Hidden Treasures in the Library Lobby

December 18, 2015December 19, 2015 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

When you walk into the Cheshire Public Library you enter the main floor lobby. This large area is home to CD’s, DVD’s, Audiobooks, adult fiction, and new books. There are also a variety of displays, the public catalogs, the circulation desk, and the Friends book sale and donation area. Most regular visitors to the library are aware of their favorite areas, and browse those areas comfortably. However, like in the children’s room there are some hidden treasures that often get over looked and deserve some attention.

Science Fiction
I have always been a big fan of science fiction and fantasy, and love helping people discover new authors and series to explore. Unfortunately, most people miss our Science Fiction shelving area entirely. As with our mystery books, they are shelved separately from the rest of the fiction. You can see which area any adult (or children’s) book is shelved in by reading the call number. Adult fiction call numbers will all start with where they are shelved; Fiction, Mystery, or Science Fiction. The mysteries are easy to find, since they are shelved right after the regular fiction. However, the Science Fiction materials are shelved on the wall near the fiction between the audiobooks and classic movies.

Graphic Novels
Graphic novels are not just for children and teens. Take for example the popularity of The Walking Dead. Our selection of graphic novels in the lobby is not huge, but it is high quality and well worth taking a look at. Since it is a fairly small collection it might be easy to over look, but it is not hard to find or to browse if you are interested. The collection is housed on the endcap of the New Biography and Nonfiction shelf, facing the windows and DVD’s. If you like what you see, but are looking for even more graphic novels, do not be afraid to explore the large selection in the Teen’s Room!

Categorized DVD’s
Most regular visitors know where to find the DVD’s they enjoy most, and where our Quick Flick, New, regular, and Blu-Ray movies are each shelved. However, there are a few groups of films that are shelved separately. We have labeled these disks and changed their call numbers to match these special areas, but infrequent movie borrowers might not know about these little nooks and crannies. Classic movies are labeled with a red Classics label and are shelved on a slat-wall display on the wall by the fiction books. Comedy movies have an orange Comedy label and shelved in the next slat- wall display. On the same wall, in the build in bookcase between those two slat-wall displays, you can find the television show box sets which have a bright pink TV label on them. If you keep following that wall to the corner you will find the Family Films (with a green label), and in the next bookcase after a window you can find the non-fiction films (classed by number) and the Foreign Films which have a yellow Foreign sticker on them.

Lost And Found
While not a part of our library collection, it is an often asked for and searched for item. Small or valuable items (wallets, phones, jewelry, etc) that have been turned into library staff stay at that service desk for a time and then are tucked away in a safe until claimed. However, items like coats, mittens, notebooks, umbrellas, and so on are kept at the service desk of the area they were found in for a few hours and are then placed in our Lost and Found bin. This is located between the Friend’s donation area and the Audiobook collection.

Do not forget about the variety of ever changing displays. Any of our items that are on these displays can be checked out. If you are still unsure where to find what you are looking for swing by the Circulation desk and we would be glad to help you!

Happy Birthday to Neil Gaiman! (November 10)

November 9, 2015September 28, 2015 / Sharon Tyler / 1 Comment

As of November 10, 2015 Neil Gaiman is 55 years old. He is a supporter of libraries, the arts, and is everything that this librarian could want in an author. Neil is the author of books from a wide range of genre’s, and for every age group. His body of work is extensive, and includes many groundbreaking volumes. He is also the father of three children from his first marriage, now grown adults, and a new baby just born on September 16 with his wife Amanda Palmer who is a singer, song writer, performance artist, and author. To make him even cooler in my eyes, he is also good friends with singer/songwriter Tori Amos and godfather of her daughter. I am admittedly a bit of a fangirl.

Gaiman began his writing career in England as a journalist. His first book was a Duran Duran biography that took him three months to write, and his second was a biography of Douglas Adams, Don’t Panic: The Official Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Companion. Soon afterward he collaborated or creating in graphic novels such as Violent Cases, Black Orchid, and Sandman. Over the years he has added picturebooks, children’s fiction, adult fiction, television, film, and theater to his body of work. This includes writing for one of my favorite shows, Doctor Who. He also does the narration for most, if not all, of the audiobook versions of his work.

