Month: October 2023

Find It In The Library of Things

October 24, 2023
Find It In The Library of Things

The Library of Things is our collection of clever gadgets, technology tools and ingenious items that AAPLD cardholders can check out to use at home. These include items you use once in a while, but don't want to purchase and store. Have old audio and video recordings you want to store and share digitally? We have converters for a variety of formats. Considering a new hobby? Find crafting tools, musical instruments, and sports equipment so you can try before you buy. Planning a party? Check out our karaoke machine, extra video game controllers, projector and inflatable screen.

We're always adding cool stuff to the Library of Things! Read on to discover what's new!

Ghost hunting isn't just for the movies! Our 3 pc. Ghost Detector Kit can help you discover electromagnetic fluctuations, and record electronic voice phenomenea, that can indicate the presence of spirits. If you prefer to hunt more traditional kinds of treasure, our hand-held metal detector will help you locate lost coins, jewelry and other valuables.

Turn your phone into a personal movie theater by plugging in our mini-projector and bluetooth speaker, to stream your favorite movies and TV shows anywhere.

Gift-giving season is just around the corner! It's a great time to explore your creativity, by using the Cricut Easy Press Heat Press Machine to customize t-shirts, totes, aprons, and more. The Clover Pom Pom Maker makes it easy to create cute decorative pom-poms for hats, scarves, boots and bags! Be sure to check out classes and videos on Creativebug.com for great hand-made gift ideas.

Celebrating Italian and Polish American Heritage Month

October 10, 2023
Celebrating Italian and Polish American Heritage Month

This month we're celebrating Italian-Americans and Polish-Americans, their contributions and stories. In the Adult Services Department, you'll find a display of cookbooks, fiction written by Italian and Polish authors, films starring actors of Italian and Polish descent, music performed by Italian and Polish artists.  We're also highlighting biographies and memoirs of notable people of Italian and Polish descent.

Stop in and browse the display, and if you're a native speaker of Polish or Italian, stop at the reference desk to ask about books published in both languages. We're happy to help you find what you're looking for!

 

Biographies of famous Polish-Americans

Book cover of Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man. Head and shoulders photo of Paul Newman, with one hand covering half his face.The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man by Paul Newman - The raw, candid, unvarnished memoir of an American icon. The greatest movie star of the past 75 years covers everything: his traumatic childhood, his career, his drinking, his thoughts on Marlon Brando, James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, John Huston, his greatest roles, acting, his intimate life with Joanne Woodward, his innermost fears and passions and joys. With thoughts/comments throughout from Joanne Woodward, George Roy Hill, Tom Cruise, Elia Kazan and many others. A Time Magazine "Best Book of the Year."

 

 

 

 

 

Cover of Between A Heart and A Rock Place. 1980s photo of Pat Benatar, wearing a black and white striped t-shirt.Between A Heart and a Rock Place by Pat Benatar - For more than thirty years, Pat Benatar has been one of the most iconic women in rock music, with songs like "Heartbreaker," "Hit Me with Your Best Shot," and "Love Is a Battlefield" becoming anthems for multiple generations of fans. Now, in this intimate and uncompromising memoir, one of the bestselling female rock artists of all time shares the story of her extraordinary career, telling the truth about her life, her struggles, and how she won things—her way.

 

 

 

 

 

Cover of Face The Music: A Life Exposed. Photo of Paul Stanley wearing black and white KISS make-up, with a large black star over his left eye.Face The Music: A Life Exposed by Paul Stanley - Stanley, the co-founder and famous “Starchild” frontman of KISS, reveals for the first time the incredible highs and equally incredible lows in his life both inside and outside the band. Face the Music is the shocking, funny, smart, inspirational story of one of rock’s most enduring icons and the group he helped create, define, and immortalize.

Biographies of Famous Italian-Americans

Cover of Frank: The Voice. A young, smiling Frank Sinatra, wearing a black fedora.Frank: The Voice by James Kaplan - Frank Sinatra was the best-known entertainer of the twenti­eth century—infinitely charismatic, lionized and notori­ous in equal measure. But despite his mammoth fame, Sinatra the man has remained an enigma. As Bob Spitz did with the Beatles, Tina Brown for Diana, and Peter Guralnick for Elvis, James Kaplan goes behind the legend and hype to bring alive a force that changed popular culture in fundamental ways.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cover of Taste: My Life Through Food. Photo of Stanley Tucci that shows the top half of his face. A red band with the book's title covers the bottom half of his face.Taste: My Life in Food by Stanley Tucci  - From award-winning actor and food obsessive Stanley Tucci comes an intimate and charming memoir of life in and out of the kitchen. Before Stanley Tucci became a household name with The Devil Wears Prada, The Hunger Games, and the perfect Negroni, he grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the table. He shared the magic of  those meals with us in The Tucci Cookbook and The Tucci Table, and now he takes us beyond the recipes and into the stories behind them.

