Reblogged: Pass the Popcorn

Jennifer Haubner at Off The Shelf provides some suggestions for those of us who like to read the book before we see the movie.

Pass the Popcorn:10 Books to Read Before They Hit the Big Screen

By Julianna Haubner - Thursday, August 11, 2016

From children's classics to dramatic thrillers to inspiring biographies, books have always been source material for some of our greatest and most cherished films. Stories can live on the page and in our minds, but there's nothing quite like seeing them come to life before your eyes. Here are some of the titles we can't wait to see in theaters this year and beyond.

The Light Between Oceans

by M. L. Stedman

After years of struggling to start a family on an island off the coast of Australia , Tom and Isabel Sherbourne find a boat that has washed ashore carrying the body of a man and a living baby. Tom wants to report the missing child to authorities, but grief-stricken Isabel claims the child as their own. What follows is a heartbreaking realization about the effects our choices have on others. We can't wait to see Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander as Tom and Isabel. RELEASE  DATE: September 2, 1016

The Queen of Katwe

by Tim Crothers

One day in 2005, 9-year-old Ugandan Phiona Mutesi met a man who would change her life. Robert Katende, a war-refugee-turned­ missionary, had a dream to empower local children through the game of chess, and Phiona soon proved herself to be an undeniable talent. This remarkable true story follows her as she rises through the ranks and seeks to reach the highest levels of the game. Lupita Nyong'o and David Oyelowo star.
RELEASE DATE: September 2016.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

by Ransom Riggs

After a horrific family tragedy, a young boy named Jacob is sent to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. As he explores, he begins to realize that the past young residents of the home were not only strange, they may have been dangerous-and they might still be alive. We're thrilled that director Tim Burton is bringing this inventive tale to the big screen.
RELEASE DATE:  September 30, 2016

A Monster Calls

by Patrick Ness

This Carnegie Medal-winning children's novel is the latest fantasy adaptation to be translated from page to screen. Set in present-day England, it follows a young boy struggling to cope with his mother's terminal illness. He's visited each night be a monster (Liam Neeson) who tells him stories, with profound and escalating consequences . RELEASE DATE: October 21, 2016

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

by Ben Fountain

Part satire, part political commentary, Ben Fountain's debut has been called "CATCH-22 for the Iraq War." Coming to the big screen in an adaptation by Oscar-winning director Ang Lee, it follows a young man named Billy Lynn and the surviving members of his Bravo Squad as they are shuffled through a day's worth of events on their "Victory Tour" at the Texas Stadium. RELEASE DATE: November 11, 2016

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

by Newt Scamander

Perhaps the most anticipated film of 2016, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter backstory features the wizard Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) as he travels to 1920s New York. Everything is going swimmingly, until Scamander's suitcase-which contains a number of dangerous magical creatures and their habitats (indexed in his textbook FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM)-pops open and the state of the non-magical world is threatened. RELEASE DATE: November 18, 2016

The Circle

by Dave Eggers

Mae Holland (played by Emma Watson) is an ambitious young woman hired by the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, which is pioneering a new age of transparency. But as Mae moves deeper into the group culture, her enthusiasm is tested as she begins to face all-too-familiar questions of privacy, history, democracy, and human knowledge.
RELEASE DATE: TBD 2016

The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger

by Stephen King

For almost a decade, Stephen King fans have been yearning to see this epic series on the big screen, and they'll finally get their wish with this adaptation, starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey. It tells the story of the fallen land of Mid-World, through the eyes of a knight whose primary mission is to save his decaying world by reaching the titular tower that stands at the
intersection of time and space. This mix of horror, western, and sci-ti will be a must-see.  RELEASE  DATE: February 17, 2017

Ready Player One

by Ernest Cline

The year is 2044, and the world isn't a great place. So, when the multi-billionaire creator of a virtual world dies, he hides his entire fortune somewhere within his creation to spark the largest treasure hunt the world has ever known. Whoever gets to it first wins it all.  If you grew up playing video games, this one is for you, and we're sure the adaptation-directed by
Stephen Spielberg-will be worth the wait. RELEASE DATE: March 30, 2017

All the Bright Places

by Jennifer Niven

When Theodore Finch and Violet Markey meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it's unclear who saves the life of the other.  Violet, a popular cheerleader, and Theodore, an outsider obsessed with death, soon team up on a class project. As they grow closer, they teach each other how to be their best selves and confront life's challenges head on. Elle Fanning is set to star in this adaptation. RELEASE DATE: TBD 2017

Palindrome Week!

