Reading material for 08/06/12:

from here.

Some reading material from around the internet:

RIP Gore Vidal.

Did Van Gogh really shoot himself?

The future is unevenly distributed.

What’s next for CNN?

The science of eyewitness memory.

Rare photographs of atomic bomb testing at Bikini Atoll, like the one below…

10 recent science fiction novels that are about big ideas.

Joyce Carol Oates and Charles Dickens.

The greatest books of all time?

In this e-book world, are book covers a dying art?

Jonah Lehrer and Bob Dylan.

Watch the only footage of Mark Twain in existence.

Historical fictions and fictional histories.

How Edward Gorey illustrates three classic fairy tales, see below:

Is Indiana Jones dead at last?

Vertigo is named the top film of all time, according to hundreds of directors and critics.

Surprising screenplays by famour authors.

Jimmy Fallon is/was in the running to host the Oscars.

10 movies that you didn’t realize were based on books.

M. Night Shyamalan to do a show on the SyFy network.

Check out the trailer for Cloud Atlas.

How to make living inside a shipping container look glamorous.

How much do you really spend emailing at work?

Hunting moons outside the solar system.

8 years after the Athens Olympics, many venues have been left to rot.

Dolphins form elite societies.

Anticipating NASA rover “Curiosity” touchdown…

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Previous online reading material:

07/23/12.

07/17/12.

07/09/12.

07/02/12.

06/25/12.

Reading material for 07/02/12:

Some reading material from around the internet:

RIP Nora Ephron.

10 things Amazon won’t tell you.

How technology remakes language.

Does Easter Island hold the secret of reversing Alzheimer’s?

The Vice Presidents that history forgot.

What our favorite kid’s TV show characters taught us about fashion.

Science equations for the new Spider-Man movie.

The Internet vs. The NEA.

That’s Eartha Kitt reading a book about Albert Einstein, from here.

The adventures of a rare book collector.

Tom Perotta’s The Leftovers to be adapted to TV by Damon Lindelof.

Quite a few William Gaddis resources.

Your e-book reader knows quite a bit about you.

The education of a typographic innovator.

Fake books in movies that we wish we could read.

How to get children to love books.

15 famous writers on why they write.

Tyler Perry was disappointed with Prometheus and is writing his own sci fi movie.

Here are 5 characters that will not be appearing in the new Star Trek movie.

15 things you probably didn’t know about Star Trek.

Ann Curry is leaving The Today Show.

15 creators who apologized for their art and entertainment.

An interview with Wes Anderson about his new movie.

from here.

Who are the Nigerian e-mail scammers?

YouTube is developing a secret weapon to take out the worst commenters.

Nintendo has a new device.

A real storm takes out Amazon cloud, Netflix, Instagram, and Pinterest.

The fire devastation in the western United States as seen from from space.

Look at these beautiful garden houses.

Check out this stunning painting that imagines the real night sky that inspired The Starry Night.

A 4.2 million dollar home demolished for the view.

* * *

Previous online reading material:

06/25/12.

06/18/12.

06/11/12.

06/04/12.

04/30/12.

Reading material for 06/25/12:

Some reading material from around the internet:

For craft lovers: fun with felt food!

The seas rise faster on the east coast than the rest of the globe.

15 robots that will change the world.

What is “the zone” anyway?

The iphone 5 may change its socket design from the preexisting models.

Watch Van Gogh’s Starry Night  as it’s recreated with 7,000 dominoes.

from here.

Chuck Palahniuk’s first novel is getting remixed.

Is the AP stylebook archaic?

A nice flowchart for keeping track of the Stephen King universe.

Kid’s book versions of R-rated movies.

What is the future of university presses?

A collection of brilliant and inspiring letters from authors to their young fans.

Aaron Sorkin deconstructs one of his own scenes to show how to write a long speech for a character.

A comprehensive map of where your favorite TV shows take place.

