
Personal Journeys: A Travelogue Series at the Library
Join us for another exciting travelogue series at the Library this summer. This annual series focuses on “personal journeys” taken by area travelers pursuing a variety of interests, including nature, art, scholarship, work, general tourism and other pursuits. This series is free and open to all. The schedule is as follows, on Wednesday evenings at 7:30 PM, July 9-Sept. 3, (skipping the week of Aug. 27):
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Posted by JDavanza on Wed, Jun 04
Don’t miss the opportunity to see this beautiful and moving paper crane exhibit at the Library during the month of June. The display, to be found in the glass case located near the fiction collection, was arranged by YA Librarian Bri Johnson in celebration of the kind generosity shown to her by local teens during a recent illness.
Bri posted these words to elucidate this beautiful and moving exhibit:
All paper crane projects have a story.
Some are widely known, like Sadako and the Thousand...
Posted by JDavanza on Wed, Jun 04
Feed your craving for books! Come to the Friends of Barrington Library mini book sale on Saturday, June 7 from 10 to 2. The sale will be held in the lower level of the Library/Peck Center, at the Tap-IN entrance.
Posted by JDavanza on Sat, May 31
C.J. Cherryh writes rich and intriguing anthropological science fiction. Some of the best of her work can be enjoyed in the nine books she sets in her “Foreigner Universe”. These brilliant novels explore and celebrate the dangerous coming together of two very different species. In many ways Cherryh’s three Foreigner trilogies represent one grand bildungsroman; a unified saga in which the main character, translator and cultural mediator Bren Cameron, as well as two separate societies, Atevi...
Posted by JDavanza on Thu, May 29
Sydney Pollack, one of the cinema’s most highly regarded directors, passed away on May 26th. He was 73 years old. Some of the movies that Pollack directed are Tootsie, Out of Africa, The Firm, Three Days of the Condor, Absence of Malice, and The Way We Were. In addition to directing, Pollack was also a producer and actor. Click on the following link to be directed to Pollack’s page on the Internet Movie Database website: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001628/
Click here to be...
Posted by JDavanza on Tue, May 27
This post from the Boing Boing blog made my day.
Young adult sections in bookstores – a parallel universe of little-regarded awesomeness
Many of us grew up in an era before the young adult section – when the kids’ section in the store was just picture books and some 400-volume sharecropped series like Sweet Valley High. No longer – practically every bookstore now sports a large (and growing) YA section filled with some of the most amazing work being done in any literary genre today.
(...
Posted by JDavanza on Tue, May 27
Planning a long trip? Maybe you can’t read a book as you are traveling, but how about listening to one? The library has many recorded books on cassette tape and CD. We also have a collecton of recorded books called Playaways, and we are belong to the RI Library E-Zone where you can use your library card to find hundreds of recorded books you can download at home. Check out the E-zone website today!
http://riezone.lib.overdrive.com/E3DB6707-3110-48C9-9483-D0A8382737A1/10/307/en/Default.htm
Posted by JDavanza on Tue, May 27
Below you’ll read the stirring preface to Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea; a gripping and beautifully written account of the true story undergirding Melville’s epic novel, Moby Dick. Both Moby Dick and In the Heart of the Sea are titles currently featured in the Library’s Sea Adventures Book Display, located on the main floor of the Library near the entrance...
Posted by JDavanza on Wed, May 21
Click on this link http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid61571.aspx to enjoy a Providence Phoenix article by Sharon Steel called “Steam Dream”. Steel’s multi-faceted investigation of “steampunk” subculture includes a fascinating analysis about why this movement reaches back in time to claim a better future. She also describes how steampunk ethic is becoming a player in contemporary culture. Steel contends that the movement was originally sparked by love of a particular type of science fiction;...