This week is a Palindrome Week - that means that each date this week can be read the same way backwards and forwards. For instance, today is 6/16/16 - 61616.

6.12.16 (Sunday)
6.13.16 (Monday)
6.14.16 (Tuesday)
6.15.16 (Wednesday)
6.16.16 (Thursday)
6.17.16 (Friday)
6.18.16 (Saturday)

In the Dewey Decimal System, there are also palindromes. There are several legitimate Dewey Decimal Numbers that read the same backwards and forwards:

615.8516: Biblitherapy
976.679: Le Flore County, Oklahoma
331.4133: Women's Rights
363.7363: Management of Pollution in the Environment
621.3126: Energy Storage in Engineering

And of course,

331.890410263362014098133: labor-management bargaining and disputes in libraries devoted to local taxes, in Paraíba state, Brazil.

Books about Books...and Librarians!

David Wright, from LibraryReads.org, recommended his top favorite books about books...and librarians.  

Katarina Bivald's The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend
Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara, who traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her pen pal, Amy. When she arrives, however, she finds that Amy's funeral has just ended. Luckily, the townspeople are happy to look after their bewildered tourist--even if they don't understand her peculiar need for books. Marooned in a farm town that's almost beyond repair, Sara starts a bookstore in honor of her friend's memory. All she wants is to share the books she loves with the citizens of Broken Wheel and to convince them that reading is one of the great joys of life. But she makes some unconventional choices that could force a lot of secrets into the open and change things for everyone in town. Reminiscent of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, this is a warm, witty book about friendship, stories, and love.

Ian Caldwell's The Fifth Gospel
** Available in Large Print **
A lost gospel, a contentious relic, and a dying pope's final wish converge to send two brothers--both Vatican priests--on an intellectual quest to untangle Christianity's greatest historical mystery.

Elisabeth Egan's A Window Opens
From the beloved books editor at Glamour magazine comes a heartfelt and painfully funny debut about what happens when a wife and mother of three leaps at the chance to fulfill her professional destiny--only to learn every opportunity comes at a price. In A Window Opens, Elisabeth Egan brings us Alice Pearse, a compulsively honest, longing-to-have-it-all, sandwich generation heroine for our social-media-obsessed, lean in (or opt out) age. Like her fictional forebears Kate Reddy and Bridget Jones, Alice plays many roles (which she never refers to as "wearing many hats" and wishes you wouldn't, either). She is a mostly-happily married mother of three, an attentive daughter, an ambivalent dog-owner, a part-time editor, a loyal neighbor, and a Zen commuter. She is not: a cook, a craftswoman, a decorator, an active PTA member, a natural caretaker, or the breadwinner. But when her husband makes a radical career change, Alice is ready to lean in--and she knows exactly how lucky she is to land a job at Scroll, a hip young start-up which promises to be the future of reading, with its chain of chic literary lounges and dedication to beloved classics. The Holy Grail of working mothers--an intellectually satisfying job and a happy personal life--seems suddenly within reach. Despite the disapproval of her best friend, who owns the local bookstore, Alice is proud of her new "balancing act" (which is more like a three-ring circus) until her dad gets sick, her marriage flounders, her babysitter gets fed up, her kids start to grow up, and her work takes an unexpected turn. Fans of I Don't Know How She Does It, Where'd You Go Bernadette, and The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry will cheer as Alice realizes the question is not whether it's possible to have it all, but what does she--Alice Pearse--really want?

