February 2012

New Fiction

• Lunatics - Dave Barry
• Death of Kings - Bernard Cornwell
• Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George
• A Devil is Waiting - Jack Higgins
• The Devil's elixir - Raymond Khoury
• Raylan - Elmore Leonard
• The Hunter - John Lescroart
• How it all Began - Penelope Lively
• The Chalk Girl - Carol O'Connell
• The Broken Land: a People of the Longhouse novel - Kathleen O'Neal Gear
• Break Down: a V.I. Warshawski novel - Sara Paretsky
• Private: #1 Suspect - James Patterson
• The Quality of Mercy - Barry Unsworth

New Audio Books

• The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes
• The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara
• Very Good Jeeves - PG Wodehouse

New DVD's

• 50/50 - Seth Rogan, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
• Boardwalk Empire, first season - Steve Buscemi
• Cowboys & Aliens - Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford
• The Ides of March - Ryan Gosling
• In Treatment, season 3 - Gabriel Byrne
• Moneyball - Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman
• Mr. Poppers Penguins - Jim Carrey
• Mysteries of Lisbon - a Raul Ruiz film
• Today's Special - Aasif Mandvi, Jess Weixler, Madhur Jaffrey

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BOOKLISTS

Every month in this spot we feature reading suggestions. These include historic fiction, science fiction, mysteries, and more. Many of these titles can be found in the Mid Hudson Library System.

Visit the Library to pick up a copy of the booklist-of-the-month brochure and check out a book from our current display.

February is Black History Month

Some of our Biographies:

• The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou
• A Song Flung Up To Heaven - Maya Angelou
• Alvin Ailey: a Life in Dance - Jennifer Dunning
• Gal: a True Life - Ruthie Bolton
• The House a Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood - Helene Cooper
• Having Our Say: The Delany sisters' First 100 Years - Sarah and A. Elizabeth Delany
• Autobiofraphies - Fredrick Douglas
• Ella Fitzgerald: a Biography of the First Lady of Jazz - Stuart Nicholson
• Aretha: From These Roots - Arteha Franklin
• Colored People: a Memoir - Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
• Born to Win: the Authorized Biography of Althea Gibson - Frances Clayton Gray
• Roots: The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley
• Leon's Story - Leon Walter Tillage
• Sojourner Truth: Slave, Prophet, Legend - Carleton Mabee
• Sojourner Truth: a Life, a Symbol - Nell Irvin Painter
• Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom - Catherine Clinton
• On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker - A'Lelia Bundles
• Up From Slavery, an Autobiography - Booker T. Washington

Lora Shelley Exhibit

Artist, and Library employee, Lora Shelley is currently exhibiting a mixed media show that includes painting, lithographs, jewelry and sculpture. The show focuses mainly on her paintings, reflecting her chosen way to communicate, since she was a child.
"Things that I find impossible to convey with words are expressed through my paintings." Described as having "an uneasy psychological presence," Lora's figures and environments are primarily from her head. Through the use of texture color and pattern, Lora sculpts the surface of her paintings as if she were working with clay instead of color on a two dimensional surface. This approach allows Lora the freedom to complicate and simplify an image repeatedly until the desired balance is achieved. more

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RAFFLE FOR
SEASON TICKETS

Ulster County
Chamber Music Series

The Ulster County Chamber Music Series has donated two subscriptions to their 2012 season to benefit the Library.

This year the Series features The American String Quartet on Sunday, February 19; the Chiara String Quartet on Sunday, March 25; the The Four Nations on Sunday, April 22. The concerts will take place at the Church of the Holy Cross, 30 Pine Grove Avenue in Kingston and begin at 3:00 PM. The Church is noted for exceptional acoustics, and a reception with the artists will follow the performances. For more information, please visit Ulster Chamber Music Series.

Raffle tickets are on sale at the Library Circulation Desk at $5 each and 5 for $20. Winners will be selected on Tuesday, February 14. The face value of each subscription is $100, which can be used in various combinations, for example 2 admissions for each performance, 6 admissions for one concert, or in any combination desired.