The Harry Potter theme played on wine glasses.

Transformers 4 will be made with less money than its predecessors.

Anna Karenina vs. Les Misérables.

TV’s all time greatest writers.

from here.

One language dies every 14 days.

10 things divorce attorneys won’t say.

Contemporary slang words that might be older than you think.

The family dog could keep your kids from getting asthma.

Ab exercises that don’t require getting on the floor.

High-speed photographs capture water balloons the moment after they pop.

Sleeping is the key to living longer.

* * *

Previous online reading material:

06/18/12.

06/11/12.

06/04/12.

04/30/12.

04/23/12.

New and Featured Books for 04/19/2012:

Come and check out these and some of the other new books and materials (or at least new to us) added to our library collection…

FICTION:

The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice

The Beginner’s Goodbye by Anne Tyler

Victims by Jonathan Kellerman

What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank: Stories by Nathan Englander

The title story of this lauded short story collection borrows from Raymond Carver’s classic short story and some of that same story’s set up, but with much different results. The rest of the stories here are incredibly imaginative and many deal with the modern Jewish experience. You can find reviews for the collection at The New York Times byMichiko Kakutani, The Onion AV Club, and at the Book People’s Blog, and an interview with author Nathan Englander at NPR.

Catch Me by Lisa Gardner

The Snowman by Jo Nesbø

The Unseen by Heather Graham

The Shadow Patrol by Alex Berenson

The Lost Years by Mary Higgins Clark

Star Trek: Academy – Collision Course by William Shatner with Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens

Without Mercy by Lisa Jackson

The Witness by Nora Roberts

The Third Reich by Roberto Bolaño

A posthumous novel by the acclaimed Chilean author and poet who had written 2666 and The Savage Detectives. This is a strong novel about the lingering ways that the dead can still cast spells over the living. Check out reviews in The New York Times, at NPR, and in The Washington Post.

What Doesn’t Kill You by Iris Johansen

NON-FICTION:

Devil In The Grove: Thurgood Marshall, The Groveland Boys, And The Dawn Of A New America by Gilbert King

Skinny Chicks Eat Real Food: Kick Your Fake Food Habit, Kickstar Your Weight Loss by Christine Avanti with Bonnie Bauman

Van Gogh: The Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith

Let It Go: Forgive So You Can Be Forgiven by T. D. Jakes

The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier by Ree Drummond

The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story Of The Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked The Mysteries Of The Middle Kingdom by Simon Winchester

Korea: A Walk Through The Land Of Miracles by Simon Winchester

The Meaning Of Everything: The Story Of The Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester

Inferno: The World At War, 1939 – 1945 by Max Hastings

Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee by Allen Barra

Enemies: The Story Of The FBI by Tim Weiner

Pakistan On The Brink: The Future Of America, Pakistan, And Afghanistan by Ahmed Rashid

* * *

Please note that books mentioned here could be checked out between the time they end up on the blog and when you come to check them out. If you don’t see the items you’re looking for then please come up to the front desk, OR call us, OR send us an email at robinsbaselibrary@gmail.com and  we’ll put your name on the reserve list for when the item returns.

* * *

Previous New/Featured books for Adults:

04/11/12.

04/04/12.

03/29/12.

03/01/12.

02/02/11.

Reading material for 03/26/12:

from here.

Some reading material from around the internet:

Amazing new photos of the Titanic.

Starbucks to release their own energy drink.

Rainbow-striped Jello Easter eggs.

Mystery booms in Wisconsin.

Just how big is Wal-Mart?

What you need to know about Mad Men season 5.

A new painting by Van Gogh has been discovered.

A child’s wardrobe that actually leads to Narnia!

from here.

Retina display!

Watch all of Mass Effect 3‘s different endings.

A nice review of Angry Birds Space.

Neil deGrasse Tyson on being a meme.

10 things that are smarter than you’d expect.

Historic photos of female scientists at work.