Nina George's A Little Paris Bookshop
There are books that are suitable for a million people, others for only a hundred. There are even remedies--I mean books--that were written for one person only...A book is both medic and medicine at once. It makes a diagnosis as well as offering therapy. Putting the right novels to the appropriate ailments: that's how I sell books." Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can't seem to heal through literature is himself; he's still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened. After Perdu is finally tempted to read the letter, he hauls anchor and departs on a mission to the south of France, hoping to make peace with his loss and discover the end of the story. Joined by a bestselling but blocked author and a lovelorn Italian chef, Perdu travels along the country's rivers, dispensing his wisdom and his books, showing that the literary world can take the human soul on a journey to heal itself. Internationally bestselling and filled with warmth and adventure, The Little Paris Bookshop is a love letter to books, meant for anyone who believes in the power of stories to shape people's lives.

Olivia Laing's A Trip to Echo Springs: On Writers and Drinking
Laing examines the link between creativity and alcohol through the work and lives of six of America's finest writers.

Jenn McKinlay's A Likely Story: A Library Lover's Mystery
Delivering books to the housebound residents of the Thumb Islands, just a short boat ride from the town of Briar Creek, library director Lindsey Norris has befriended two elderly brothers, Stewart and Peter Rosen. She enjoys visiting them in their treasure-filled, ramshackle Victorian on Star Island until she discovers that Peter has been killed and Stewart is missing. Now she's determined to solve a murder and find Stewart before he suffers his brother's fate.

Bradford Morrow's The Forgers
The rare book world is stunned when a reclusive collector, Adam Diehl, is found on the floor of his Montauk home: hands severed, surrounded by valuable inscribed books and original manuscripts that have been vandalized beyond repair. Adam's sister, Meghan, and her lover, Will-- a convicted if unrepentant literary forger-- struggle to come to terms with the seemingly incomprehensible murder. But when Will begins receiving threatening handwritten letters, seemingly penned by long-dead authors, but really from someone who knows secrets about Adam's death and Will's past, he understands his own life is also on the line--and attempts to forge a new beginning for himself and Meg. In The Forgers, Morrow reveals the passion that drives collectors to the razor-sharp edge of morality, brilliantly confronting the hubris and mortal danger of rewriting history with a fraudulent pen.

Erika Swyler's The Book of Speculation
** Available in Large Print **
Simon Watson, a young librarian on the verge of losing his job, lives alone on the Long Island Sound in his family home--a house, perched on the edge of a bluff, that is slowly crumbling toward the sea. His parents are long dead, his mother having drowned in the water his house overlooks. His younger sister, Enola, works for a traveling carnival reading tarot cards, and seldom calls. On a day in late June, Simon receives a mysterious package from an antiquarian bookseller. The book tells the story of Amos and Evangeline, doomed lovers who lived and worked in a traveling circus more than two hundred years ago. The paper crackles with age as Simon turns the yellowed pages filled with notes, sketches, and whimsical flourishes; and his best friend and fellow librarian, Alice, looks on in increasing alarm. Why does his grandmother's name, Verona Bonn, appear in this book? Why do so many women in his family drown on July 24? Could there possibly be some kind of curse on his family--and could Enola, who has suddenly turned up at home for the first time in six years, risk the same fate in just a few weeks? In order to save her--and perhaps himself--Simon must try urgently to decode his family history while moving on from the past. The Book of Speculation is Erika Swyler's gorgeous and moving debut, a wondrous novel about the power of books and family and magic.

Gabrielle Zevin's The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
** Available in Large Print **
When his most prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, is stolen, bookstore owner A. J. Fikry begins isolating himself from his friends, family and associates before receiving a mysterious package that compels him to remake his life.