Neil and his works have won many nominations and awards over the year. A few of the awards include: Kurt Vonnegut Jr Award For Literature, Boston Public Library Literary Lights For Children, CBLDF Defender of Liberty, The “Galaxy” Award (China) for Most Popular Foreign Author, Horn Book Honors, Kirkus Reviews Best Children’s Books, ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice: Books for Youth, Hugo Award, IndieBound Award, and many, many more.

Here is a sampling of his works, though far from comprehensive. They are in no particular order.
Picturebooks:
Chu’s Day
Chu’s First Day of School
Chu’s Day at the Beach
The Wolves in the Walls
Blueberry Girl
Crazy Hair
Instructions: Everything you’ll Need to Know on your Journey

Children’s and Young Adult Books:
Fortunately, the Milk
M is for Magic
The Graveyard Book
Coraline
Hansel & Gretel: a Toon Graphic
Odd and the Frost Giants
Interworld
The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains
The Books of Magic
Marvel 1602

Adult Books:
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
The Make Good Art Speech
Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances
Anansi Boys
American Gods
Stardust
Good Omens
Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions
Neil Gaiman’s Lady Justice. Vol. 1

Movies or Television Shows and the Books You Did Not Know They Were Based On

September 9, 2015August 19, 2015 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

We know that many television shows and movies are based on books. Love them or hate them hits like Twilight, Harry Potter, Gone Girl, True Blood, Game of Thrones, and many more were based on (or inspired by) the written word. However, there are so many more movies and television series that you have already seen, or could be currently binge watching, that are also based on books and you just do not know it. Here are some of the titles that I thought were the most interesting or surprising.

Pitch Perfect the film may have been based on Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory by Mickey Rapkin, a non-fiction book about a capella competitions, but I have to imagine that the movie version is much more audibly entertaining.

The movie Die Hard is based on Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp. The book was published in the late ’70s, and went out of print before the movie adaptation was released almost a decade later.

Shrek! by William Steig is a picturebook about an ogre who falls in love with an “ugly” princess, so part of the concept remained when the animated version of Shrek was made.

Forrest Gump by Winston Groom might have been changed a great deal in the film adaptation of Forrest Gump. However, the award-winning film certainly helped book sales.

Gordon Buford wrote Car, Boy, Girl in 1961, seven years before the first Herbie the Love Bug adaptation.

The Brave Little Toaster by Thomas M. Disch was a critically acclaimed science fiction novella long before it was turned into a beloved children’s movie, also named The Brave Little Toaster, it was nominated for both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award.

The self-help book Queen Bees & Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman might not seem like the typical book to inspire a movie. However, it is what Mean Girls is based on.

Ted Hughes, former poet laureate of England, wrote a children’s book called The Iron Giant in 1968. The animated movie, also titled The Iron Giant, was released in 1999.

Jack Bickham wrote The Apple Dumpling Gang, a novel about orphans during the California gold rush. Disney adapted it into the classic The Apple Dumpling Gang with Don Knotts in 1975.

I know of a few more that were surprising, either because I did not know the book existed or because the adaptation so barely resembled the book that I could not recognize it. Are there any here that surprised you, and do you know of any more book to movie or television series adaptations that might be surprising? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments.

Young Adult Books Without Romance

August 31, 2015August 4, 2015 / Sharon Tyler / 2 Comments

Do you love young adult books but have found yourself bored with the love triangles and angst that comes with the almost constant presence of a complicated love interest? Well, I have gone in search of young adult books that entertain and are romance free! Here are some of the best young adult books that steer clear of the expected traps of young love. Some of these might have some flirting, or some hints of possible romance in the future, but I aimed for the books with no romance at all. This turned out to be a harder list than I expected to curate; so if you have additional titles to suggest please share them in the comments. I know I cannot be the only one to notice the lack in this area.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
After a family tragedy, Jacob feels compelled to explore an abandoned orphanage on an island off the coast of Wales, discovering disturbing facts about the children who were kept there.

Sabriel by Garth Nix
Sabriel, daughter of the necromancer Abhorsen, must journey into the mysterious and magical Old Kingdom to rescue her father from the Land of the Dead.