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Frog and Toad Monitoring Presentation

Saturday, February 11,
2:00 to 3:30 p.m. in the Library's Biography Room

The Library will host a presentation on Frog and Toad Monitoring presented by Ben Marcy-Quay, Biodiversity Monitoring Specialist for the Hudson River Estuary Program. The program is part of the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program (NAAMP), a nationwide effort that relies on volunteers to monitor frogs and toads, whose populations are declining throughout the world. Regional coordinators recruit volunteers to participate in an annual census, providing data that can help scientists take steps needed to protect these populations. The first part of the presentation will give an overview of the monitoring process, followed by training for interested volunteers, age 16 and older. The monitoring process involves driving a pre-determined route 4 times during spring and summer, making 10 stops and listening for 5 minutes at each one. Volunteers send their findings online to their regional coordinator. To register for the January 11 talk and for additional information, please contact Mr. Marcy-Quay at FrogandToad@gw.dec.state.ny.us .
In the event of snow, the presentation will take place on Saturday, February 18. Please check our website for snow closing information.

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CLIO'S MUSE
A History Reading Club

Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2012
7pm in the Biography Room

The Medieval Book Group members have decided to broaden their focus to encompass all of history. The new name derives from Greek mythology, Clio, daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne and mother of Hyacinth, is the muse of history.

The first book to be discussed is The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History by Robert Darnton. It is a series of essays on the life of the common people in Enlightenment France, each chapter focuses on a different subject, including the folk tales we are all familiar with and cats.

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TEA TIME BOOK GROUP

Wednesday, Feb. 8
4pm in the Biography Room

The selection this month is Nobody's Fool by by Richard Russo. An affectionate story of small town life in upstate New York, Sully, a fitfully employed 60-year-old construction worker, is a cheerful curmudgeon who has made a lifetime of bad decisions.

Join us in the Biography Room for lively Discussion and light refreshments.

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HOLMES & CO.
Mystery Lovers Book Group

Wednesday, Feb. 15,
4pm in the Biography Room

The selections for this meeting include: To The Manor Dead by Sebastian Stuart. After a disastrous marriage and a crippling case of career burnout, Janet Petrocell closes her New York City psychotherapy practice and moves to the Hudson Valley. The Sherlock Holmes mystery is The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger - by Arthur Conan Doyle.

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MEMOIR WRITING GROUP

Saturday, Feb. 4,
at 1pm
in the Biography Room

The Memoir Writing Workshop usually meets the first Saturday of the month. Bring in something you've recently written or are working on to share. Anyone interested should contact Brian Drabkin by email, or at 687-4711 or Diane in the Program Office at 687-8726.

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POETRY
with Rosemary Deen

Thursday, Feb. 9,
1-3pm in the Bio Room

Join us for another afternoon of poetry with Rosemary Deen. We've moved our meeting up one week to the second Thursday of the month for the month of February only.

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Move to Music with our
Dance and Rhythm Group

Every Thursday
10:45 to 11:45
at the Marbletown Community Center

A new dance and rhythm group plans to meet on Thursday mornings from 10:45 to 11:45 at the Marbletown Community Center. Sponsored by the Stone Ridge Library, the program is free and open to the public. Participants can bring their favorite dance CD, water and comfortable clothes. For information, please call the Library Program Office at 687- 8726.

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KNITTING GROUP

Every Saturday
10am-noon

The Stone Ridge Library Knitters meet every Saturday morning from 10am - 12noon. All ages and experience levels can join us and drop-in knitters are also welcome. We each bring our own supplies and do our own work, but one of the best things about us is that whatever obstacle or confusion you might encounter, you're likely to receive as much comment and advice as you need to get where you're going with a project. Some of us can help toward the repair of knitted or crocheted items too.

The group is sociable and lively, and our conversation and sharing is just as wide-ranging as our projects. We are especially interested in the UFOs (Un-Finished Objects) that members bring in and love the show and tell of projects under way and being finished, new or old, simple or complex. Though knitting is our love and mainstay, we graciously adapt ourselves to stray crocheters and those of us who simply must take to the hook when the spirit moves. We share articles, magazines and books on knitting. Donations of yarn to the Library get made up into items for sale at the Library Fair and during the winter holidays for the benefit of the Library. Some of us also knit things for local hospitals or for the U.S. troops.

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On the Shelves

Four books that are worth your time

with Mike Nyerges
Poughkeepsie Journal - 1.14.12

If you are like me, busy juggling professional and family responsibilities, finding time to read is a challenge. So when I have a chance, I'll settle for almost anything, older titles included, which can lead to some delightful discoveries.

On the recommendation of my son, I read Marilynne Robinson for the first time and just finished her marvelous novels Housekeeping (1980) and Gilead (2004). The first was nominated for a Pulitzer and the second won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Both are deeply thoughtful and spiritual narratives of individuals coming of age in the first half of the 20th century in remote and rural communities.