Book Review - Go Set a Watchman, by Harper Lee

I have just read Go Set a Watchman, the first novel that Harper Lee ever wrote. To Kill a Mockingbird functions as a sort of prequel to it, exploring its themes in greater depth; but this was Harper Lee's original sketch of Jean Louise "Scout" Finch and her father, the lawyer Atticus Finch.

Harper Lee has a very distinctive writing style; yet as I was reading, I had the feeling I'd read something similar from a different author. Then it hit me: James Baldwin. Whether either of them ever read the other, I do not know, but the resemblance between the two writing styles is striking: frank, wisecracking without resorting to cynicism, presenting history as a series of events that no one is really happy with and the most entertaining part of life is trading stories about why we don't like to do as we're told. Almost every conversation is a series of minor incongruities over one's ideas of how we ought to live our lives, spoken between characters who are trying earnestly to understand each other but know that in the end it's just not worth all the fuss. I have the feeling that, at some point in her life, Lee discovered to her immense disappointment that life is not half as tragic as some people make it out to be. Not a discovery I recommend making, if you are an author (since I think the tragedy is an excellent form of literature); but once you stumble upon this sort of conviction it does not go away easily.

Unlike To Kill a Mockingbird, this novel takes place within a very short space of time, approximately four days (with a few flashbacks, to earlier events). Scout (called "Jean Louise" for most of this novel, although Atticus still calls her Scout on occasion) is now twenty-six years old and has been living in New York for several years. She comes back to Maycomb County by train, anticipating a restful two-week stay with her friends and family, and instead finds that the town has changed greatly. Rest does not come easily.

The book is ambitious yet cautious; it tries to tackle a great number of issues and encompass an enormous scope, yet remarkably little happens in the entire story. Jean Louise spends time with her boyfriend, Hank, who has trained with her father Atticus to be a lawyer; she finds out that Calpurnia's grandson, Frank, accidentally ran over a man and Jean Louise is anxious over what sentence Frank will receive in court; she attends a tea party with women of her own age and finds that she has nothing in common with them; and, apart from a few passionate dialogues that erupt between Scout and the key male figures in her life, that is it. The novel hints at court cases, but none is witnessed or concluded; jibes at the NAACP and the SCOTUS, but a full history of their actions is never outlined; showers the reader with emotional sparks that result from a major turning point in Jean Louise's life, but barely examines where she came from or elucidates where she will be going. The novel is powerful, but disorganized.

Although it does not dabble in "sit-ins" or peaceful protests, Go Set a Watchman is a novel about the civil rights debates of the 1950s. Scout has been living in New York, an overwhelmingly metropolitan center of world communication, where people of all different races and religions and backgrounds have learned to tolerate (or ignore) one another in every context - in school, on subways, in public restrooms, in the office, etc. She returns to Maycomb and finds out, during a citizens' council meeting, that several prominent officials of the town are racists and treat the "Brown vs. Board" decision as an infringement upon their rights. What is far more horrifying is that Atticus, though unsympathetic to the racists' viewpoints, does not denounce them; Atticus sits calmly, and he quietly defends the black man whose crime is the subject of their debate. Disgusted, Jean Louis leaves the courthouse. Later she attends a tea party held by her Aunt Alexandra, and she hears young ladies sharing many of the same opinions, mostly parroting what their husbands say. The novel finally comes to a boil when Jean Louise confronts her father Atticus and scolds her for raising her to be "colorblind" when she should have been exposed to these racist opinions earlier in her life. Jean Louise discovers that her father is not a deity, but wholly human, and that he cannot simply elevate all people to the same level of intellect at which Jean Louise was bred to live. Though Atticus justifies all of his actions with reason, the image we had of him from To Kill a Mockingbird is shattered.

The title of the novel is derived from a passage in the book of Isaiah, one that tells people to "set a Watchman" who will stay at a city's gates and report what he sees. Jean Louise's Uncle Jack warns her that she must form her own conscience, her own set of beliefs, which can function as a frame of reference when she determines what is right and what is wrong in the world. In short, this is a sort of final nudge in a series of nudges toward womanhood in Jean Louise's life - one final illusion to be shattered before is capable of being her own woman in society. It is a microcosm of a coming-of-age story, one that begins at the very end (kind of like a cross between Jane Eyre and "The Cask of Amontillado," if Virginia Woolf had written it).

