New and Featured Books for 10/23/2013:

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:

Identical by Scott Turow

Guests On Earth by Lee Smith

Rasputin’s Shadow by Raymond Khoury

Mirror, Mirror by J. D. Robb, Mary Blayney, Elaine Fox, Marky Kay McComas, and R. C. Ryan

Rough Passage To London: A Sea Captain’s Tale by Robin Lloyd

Gilt Trip by Laura Childs with Diana Orgain

Dirty Love by Andre Dubus III

Vicious Circle by Wilbur Smith

The Seance Society by Michael Nethercott

Dark City – Repairman Jack: The Early Years by F. Paul Wilson

The Wolves Of Midwinter by Anne Rice

Silencing Eve by Iris Johansen

Solo by William Boyd

Mortal Bonds by Michael Sears

Just One Evil Act by Elizabeth George

Law Of The Desert Born, adapted by Charles Santino, scripted by Beau L’Amour and Katherine Nolan, based on a short story by Louis L’Amour, and illustrated by Thomas Yeates

Losing To Win by Michele Grant

Lighthouse Island by Paulette Jiles

Absolute Top Ten by Alan Moore and illustrated by Gene Ha and Zander Cannon

Mouse Guard: The Black Axe by David Petersen

Mrs. Poe by Lynn Cullen

The Counterfeit Mistress by Madeline Hunter

The Tilted World by Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly

NON-FICTION:

Who Really Killed Kennedy? – 50 Years Later: Stunning New Revelations About The JFK Assassination by Jerome R. Corsi

Where Were You? – America Remembers the JFK Assassination, compiled and edited by Gus Russo and Harry Moses

The Men Who United The States: America’s Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, And Mavericks, And The Creation Of One Nation, Indivisble by Simon Winchester

One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson

Practice To Deceive by Ann Rule

From Scratch: Inside The Food Network by Allen Salkin

Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story by Peter Bagge

Duke: A Life Of Duke Ellington by Terry Teachout

Johnny Carson by Henry Bushkin

Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, And Other Powerful Web Tools For Classrooms by Will Richardson

Who Discovered America? – The Untold History Of The Peopling Of The Americas by Gavin Menzies and Ian Hudson

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos And The Age Of Amazon by Brad Stone

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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.

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Previous New/Featured books:

10/21/13.

10/18/13.

09/25/13.

09/18/13.

09/03/13.

Leap Year!

Today is the 29th of February!

It’s an extra day! You have an extra day! Go crazy! With your extra day! That doesn’t happy very often (“every four years” really isn’t what I’d call “very often”). An extra day! Unless, you know, you have to work or go to school or something.

A patron asked us the other day just what exactly is up with Leap Years and Leap Days, and there’s a lot of really complicated explanations out there that can only confuse a person more than anything else.

For example, this is the opening of the Wikipedia article on Leap Day:

February 29, known as a leap day in the Gregorian calendar, is a date that occurs in most years that are evenly divisible by 4, such as 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016. Years that are evenly divisible by 100 do not contain a leap day, with the exception of years that are evenly divisible by 400, which do contain a leap day; thus 1900 did not contain a leap day while 2000 did. Years containing a leap day are called leap years. February 29 is the 60th day of the Gregorian calendar in such a year, with 306 days remaining until the end of that year.

That makes sense, right? Besides being a little complicated and kind of confusing, right?

Well, the same Wikipedia article also has a fairly easy explanation for Leap Days, which I’ll break down like this: Each day has 24 hours in it, right? A year is the Earth’s annual trip around the sun, right? And each year, as defined by modern calendars, consists of 365 days, right? Well, yes, and also… No.

The annual revolution of our planet around the sun actually takes 365 days and 6 hours to complete. So every four years we take those accumulated extra hours (6 of them with each year), and we add that to the calendar as – ta da! – February 29. It’s something we do just to make sure that the calendar stays fairly accurate to the planet’s journey around the sun.

Also, there’s this:

Also, there’s the whole Julius Caesar angle.

But basically, like I said, it’s kind of an extra day, and one you want to enjoy.

from here.

Just out of curiosity: Any of our patrons or readers out there who were born on Feb. 29? If so, then HAPPY BIRTHDAY! But also, if you don’t mind us asking, how, and also when, do you celebrate your birthday?

And we hope that everyone has a great Leap Day!

Reading material for 02/20/12:

Some reading material from around the internet:

NASA unveils stunning models of future aircraft designs.

Take a ride in this absolutely terrifying elevator.

Tim Tebow asked to Military Ball by Louisiana airwoman.

The FBI might cut off the internet for millions of people on March 8th.

The image above is by celebrated illustrator Charles Santore.

Brand new Angry Birds game, Angry Birds: Space, to debut in March!

Target is not only extremely good at data mining, but they’re keeping an eye on you.

Man suffers heart attack at Heart Attack Grill!

Supreme Court Justice robbed by machete-wielding intruder.

Catch a glimpse of Google’s luxurious California HQ.

Apple considering a smaller tablet.

Also, Apple’s new operating system aims to knit its products together more closely.

The insidious evils of “Like” culture.

7 horrifying historical origins of famous corporate logos.

The future of high tech healthcare, and its challenges.

Reviewing Pinterest, the newest social media site.

The “Undue Weight” of Truth on Wikipedia.

Does anyone really care about online privacy?

How companies learn your secrets.

