Blog Post
Click Magazine: At the Library
by krayla
The new February issue of Click Magazine for kids has a ton of fascinating information about libraries and books! Read the text of an interview with David Shannon, author of No, David! and Alice the Fairy, learn about the history of books and making paper, and how to ask a librarian for help. You can also see photos of different libraries around the world, including biblioburros, bookmobiles, portable libraries on elephants and trailers, and even libraries hidden inside telephone booths. You can learn how to make your own book (even one with flaps and pockets!) and photocopy and use the story starter game in the back. Feeling too snowed in to come to the library?
Visit the Click Magazine website to hear audio recordings of magazine features, watch a video on block printing, or play a Sort the Books game.
Click here to find more magazines for kids at AADL!
Blog Post
Now Available Through AADL: Downloadable Issues of Midwestern Gothic
by mariah
Literary journals can be a marvelous way to discover work by writers you might not already be familiar with — a gateway to some of the most interesting new writing. Midwestern Gothic is "a quarterly print literary journal out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, dedicated to featuring work about or inspired by the Midwest, by writers who live or have lived here."
Is this limiting? The breadth of work collected in Midwestern Gothic — issue after issue — proves that it's not.
The journal, now on its twelfth release, "aims to collect the very best in Midwestern fiction writing in a way that has never been done before, cataloging the oeuvre of an often-overlooked region of the United States ripe with its own mythologies and tall tales." An August interview with AnnArbor.com gives more insight into the journal's background and its founders, Robert James Russell and Jeff Pfaller.
We're happy to report that now you can read every issue of Midwestern Gothic by downloading them directly from AADL's website! A dozen issues are currently in our catalog, and new issues will be added upon release.
If you like what you read in Midwestern Gothic, their MG Press imprint will be celebrating the release of the novel Above All Men with an event at Literati Bookstore on Monday, Feb 17 at 7pm.
Blog Post
AppleSeeds Magazine for Kids!
by krayla
If you like going on extreme adventures right from your chair, then you should check out the January 2014 issue of AppleSeeds Magazine! AppleSeeds is a magazine written for elementary school-age kids, but everyone can find something to like. In this issue, you can be mesmerized by the layers of the Earth, go cave diving, live near an active volcano spewing lava, and mine for gold far beneath the Earth’s crust. In addition to all of that fun, you can also read short stories and solve puzzles.
You can find AppleSeeds at the Downtown and Traverwood branches and other magazines for kids at all locations!
Want to experience the adventure for yourself? There will be a Family Science Workshop on January 18 at the Pittsfield branch and a Hands-On Science Fun program on February 6 at the Downtown branch.
Happy exploring!
Blog Post
Terrifying and Poignant, 'Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock'
by annevm
Matthew Quick is a talented and prolific author, having written The Silver Linings Playbook (2008), Sorta Like a Rock Star (2010), Boy21 (2012) and now Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock. His new young adult novel will terrify many because the narrator, Leonard Peacock, takes a gun to school and plans to kill his former best friend and himself.
Leonard is a seriously disturbed young man. His father, a former rock star, has disappeared. His mother, a narcissistic fashionista, is in New York City. Leonard stalks adults to determine if they are happy; most do not appear so. He hangs out with his sick, elderly neighbor, who watches Humphrey Bogart films. In school, Mr. Silverman, who teaches Leonard's Holocaust class, urges him to write "Letters from the Future," to connect with imaginary future soulmates, as a strategy to find happiness in high school.
The dark action unfolds on Leonard's 18th birthday, which no one remembers. Carefully, Leonard moves toward executing his murder-suicide plan. Although it is hair-raising to read the thoughts of a crazy kid concealing a gun, readers are allowed to hope that Leonard's plan will somehow fail. I found the novel poignant and thought provoking. The New York Times review is
here.
Blog Post
Easy English News
by Beth Manuel
AADL carries the Easy English News at all of our locations. This publication is written at a 3rd or 4th grade reading level but with newsworthy topics of interest to adults. If you know anyone who is learning English, this publication is very useful to read. Their website has a lot of handy information, too. You'll find them in the periodicals section downtown or by the newspapers at the branches.
Blog Post
Locus Magazine announces the winners of the 2013 LOCUS Awards
by sernabad
Locus Magazine, the monthly magazine for the latest news and reviews in the world of science fiction, fantasy, and horror literature, has announced its 2013 winners.
John Scalzi received the Locus for Science Fiction Novel for Redshirts. At first, Ensign Andrew Dahl is enjoying serving aboard the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid until he realizes a horrifying pattern. All journeys involve deadly confrontations with aliens and its the lower ranking crew members who are at risk. Listen to Wil Wheaton read the audiobook version.
The Fantasy Novel award went to Charles Stross, for The Apocalypse Codex. The Laundry, Britain's highly secretive intelligence agency charged to protect the Queen and the realm from occult intrusions, employs the beautiful, volatile Persephone Hazard to investigate U.S. televangelist/healer, Ray Schiller. Gideon Emery narrates the audiobook.
