The Short List

Have you taken a look at the new sports books we have in the Library? Whether you’re a fan of baseball, basketball, football, horse racing, golf or hockey, we’ve got a book you’ll enjoy…and these are just the new ones. “Is This A Great Game Or What?” by Tim Kurkjian, ESPN’s baseball commentator. “Can I Keep My Jersey?” by Paul Shirley, veteran of 11 professional basketball teams–including 6 NBA teams. “Quiet Strength” by Tony Dungy, former NFL player and coach of the Indianapolis Colts. “The Horse God Built” by Lawrence Scanlan–the extraordinary story of the bond between Secretariat, the world’s greatest racehorse, and his groom, Eddie Sweat. “Tales From Q School” by John Feinstein (author of “A Good Walk Spoiled”) –stories from the PGA’s qualifying tournament where veterans and hopefuls alike, vie for a spot on the PGA Tour. “Go To The Net” by Al Strachan, who tells of the 8 goals that changed the game of hockey forever. Finally, “The Games Do Count” by Brian Kilmeade -a collection of anecdotes from America’s best and brightest on the power of sports.

The Library will be closed on Monday, September 3rd in honor of Labor Day.

The Quill Awards, supported by Reed Business Information, honor the year’s most entertaining and enlightening titles as judged by more than 6,000 booksellers and librarians. The Book Of The Year Award is also voted on by readers such as yourself. Winners in each of the 19 categories will be announced on September 10, at which point you, the public, may begin casting votes online for The Book Of The Year from among those 19 winners. To cast your vote, log on to: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13422333/

To see the full list of nominees in each category, click on: http://www.wnbc.com/thequills/13414972/detail.html

Nominees for General Fiction are: Brothers by Da Chen; American Youth by Phil LaMarche; The Road by Cormac McCarthy; Special Topics In Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl; and Jamestown by Matthew Sharpe.

Nominees for Biography/Memoir are: The Father Of All Things: A Marine, His Son And The Viet Nam War by Tom Bissell; A Long Way Gone: Memoirs Of A Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah; Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee; Einstein: His Life And Universe by Walter Isaacson and William James: In The Maelstrom Of American Modernism by Robert D. Richardson

Nominees for History/Current Events/Politics are: Nixon And Kissinger: Partners In Power by Robert Dallek; The Lost: A Search For Six Of Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn; The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise Of The Nuclear Poor by William Langewiesche; Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and The Assault On Reason by Al Gore.

The nominees for Mystery/Suspense are: The Collaborator Of Bethlehem by Matt Beynon Rees; What The Dead Know by Laura Lippman; Body Of Lies by David Ignatius; The Overlook by Michael Connelly and A Welcome Grave by Michael Koryta.

The Friends will host their Fall Book Sale on Saturday, September 29th from 10-5 and Sunday, September 30th from 1-5PM–all materials are 1/2 off on Sunday. We are accepting donations of clean books, videos, DVDs, CDs, books-on-tape and books-on-CD for the sale up until September 20th. Drop off donations anytime the Library is open:

Sunday 1-5

Monday 10-5

Tuesday through Thursday 10-8

Friday 10-5

Saturday 10-1

Among other posthumous books being released in September, including David Halberstam’s The Coldest Winter, there are two we think have rather interesting histories. Fire In The Blood by Irene Nemirovsky (author of bestselling Suite Francaise) was written in 1941 and then given in pieces to her daughters and a trusted friend for safekeeping when the author was sent to Auschwitz where she later died. The pieces have only recently been reassembled in their entirety. The book tells of the loves and infidelities in a provincial French village before the outbreak of WWII.

The Last Cavalier by Alexandre Dumas (The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo) was just lately discovered by longtime Dumas scholar Claude Schopp after it languished for more than 125 years in a dark corner in the National Library in Paris. The unknown novel is similar to his other famous works–an epic tale of revenge in Napoleonic France.

The children, just under 200 of them, who participated in the Summer Reading Program have voted to adopt a dolphin at the Mystic Aquarium. The choices also included a Beluga whale and a California sea lion. The dolphin won with 987 votes. The children have read a combined total of 2,138 books and/or hours of reading so far this summer and the reading count will continue right up to the beginning of school.

Our brand new service from Overdrive allows you to download an audiobook to your home computer and from there to an MP3 player or, in many cases, you can burn the book to CDs. In the first few weeks of this service, we’ve had hundreds of audiobooks downloaded by patrons. There are approximately 50 titles that are available all the time to as many patrons who want them–these are called “Always Available” and they appear at the top of the selection list. We also have hundreds of titles–which are updated monthly, that are available to patrons one-at-a-time just as though they were actual books in a library. If the title you want is currently “out” then you may place a hold on it just the way you would in the regular LION catalog. To see and download audiobooks in our Overdrive catalog, click on the button on our Library homepage or click on the button in the LION catalog. There are simple instructions along with answers to frequently-asked-questions for patrons. Our Always Available books include: A Tale Of Two Cities and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man by John Perkins and My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse–to name just a few.

Mark your calendars! In-person registration for fall preschool story hours at the Library will take place on Tuesday, September 25th at 10AM. Phone-in registration will begin at 11AM on September 25th. The fall story hours will run from Tuesday, October 2 through Thursday, December 13th. The story hour schedule is: Mondays 1-2PM; Tuesdays 1-2PM; Wednesdays 10-11AM; and Thursdays 10-11AM.

Preschool children ages 3-5 are welcome to register. Children must be three years old by the start of the session.

Monday, August 20th 4-5pm

All Teens entering Grades 7-10 in September are invited to attend this meeting. The New Teen Advisory Committee will discuss what teens want at the library including: new books and audio books, magazines, fun programs and parties for teens, volunteering opportunities, book groups, homework helpers and book groups with younger children, yoga, crafts, building a MySpace or similar blog site for the library teens to use, and whatever else we can imagine. So get your friends together and drop by for some fun snacks and the TAC Meeting! Remember: snacks are always served!!

The following books will be released by their publishers in September. You may put a hold on them now through our New Release Alerts service. Simply click on the title and you’ll be taken to the Essex Library catalog where you can place your hold with the barcode from the back of your library card. Don’t forget to look at our other New Release Alerts on our website.

Tomorrow by Graham Swift– Brilliantly distilling half a century into one suspenseful night, in a tender and eloquent exploration of couples and parenthood. Songs Without Words by Ann Packer– From the author of The Dive From Clausen’s Pier–this new book is about the sometimes confining roles we take on in our closest relationships and about the familial myths that shape us both as children and adults. Invasive Procedures by Orson Scott Card– From the bestselling author of Ender’s Game, this is an intriguing medical thriller which raises pertinent regulatory questions. Dexter In The Dark by Jeff Lindsay– This is the 3rd book in the Dexter Morgan series which has now become a popular hit on Showtime. Interred With Their Bones by Jennifer Lee Carrell– This book combines a race to find a long-lost play by Shakespeare with a killer who stages his murders exactly the way they’re described in the Bard’s plays. No Time For Goodbye by Linwood Barclay– What if you woke one day to find that everyone you loved had disappeared overnight without ever giving you a chance to ask why?