Social media will probably not democratize the world.

Play the interactive 8-bit Mad Men game.

Watch celebrities read their follower’s meanest tweets.

Young people are losing interest in cars.

Suzanne Collins is Kindle’s best selling author of all time, and 29 of the 100 most highlighted passages on the Kindle come from The Hunger Games trilogy.

Speaking of which: the film version of The Hunger Games opens huge.

Defending the thesaurus.

A previously unreleased Kurt Vonnegut novella was released last week.

How does 1Q84 stack up against Haruki Murakami’s other classic novels?

Famous lost novels.

A list of Irish heroes in Jame Joyce’s Ulysses.

Dreamily eerie Alice In Wonderland drawings.

Robert Louis Stevenson on the books that have inspired him.

via Entertainment Weekly.

A nice Game Of Thrones featurette  to get you caught up for the show’s return on April 1.

Some hilarious audience notes from a 1980s screening of David Cronenberg’s Videodrome.

Could Hawkeye from The Avengers be the world’s worst archer?

This is what Carrie looks like in The Sex And The City prequel.

They’re making a Hannibal Lecter TV show.

Meet the new companion on Doctor Who, and learn some details from the upcoming season.

An oral history of The Sopranos.

Many buyers fooled by The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo‘s DVD joke.

The beginning of the end of HBO?

A bizarre picture from a Chinese dog show.

Why cats can survive falls that would kill any other animals.

How does the brain secrete morality?

A brief guide to pop culture in 1966.

10 great songs from 1966.

Chick-Fil-A threatens the guy who made the “Eat More Kale” t-shirts, he fights back with a Kickstarter documentary.

Cell division humor.

Even Geraldo Rivera’s son is ashamed of his father’s comments, re: Trayvon Martin and hoodies.

Pictures of toddlers being best friends with their dogs.

An impossible font.

* * *

Previous online reading material:

03/12/12.

03/05/12.

02/27/12.

02/20/12.

02/13/12.

Upcoming library programs.

Just a reminder…

We’ll be hosting a Beginning Genealogy discussion on Thursday, Feb. 16. The discussion will be from 6:30 to 7:30 PM in the library itself and you will need to register beforehand.

If you would like to register then please send us an email at robinsbaselibrary@gmail.com and put “Beginning Genealogy” in the subject line. Please register by Tuesday, Feb. 14 at 4 PM.

For more information please check out our previous post about our Beginning Genealogy session or send us an email.

Please don’t ever forget that February is Black History Month! We would like to take this month to highlight, suggest, and remind you of the many print and electronic resources here at the library that may be of interest to anyone researching, learning, or just reacquainting themselves with African-American culture and history.

We’re hoping to do several different programs during this month but we’d like to especially invite our younger patrons to come to our usual Story Time, which is every Monday at 10 AM. During every Story Time in February we’ll be learning about different African American achievements and contributions to American history.

We’d like to encourage local teens to tune in as the library celebrates the annual Teen Tech Week from March 4 to 10, 2012. We’ll be joining thousands of other libraries and schools across the country who are celebrating this year’s theme, “Geek Out @ your library.”

Teen Tech Week is a national initiative of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) aimed at teens, their parents, educators, and other concerned adults. The purpose of the initiative is quite simply to ensure that young adults are competent and ethical users of technology, especially the types offered through libraries. Teen Tech Week encourages teens to take advantage of the technology at libraries for education and recreation, and to recognize how important it is to achieve a greater digital literacy.

More details to come but we are looking to do several activities for any young adults interested in participating, plus we’re always open to suggestions or interested in anyone willing to volunteer their time.

For more information on the national initiative, check out ALA/YALSA’s website for Teen Tech Week.

Oh, and let’s not forget to mention…

Our puzzle’s coming along pretty nicely. It looks like The Starry Night is finding a few more of its stars, as it were, but we can always use more help.