 

 

 

 

 

Cover of What Can I Do? Photo of Jane Fonda amid a group of protesters, all in red coats, with the nation's capital in the background.What Can I Do? My Path from Climate Despair to Action by Jane Fonda - A call to action from Jane Fonda, one of the most inspiring activists of our time, urging us to wake up to the looming disaster of climate change and equipping us with the tools we need to join her in protest

 

Discover October’s Library Reads

October 1, 2023
Discover October’s Library Reads

The season of ghouls, ghosts, and things that go bump in the night has arrived. If scary books are your October jam, this month's Library Reads list has you covered. Whether it's a child's sinister "imaginary" friend, a Louisiana preacher's daughter discovering devilish doings in her small town, or fearsome visions that drive a young woman to the brink of madness, there's plenty of frighteningly good reads to choose from.

But what if you're more the cozy, pumpkin-spice kind of reader? Someone who prefers warm sweaters, autumn colors and curling up with a cup of tea and a good book?  There's sure to be a book here for you to "fall" in love with, too!

So enough with the candy-corny puns and onto the Library Reads-- ten new releases chosen each month by librarians across the country as their favorites. Browse the books here, or stop by the Main Library, where recent Library Reads picks can be found on the square shelf beside the New Releases display.

Read something you loved? Leave a review in Beanstack! Log into your account, click Add A Review, and share your thoughts. Did you have a favorite character, or scene? Did it make you laugh, cry, or afraid to turn off the lights? Let us know! We'll feature some of your reviews here on the Adult Services page, and in library social media!

 

Romance

Cover of Better Hate Than Never by Chloe LieseBetter Hate Than Never by Chloe Liese-  Childhood enemies discover the fine line between love and loathing in this heartfelt reimagining of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.

Katerina Wilmot and Christopher Petruchio shared backyards as kids, but as adults they won't even share the same hemisphere. That is, until Kate makes a rare visit home, and their fiery animosity rekindles into a raging inferno.

Despite their friends' and families' pleas for peace, Christopher is unconvinced Kate would willingly douse the flames of their enmity. But when a drunken Kate confesses she's only been hostile because she thought he hated her, Christopher vows to make peace with Kate once and for all. Tempting as it is to be swept away by her nemesis-turned-gentleman, Kate isn't sure she can trust his charming good-guy act.

When Christopher's persistence and Kate’s curiosity lead to an impassioned kiss, they realize "peace" is the last thing that will ever be possible between them. As desire gives way to deeper feelings, Kate and Christopher must decide if it’s truly better to hate than to never risk their hearts—or if they already gave them away long ago.

Mystery

Cover of West Heart Kill by Dann McDormanWest Heart Kill by Dann McDorman - Looking for an anything-but-ordinary whodunit? Welcome to the West Heart country club. Where the drinks are neat but behind closed doors . . . things can get messy. Where upright citizens are deemed downright boring. Where the only missing piece of the puzzle is you, dear reader.

A unique and irresistible murder mystery set at a remote hunting lodge where everyone is a suspect, including the erratic detective on the scene—a remarkable debut that gleefully upends the rules of the genre.

An isolated hunt club. A raging storm. Three corpses, discovered within four days. A cast of monied, scheming, unfaithful characters.

When private detective Adam McAnnis joins an old college friend for the Bicentennial weekend at the exclusive West Heart club in upstate New York, he finds himself among a set of not-entirely-friendly strangers. Then the body of one of the members is found at the lake’s edge; hours later, a major storm hits. By the time power is restored on Sunday, two more people will be dead.

Literary Fiction

Cover of Let Us Descend by Jesmyn WardLet Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward - A reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.

Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Ward leads readers through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.

From one of the most singularly brilliant and beloved writers of her generation, this miracle of a novel inscribes Black American grief and joy into the very land—the rich but unforgiving forests, swamps, and rivers of the American South. Let Us Descend is Jesmyn Ward’s most magnificent novel yet, a masterwork for the ages.