The Young Adult award went to China Mieville for Railsea, a hugely imaginative mix of steampunk, cyberpunk, and a fantastical spin on Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Sham is an apprentice to the doctor serving the railsea train Medes. Sham is excited to be on his first hunt for moldywarpes, gigantic moles who live beneath the earth, erupting to the surface in life-and-death battles with all who track them down.
The Non-fiction award was given to William Gibson for his collection of essays in Distrust that Particular Flavor, 30 years of thoughtful pieces about the past, present, and future as influenced by technology.
The Art Book award was bestowed on Spectrum 19: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art. According to the publisher, "With exceptional images by extraordinary creators, this elegant full-color collection showcases an international cadre of creators working in every style and medium, both traditional and digital"
For a complete list of the winners, check out this link.
Blog Post
Dr. Joyce Brothers, the "mother of mass media psychology", has died
by sernabad
Dr. Joyce Brothers, whose soft voice, clear explanations, and preference for pastels calmed generations of anxious, questioning Americans, has died.
In 1955, Dr. Brothers was a wife and new mother. Her doctor husband was paid $50 a month as a resident. Looking for a way to pay the bills, Dr. Brothers studied the popular game show The $64,000 Question and realized that the most popular contestants were the ones with the most improbable interests. At 5', with delicate features, Brothers, who had a PhD from Columbia and a near-photographic memory, became a self-taught expert on boxing before becoming a contestant. The result of her astute analysis and hard-charging studying was that, after riveting weeks on the show, she became the first woman to win the big prize.
That national attention led to a multi-pronged media presence as a straight-shooting advice expert. She had several TV shows that bore her name, a call-in radio show, a column in Good Housekeeping magazine, and she enjoyed frequent guest appearances on television. She also authored several books, including the 1981 What Every Woman Should Know about Men.
Dr. Brothers, who was 85, died in Fort Lee, NY of respiratory failure.
Blog Post
Hot New Book Tells How to Get Ahead by Giving
by annevm
A friend who saw Adam Grant speak recently in Ann Arbor highly recommends his book, Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success. If you missed Grant's visit here, you can read the New York Times magazine article about him or visit the book's website. This graduate of the University of Michigan apparently believes that the way we relate to other people has a lot to do with the success we achieve. From a book description in the AADL catalog: "Using his own cutting-edge research as a professor at Wharton Business School, Adam Grant shows how helping others can lead to greater personal success. He demonstrates how smart givers avoid becoming doormats, and why this kind of success has the power to transform not just individuals and groups, but entire organizations and communities."
Blog Post
The 2013 Pulitzer Prizes have been announced
by sernabad
The Pulitzer Prizes for 2013 were announced today.
In 1917, Joseph Pulitzer established these awards to recognize excellence in 21 categories, which include journalism, fiction, drama, music, poetry, and non-fiction. More recently, online reporting was added.
Some of the winners this year include:
Fiction -- Adam Johnson, for The Orphan Master's Son, a timely choice, tells the story of Pak Jun Do, who is sent to the orphan camps in North Korea. First trained as a tunnel soldier (fighting in pitch darkness beneath the DMZ), he is 'elevated' to kidnapper.
History -- Fredrik Logevall, for Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam -- Logevall spent 12 years looking at primary diplomatic sources in the archives of Paris, Washington, D.C., and Hanoi to get at the heart of the conflict.
Biography -- Tom Reiss, for The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo -- Reiss delves into the life of the father of Alexandre Dumas, General Alexandre Alex Dumas. Born in Haiti, sold into slavery by his own father, the General eventually went on to military greatness when he reorganized the army of the French Republic.
In 20 categories, each winner receives $10,000 and a certificate. In the Public Service category, a medal was bestowed on the Florida newspaper, the Sun Sentinel, for its investigation into off-duty police officers who endangered the lives of citizens by speeding.
For a complete list, check here.
Blog Post
Pauline Phillips, a.k.a. beloved advice columnist Dear Abby, has died
by sernabad
Pauline Phillips who, for decades, enchanted readers with her snappy advice-column answers under the moniker Dear Abby, died yesterday in Minneapolis, MN.
Ms. Phillips began her advice-giving career by helping her identical twin sister, Esther (Eppie) who had launched her own popular newspaper advice column in 1955 for The Chicago Sun-Times. Eppie, whose professional name was Ann Landers, was swamped with instant popularity so Pauline started helping out. When the latter saw how well-received her signature witty answers were, she launched her own syndicated column in The San Francisco Chronicle the following year.
Reader demand for the sisters' advice columns eventually created a rift between the two writers which caused a five-year estrangement followed by reconciliation in the 1960s.
Abby liked to claim that she was more popular than Ann Landers because the latter never mastered the art of the short zinger. In response to this question to Abby -- "Are birth control pill deductible?" -- she answered, "Only if they don't work."
Ms. Phillips' daughter, Jeanne Phillips, began helping her mother with her column in the late 1980s. By 2000, with Abby's health failing, Jeanne officially took on the column.
Pauline Phillips, who suffered from Alzheimer's for many years, was 94.