On this day in history:

In 1872 the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in New York city.

In 1933 the 21st Amendment, which will end Prohibition in the United States, is proposed by Congress.

In 1935 Caroline Mikkelson becomes the first woman to set foot on Antarctica.

In 1962, while aboard the Mercury spacecraft entitled Friendship 7, astronaut John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth.

In 1998 figure skater Tara Lipinski becomes the youngest individual gold medalist at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

In 2003 there’s an accident with the pyrotechnics display at a White Snake concert in a small club in West Warwick, Rhode Island and 100 people are killed and 200 more are seriously injured.

In 2009 the World Day of Social Justice is officially established and recognized each year. The goal of the World Day of Social Justice is to recognize the need to promote efforts to tackle issues such as poverty, exclusion, and unemployment all over the world.

Famous births: Rihanna in 1988, T. J. Slaughter in 1977, Brent Gretzky (Wayne’s little brother) in 1972, Kurt Cobain in 1967, Cindy Crawford in 1966, Anthony Stewart Head in 1954, Patty Hearst in 1954, Gordon Brown in 1951, Ivana Trump in 1949, Sandy Duncan in 1946, Mike Leigh in 1943, Sidney Poitier in 1927, Richard Matheson in 1926, Robert Altman in 1925, Gloria Vanderbilt in 1924, Ansel Adams in 1902.

Famous deaths: William Wallace Lincoln in 1862, Frederick Douglass in 1895, Max Schreck in 1936, Chester Nimitz in 1966, Dick York (the first Darrin Stephens on Bewitched) in 1992, Ferruccio Lamborghini in 1993, Gene Siskel in 1999, Sandra Dee in 2005, Hunter S. Thompson in 2005.

via Awesome People Reading.

The 20 most beautiful bookstores in the world.

Alan Moore sums up everything that is wrong with the entertainment industry.

A crossover between Doctor Who and Star Trek.

William Gibson and the way we understand cities.

Composite sketches of literary characters.

10 tips on writing from David Ogilvy.

Every Bart Simpson chalkboard quote ever.

Zora Neale Hurston’s love spells and rituals to get a man.

Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby adapted as an opera.

An essential postmodern reading list.

from here.

The cast of Game Of Thrones in normal clothes.

A supercut of television shows referencing other television shows.

Michael Bay will return to direct Transformers 4, which will be a reboot. Seriously.

Get ready for the Hannibal Lecter TV show.

Jon Hamm drops more hints about the new season of Mad Men.

10 things from the Hunger Games books that the movie(s) probably can’t pull off.

Billy Bob Thornton is making a road trip movie about his marriage to Angelina Jolie.

Gael Garcia Bernal is the Zorro of the post-apocalyptic future.

Author Kevin J. Anderson will novelize Rush’s new album.

Crystals may be possible in time as well as space.

Butterflies light the way to better thermal imaging.

The stupid things you do online (and how to fix them).

They know now at what time of day that you’re most likely to get an infection.

The inside story of climate scientists under siege.

Phonemes probably can’t reveal the ancient origins of language after all.

Do you think you could have passed Thomas Edison’s job interview test?

Cats as fonts.

Second graders take a field trip to a parking garage.

How to tie your shoes (Hint: you’ve been doing it wrong for a while now).

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Previous online reading material:

02/13/12.

02/06/12.

01/30/12.

12/27/11.

12/19/11.

More reading material.

Some reading material from around the internet:

John Titor, the man who told the internet that he had come from the future.

An archivist explains how to access veteran’s records.

The food we eat might control our genes.

The secret of Madame Tussaud’s success.

The strategies of a preschool teacher.

The 20 best video games of 2011.

Prince Phillip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth, is in the hospital with heart problems.

Where celebrities fall in the Uncanny Valley.

On Wikipedia, cultural patrimony, and historiography.

FX is developing a 1980s spy drama.

Kermit The Frog is a terrible boyfriend.

HBO canceling Bored To Death, Hung, and How To Make It In America, and is renewing Enlightened.

When it comes to the new Mission: Impossible movie, how tall is everyone?

Roger Ebert’s top films of 2011.

Aaron Sorkin’s new HBO show finally has a name: The Newsroom.

The 8 minute trailer for David Fincher’s adaptation of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Steve Jobs to be awarded a posthumous Grammy.

The golden age of divorced women on TV.

from here.

The new datacenters and their architects.

NASA builds six-foot crossbow to harpoon comets.

The retreat of the Arctic sea releases deadly greenhouse gas.

Girl thought to be swept away by tsunami is found alive 7 years later.

Putting scientists on Mars in permanent colonies.

Urban legends about urban development.

Look at these amazing pictures from space.

The most common place on Earth for meteorites to crash? Antarctica.

National security expert warns of Asian space race.

The case for enhancing people.

by Tom Gauld, from here.

Watch a nice little video clip about the Dalkey Archive Press.

What literature owes the Bible.

Classic novels reinvented with genderswitching.

A review of Stephen King’s 11/22/63.

The secret history of secondhand books.

Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson were both born in the month of December.

How much do books cost these days?

Ridiculous origins for 7 everyday words.

James Ellroy hates everything.

from here.

The physics of how cats drink.

The number of homeless children is currently the highest ever in American history.

The year in political cartoons.

Make sense of the Middle Ages.

Ten plotlines you’ll find over and over again in science fiction.

A very nice looking fake house.

Are you the only one?