Library Notes Week of December 29

As we are getting ready to start a new year, I hope you plan to make the library a regular stop. We always have new books, audio books, and videos just waiting to be checked out. Here are a few titles you might be interested in. Happy New Year!!

Last Words by George Carlin. As one of America's preeminent comedic voices, George Carlin saw it all throughout his extraordinary fifty-year career and made fun of most of it. Last Words is the story of the man behind some of the most seminal comedy of the last half century, blending his signature humor with never-before-told stories from his own life.

The Time of My Life by Patrick Swayze. A behind-the-scenes look at a Hollywood life and a remarkable love, this memoir is both entertainment and inspiration. Patrick and Lisa's marriage is a journey of two lives intertwined and lived as one--throughout their years in Hollywood and at home on their working ranch outside Los Angeles, and culminating in the hope and wisdom they've imparted to all who know them.

Open: An Autobiography by Andre Agassi. Agassi’s incredibly rigorous training begins when he is just a child. By the age of thirteen, he is banished to a Florida tennis camp that feels like a prison camp. Lonely, scared, a ninth-grade dropout, he rebels in ways that will soon make him a 1980s icon. He dyes his hair, pierces his ears, dresses like a punk rocker. By the time he turns pro at sixteen, his new look promises to change tennis forever, as does his lightning-fast return.And yet, despite his raw talent, he struggles early on. We feel his confusion as he loses to the world’s best, his greater confusion as he starts to win. After stumbling in three Grand Slam finals, Agassi shocks the world, and himself, by capturing the 1992 Wimbledon. Overnight he becomes a fan favorite and a media target.

Library Notes Week of December 14

The library is hosting its annual Family Fun Day at the Library. Come by the library Tues., Dec. 22nd anytime between 2 and 6 p.m. We will have “make and take” projects for the kids, games, puzzles, and refreshments. It will be our way of wishing you a great holiday season.

KJ Cooper, our Children’s Specialist has been reading some of the books in our Young Adult collection. Here are a few of her reviews.

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen. Dessen delivers another of her perfectly crafted stories. This one features Auden, an insomniac, who will be going off to college in the fall. Auden has not slept at night since her parents started fighting. They are now divorced and her father has a new family. Auden decides to spend her summer with them and explore some of the teenage pleasures she has missed—most notably, riding a bike and having actual friendships. Then, she meets a fellow insomniac, Eli, a loner with problems of his own.

Maze Runner by James Dashner. Thomas wakes up in the lift remembering only his first name. When the doors open, he is surrounded by boys, Gladers, who also have no memories of how they got there. They live in the Glade—a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls. Every morning, the stone doors to the surrounding maze are opened. Every night, they are tightly closed. Every 30 days, a new boy arrives in the lift. The pattern is disrupted when a girl with a message is sent up the very next day. In this thrill ride of a story about problem-solving. The ending nicely sets up for the next book in this trilogy, tentatively called, “The Scorch Trials.”

Hollywood is Like High School with Money by Zoey Dean. When twenty-four-year old Ohio native, Taylor Henning lands her dream job as an assistant at a major movie studio, she finds that she hasn’t left the “Mean Girls” contests of high school behind. The stakes are just higher. Taylor wasn’t one of the queen bees in high school and is ill-prepared to play the same tired games. Then, she meets her boss’s popular daughter, Quinn who takes Taylor under her wing, teaching her one lesson a week until Taylor finds herself swimming gracefully with the sharks. Dean delivers a Devil Wears Prada type story in a funny, quirky easy read.