The shades of gray in the novel are unsettling, but the novel itself fails to form a coherent whole. There is no Boo Radley, no Tom Robinson, no character whose plight is so terrible that it distracts Jean Louise from her own personal doubts and drives her to transcend her internal struggles. The novel has many powerful moments, but if it had not been written by an author who is now famous, those powerful moments would not have been enough to merit widespread publication. Nonetheless, they were enough for me. Go Set a Watchman is an admirable first novel. It lacks the ingenuity of construction that a mature writer would possess, yet it is a stunning look at the conflict between different ideologies of 1950s America. Uncle Jack holds Jean Louise up to a mirror and says to her, "What do you see?...I see two people." He then adds, "What was incidental to the issue in our War Between the States is incidental to the issue in the war we're in now, and is incidental to the issue in your own private war." I don't claim to know precisely what he means, but my guess is that he refers to a struggle between the "New York" Jean Louise and the "Maycomb" Scout - a struggle between the desire to keep everyone living in harmony, and the assumption that harmony is already a natural occurrence between people. What is our natural state of mind? When we try to treat everyone as equals, do we actually want to make everyone equal, which then reflects an innate human dislike of those who are not already equal to us? To put it more simply - when we try to integrate the races, does that mean we really would prefer that the human race was all one color with no exceptions? Can human beings ever really live with diversity, and be genuinely happy? These are questions the novel does not answer. No definitive answers for these questions exist, of course, but some novels have produced at least a few tentative answers, i.e. Invisible Man, Huckleberry Finn. Go Set a Watchman leaves these questions unanswered, and I would have loved to see another part written - one where Jean Louise Finch, as a mature adult, confronts the world and finds out whether she is strong enough to make her ideas a reality. Alas, a trilogy that will never happen.

April 23rd - "Shakespeare" Day!

Today, April 23rd 2016, is the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, the (alleged?) playwright who gave us so many classic works of literature that our high school English teachers have no end of material for us.

As I have discussed before, the DDC number for Shakespeare is 822.33. However, do not let that fool you into thinking that all of Shakespeare's plays are the same. He wrote on an astonishing range of different topics and themes. Here are a few examples of the subjects he expounded upon:

CHASTITY
It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to
preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational
increase and there was never virgin got till
virginity was first lost. That you were made of is
metal to make virgins. Virginity by being once lost
may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it is
ever lost: 'tis too cold a companion; away with 't!
- from All's Well That Ends Well


REGRET
Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things
As willingly as one would kill a fly,
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
But that I cannot do ten thousand more.
- from Titus Andronicus


CHIVALRY
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
- from Henry V


WORDS
O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words. I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.
- from Love's Labor's Lost






HISTRIONIC APPRECIATION
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.
- from A Midsummer Night's Dream


Happy readings!

EAPL Library Week

Academic Search Resource on EBSCOhost

The Easton Area Public Library now has access to Academic Search Main Edition, a version of EBSCOhost that is especially useful for college-level research. This e-resource is rich with the most valuable, comprehensive multidisciplinary content available. It provides access to acclaimed full-text journals, magazines, and other valuable resources covering topics like Biology, Chemistry, Engineering, Physics, Psychology, Religion & Philosophy, Science & Technology, and more! The contents includes:

• 13,600 indexed and abstracted journals
• Full text for more than 4,700 journals
• Nearly 12,000 peer-reviewed, indexed and abstracted journals
• 4,000 peer-reviewed, full-text journals

To access this resource:
1. First go to our home page and click on "Power Library."

2. Next, click on "List All," so that you can see all the resources.

3. Then click on "Academic Search Main Edition."

4. Finally you will be on the "Academic Search Main Edition" page for EBSCOhost.