Here, There be Dragons by James A. Owen
Set in 1917, an undergraduate is given a special book that he is told was the reason for his professor’s murder and so must now protect it with his life as he goes on a journey like no other to places that are only supposed to exist in history and dreams.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
In 1943, a British fighter plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France and the survivor tells a tale of friendship, war, espionage and great courage as she relates what she must do to survive while keeping secret all that she can.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Leaving the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white high school, Junior struggles to find his place in his new surroundings in order to escape his destiny back on the reservation.

Going Bovine by Libba Bray
Dealing with an illness that will soon result in his death, 16-year-old Cam is intrigued by the stories told by an eccentric girl named Dulcie and so is encouraged to go on a wild road trip across America where their search for a special cure will lead them to the strangest places on the map.

For more romance free, or very light, here are some more suggestions; Deadline by Chris Crutcher, Katya’s World by Jonathan L. Howard, The Eye of Minds by James Dashner, The Alchemyst: the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott, The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, Monster by Walter Dean Myers, Butterfly by Sonya Hartnett, Orleans by Sherri L. Smith, The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, The Hobbit: or, There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Maze Runner by James Dashner,The Sky Inside by Clare B. Dunkle, Watership Down by Richard Adams, The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, Killer of Enemies by Joseph Bruchac, or Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.

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Books for the Clone Club – What to Read After Orphan Black

August 21, 2015August 12, 2015 / Louise / 2 Comments

I recently discovered the BBC America series Orphan Black, somewhat by accident. In my job as Social Media Coordinator at Cheshire Library, I spend a lot of time on various social media networks, where I’d see Orphan Black referenced regularly. The show has a very vocal online fandom, particularly on Twitter and Tumblr, and I guess this is a good example of social media effectively surpassing traditional advertising in getting the word out about something. After the fandom’s outpouring of joy when the show’s lead, Tatiana Maslany, was nominated (finally! they exclaimed) for an Emmy, I decided to see what all the fuss was about.

Luckily we own Seasons One, Two, and Three here at CPL, which allowed me to binge-watch my heart out, and guess what? They got me! It’s a really riveting show that, not being a huge sci-fi fan, I normally wouldn’t have thought to watch. I have joined the masses in my awe of Tatiana Maslany’s “heavy lifting” as an actress, playing multiple clones in each episode and making them all identifiable and unique.

Season Four won’t premiere until sometime in 2016; where to get our clone fix in the meantime? Fear not, Clone Club, I’ve found a few books to fill the genetically-engineered void until then. Surprisingly, to me anyway, most of these are considered YA (young adult) books, but they stand up to adult reading. So if you like fiction with a clone-y twist, might I suggest:

False Sight by Dan Krokos. Resolving to move past the disturbing truths of her clone origins to enjoy time with Peter and her other friends, Miranda is compelled to follow her genetically programmed instincts when a member of her team turns rogue and triggers a humanity-threatening war.

Project Cain by Geoffrey Girard. Jeff Jacobson learns that not only was he cloned from infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s blood as part of a top-secret government experiment, but there are other clones like him and he is the only one who can track them down before it is too late.

Partials by Dan Wells. In a post-apocalyptic eastern seaboard ravaged by disease and war with a man made race of people called Partials, the chance at a future rests in the hands of Kira Walker, a sixteen-year-old medic in training

Falls the Shadow by Stefanie Gaither. When her sister Violet dies, Cate’s wealthy family brings home Violet’s clone who fits in perfectly until Cate uncovers something sinister about the cloning movement. Murder, morality, and a slow-burning romance fill the pages of this futuristic thriller.

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. This modern classic takes on an iron-fisted drug lord, clones bred for their organs, and what it means to be human. Winner of the National Book Award as well as Newbery and Printz Honors.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Kathy grows up at a peculiar English boarding school called Hailsham, knowing that she and her classmates are “donors,” clones raised for organ harvesting. Kathy has deferred her fate by becoming a caregiver for dying clones, including her close childhood friends Ruth and Tommy. This award-winning novel straddles the YA and Adult Fiction genres, and takes the reader on a real emotional journey.