In Housekeeping, two sisters, Ruth and Lucille, are raised by their grandmother and then an aunt following the suicide of their mother. The story of loss and isolation will make you weep but the beauty of the writing and the bedrock of the human spirit that the author illuminates is entirely uplifting. In Gilead, John Ames, a 76-year-old minister in poor health is writing a letter to his 7-year old son in an effort to time-shift and provide his son, when an adult, his insights into life. He shepherds a small congregation in a church that was established by his abolitionist grandfather and served by his father. This is a deeply satisfying novel filled with wisdom and illustrations of grace.

Nemesis (2010) by Lindsey Davis is another in a series of some 20 mysteries that features the 1st century Roman shamus, Marcus Didius Falco. Davis has a wonderfully wry and irreverent wit and a marvelous eye for historical detail. She brings ancient Rome alive and has created an honest, flawed and gifted "informer."

One of the most entertaining "reads" I had in 2011 is by Gary Shteyngart, Super Sad True Love Story (2010). This is a dark comic vision of the near future and a quirky tale of a May-December romance. Lenny Abramov, on the cusp of 40, and Eunice Park, 24, forge an improbable romance in a world where corporations and governments have merged and consumerism is the equivalent to patriotism. Irreverent but fun.

On the Shelves appears every month on the Books page. Mike Nyerges is the Executive Director of the Mid-Hudson Library System.

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Movies Based on Books Opening in February

February 3, 2012

The Woman in Black
Based on The Woman in Black by Susan Hill, 1986; it was also adapted as a long-running stage play and a TV movie
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Janet McTeer
Director: James Watkins

February 3
Big Miracle
Based on: Freeing the Whales by Thomas Rose
Starring: Kristen Bell, Drew Barrymore, John Krasinski
Director: Ken Kwapis

February 17
The Secret World of Arrietty
Inspired By: The Borrowers by Mary Norton
Starring: Mirai Shida (voice)
Director: Hiromasa Yonebayashi

We want to hear from you!

LibrarySolutions@yahoo.com is open for your ideas, insights, suggestions or other constructive feedback about the future of the Stone Ridge Library. Help the Library create a forward-looking plan by contributing your best thinking to the conversation. With our historic building needing repair, a limited amount of space as well as limited resources, we greatly value all constructive comments about how the Library can continue to serve our community.

Your input will be collected by Library Trustee David Cagan who has volunteered to serve as community liaison for the Board. Please send your comments about the future of the library to: LibrarySolutions@yahoo.com

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2012 Rochester
Membership Cards Available Now

We are happy to announce that the Town of Rochester has made 238 free family memberships available to Rochester residents. These will be given out on a first come, first served basis. If you had a free membership last year, you must come in again to claim another free membership. Please bring your card with you and come in this week, as there are not many left. After the 238 free memberships have been used, family memberships will be available for purchase.

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GREAT WEBSITES!

Fuel Economy Guide

Looking to calculate your car's gas mileage? In the market for a new vehicle, and want to find out which cars are the most fuel efficient? This site, developed by the U.S. Department of Energy and the EPA, can help you do that and more. Here you can find tips on how to maximize your vehicle's fuel efficiency, or how to choose the right hybrid vehicle, should you be interested. more

Society for American Archaeology:

This site from the Society for American Archaeology provides information on archaeology including news and events; educational resources for educators and archeologists; and an interactive explore archaeology section that provides information on visiting an archaeology site or an archeology museum exhibit. The site strives to not only provide information for those interested in the field of archaeology, but for archaeologists wanting to know more about working with the public.* more

Vintage Travel Posters

"The Boston Public Library's Print Department is home to more than 350 vintage travel posters, most dating from the 1920s-1940s, the "Golden Age of Travel." Railways opened up America and Europe, luxe ocean liners introduced elegance into overseas voyages, and drivers took to the road in record numbers in their new automobiles. By the mid-1940s, new airlines crisscrossed the globe, winging adventure-seekers to far-flung destinations. Travel agents and ticket offices during this period were festooned with vivid, eye-catching posters, all designed to capture the beauty, excitement and adventure of travel and to promote a world of enticing destinations and new modes of transportation. Individual artists gained fame for their distinctive graphic styles and iconic imagery, and many posters from this era still remain important works of art long after their original advertising purposes have faded." Some rights are reserved, check individual posters. more

• *Reproduced with permission from copyright 2010 by the ipl2 Consortium (http://www.ipl.org). All rights reserved.

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Phone: 687-7023

E-Mail: Webmaster

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