Stop on by and help us out with it, when you get a chance. And keep checking back here for more information on Teen Tech Week and Beginning Genealogy and other upcoming library programs.

Reading material for 02/06/12:

Some reading material from around the internet:

A brief history of the Super Bowl coin toss.

The history of Fritos.

The science of football.

Football physics: the anatomy of a hit.

NASA releases some new and incredibly beautiful pictures of the Earth.

The best and worst of this year’s Super Bowl ads.

Second teacher at L.A. school accused of “lewd acts” against pupils.

Many singles are looking for love, not marriage.

Where did dragons come from?

via The Art of Google Books.

Some Super Bowl ads were ending up online before the game to create a buzz.

How Apple’s “1984” television ad was almost canceled.

The iphone 5 may be coming out this summer.

You should only pay so much attention to your community.

Tumblr makes itself the news.

Your YouTube activity and your online searches will now be linked, thanks to Google’s new privacy policy.

South Korean man arrested for retweeting North Korea.

Hacker collective Anonymous eavesdropped on an anti-Anonymous strategy phone call between the FBI and Scotland Yard.

Why the clean tech boom went bust.

Are high tech classrooms better classrooms?

Mark Zuckerberg’s manifesto: Why Facebook exists.

Michelle Obama and Nelson Mandela reading together, from here.

Van Gogh found himself at home in nature.

The saddest movie in the world?

Adam Lambert is the new lead singer for Queen.

Jane Levy replaces Lily Collins in the Evil Dead reboot.

DC Comics is going forward with their long threatened prequels of Alan Moore’s Watchmen.

R.I.P. Ben Gazzara.

Loving/hating Philip Glass.

And below, Brian Cox teaches Hamlet to a small child:

Michelangelo writes a letter to his father.

Béla Tarr: Cinema’s ultra dark unknown genius.

An interview with David Cronenberg.

GZA the Genius and David Kaiser.

A new commercial directed by Sophia Coppola.

Soul Train creator/host Don Cornelius found dead of apparent suicide.

Second Mona Lisa may have been painted at the same time as the original.

They’re still trying to make a third Bridget Jones movie.

The stars of Downton Abbey, both on screen and off.

via Awesome People Reading and Retrogasm.

“How I learned to stop worrying and write The Marriage Plot,” by Jeffrey Eugenides.

The top 10 books lost to time.

A nice guide to literary tumblrs.

Science fiction futures ruled by the popular kids.

Five essential books on football history.

The seven types of book lovers.

Why are so many literary writers shifting into genre?

Judging books by their covers: The US vs. the UK.

Viggo Mortensen reading Tolkien, from here.

Houston millionaire adopts his girlfriend.

Path is found for the spread of Alzheimer’s.

UNC-Charlotte gets its own SWAT team.

Iran’s giant cardboard cut out of the Ayatollah.

10 famous people who turned down a Knighthood.

Obesity epidemic strikes U.S. pets (too)

How to be the bearer of bad news.

Chicken wing cupcakes.

Isolated Peruvian tribe makes uncomfortable contact.

* * *

Previous online reading material:

01/30/12.

12/27/11.

12/19/11.

The Starry Night.

If you’ve got a few minutes to kill and you’re in our area, stop on by and help us with our puzzle. We set this out as a collaborative project for our library patrons and we’re enjoying working on it so far, but we’d enjoy it more if you’d join us.

We’ve been wanting to put a puzzle out for a while now, something for us all to do a little bit of at a time, something that would be both rewarding and challenging…

So with that in mind we figured: Why not start with the best? So here we have The Starry Night, 1889, by post-impressionist master, Vincent Van Gogh.

You can find out more about Van Gogh through both Wikipedia and Artble and the Museum Of Modern Art, and find a gallery of his work here. And here you’ll find analysis on The Starry Night, as well as at the Musée d’Orsay.

Here’s what the puzzle is supposed to look like:

So come and help us finish it?