10/10: New at the library this week

Movies:

The counterfeiters
Defiance

(all movies are on dvd unless otherwise noted)

Books:

Crazy for the storm : a memoir of survival / Norman Ollestad
From the age of three, Norman Ollestad was thrust into the world of surfing and competitive downhill skiing by the charismatic father he both idolized and resented. These exhilarating tests of skill prepared “Boy Wonder,” as his father called him, to become a fearless champion—and ultimately saved his life.

Flying to a ski championship ceremony in February 1979, the chartered Cessna carrying Norman and his father crashed into the San Gabriel Mountains. “Dad and I were a team, and he was Superman,” Ollestad writes. But now Norman’s father was dead, and the devastated eleven-year-old had to descend the treacherous, icy mountain alone.

A long trek home : 4000 miles by boot, raft, and ski / Erin McKittrick
In June 2007, Erin McKittrick and her husband, Hig, left Seattle for the Aleutian Islands, traveling solely by human power through some of the most rugged terrain in the world. This is the story of their unprecedented trek along the northwest coast and their encounters with pelting rains, ferocious winds, blizzards, and bears, as well as with the tiny communities that dot this wild region. (Seldovia author)

9/8: New at the library this week

Movies:

Planet earth
You don’t mess with the Zohan
My fair lady
The curious case of Benjamin Button

(all movies are on dvd unless otherwise noted)

Books:

Last kiss / Luanne Rice
For nearly a year after the tragedy that claimed her teenage son, Charlie, Sheridan Rosslare has lived a quiet life on Hubbard’s Point, tucked away in the beach house where they spent their happiest days. But Charlie’s girlfriend, Nell Kilvert, is determined to find out what really happened on the night none of them will ever forget. She summons the one man she believes can uncover the truth–Gavin Dawson, who long ago thought he would always be at Sheridan’s side. Now his boat sits anchored within sight of the window of the woman he once loved–and still loves. Both of them had believed in the power of love and forgiveness, connection and reconnection, to work magic. They thought they’d lost that faith forever. Can they find it one last time? (read an exerpt)

The deep blue sea for beginners / Luanne Rice
Years ago, Lyra Davis left behind a world of wealth and privilege and the people she loved most in the world, unable to reconcile the expectations of her celebrated family with the longings of her own wild heart. Now she lives quietly among a community of expatriates on the isle of Capri, slowly, carefully learning to live fully for the first time, flourishing in the friendship of a singular man who recognizes in her a kindred spirit. (read an exerpt)

8/15: New at the library this week

Movies:

The reader
The secret of Roan Inish
Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow your dreams
Hello Kitty goes to the movies
Princess stories : A gift from the heart
Princess stories : Beauty shines from within
Barbie as Rapunzel

(all movies are on dvd unless otherwise noted)

2/16: New at the library this week

Books:

Undertow / Sydney Bauer — Christina Haynes is the teenage daughter of a popular US Senator, and when she drowns moments after a conversation at sea with her best friend’s mother, Boston Lawyer David Cavanaugh faces his toughest case to date.

Boom! : voices of the sixties : personal reflections on the ’60s and today / Tom Brokaw — The author takes us on a tour of the turbulent 1960s, blending his personal reflections with firsthand accounts from the people that lived through it. (read an sample chapter)

The sea of monsters / Rick Riordan — Percy Jackson’s seventh-grade year has been surprisingly quiet. Not a single monster has set foot on his New York prep-school campus. But when an innocent game of dodgeball among Percy and his classmates turns into a death match against an ugly gang of cannibal giants, things get . . . well, ugly. And the unexpected arrival of Percy’s friend Annabeth brings more bad news: the magical borders that protect Camp Half-Blood have been poisoned by a mysterious enemy, and unless a cure is found, the only safe haven for demigods will be destroyed. (Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series, #2; Age Range: 9 to 12)

12/10: New at the library this week

Audiobooks:

• Mount Vernon love story: a novel of George and Martha Washington / Mary Higgins Clark — The novel charts the course of George’s tentative courtship of the young widow Martha Custis. (read an exerpt)
• Little altars everywhere / Rebecca Wells — The story unfolds in the alternating voices of Vivi and her husband, Big Shep, along with Sidda and her siblings, as well as the almost-but-not-quite family Chaney and Willetta. Wells embraces nearly thirty years of life on the Walker plantation in Thornton, Louisiana, where the cloying air of the bayou and a web of family secrets at once shelters, traps, and defines this utterly original community of souls. (read a sample chapter)
• A tree grows in Brooklyn / Betty Smith — The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg. (read a sample chapter)
• Balance of power / Richard North Patterson — President Kerry Kilcannon and his fiancée, television journalist Lara Costello, have at last decided to marry. But their wedding is followed by a massacre of innocents in a lethal burst of gunfire, challenging their marriage and his presidency in ways so shattering and indelibly personal that Kilcannon vows to eradicate gun violence and crush the most powerful lobby in Washington–the Sons of the Second Amendment (SSA). (read an exerpt)