Staff Recommendations

Margaret Aldrich, Children’s Room Assistant, Main Library
	The New Policeman by Kate Thompson
	Time seems to be leaking away in the Irish village of Kinvara. J.J. Liddy, teenage son in a family of traditional fiddlers, is determined to get his mother the birthday present she wants most: more time. With the help of a neighbor, he discovers the hidden passage to a secret land, where time never passes. What has disrupted the fabric of time – and who is the strange new policeman in town, who seems as fond of music-making as he is of keeping the peace? This is a fascinating, entertaining story of mischief and redemption and the power of art.
	An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
	A frustrated prodigy, given to falling in love with (and being dumped by) girls named Katherine, goes on a road trip with his best friend Hassan into the heartland of America. As Colin tries to develop his theorem for predicting the rise and fall of relationships and Hassan pursues his love of cheeseburgers, they encounter the eccentric residents of Gutshot, Tennessee. A funny, clever book on love and friendship and finding out who you really are. It also includes an appendix explaining the mathematical formula that Colin creates!

Megan Ciccarello, Librarian, Endicott Branch

From Publishers Weekly:

Former academic Setterfield pays tribute in her debut to Brontë and du Maurier heroines: a plain girl gets wrapped up in a dark, haunted ruin of a house, which guards family secrets that are not hers and that she must discover at her peril. Margaret Lea, a London bookseller's daughter, has written an obscure biography that suggests deep understanding of siblings. She is contacted by renowned aging author Vida Winter, who finally wishes to tell her own, long-hidden, life story. Margaret travels to Yorkshire, where she interviews the dying writer, walks the remains of her estate at Angelfield and tries to verify the old woman's tale of a governess, a ghost and more than one abandoned baby. With the aid of colorful Aurelius Love, Margaret puzzles out generations of Angelfield: destructive Uncle Charlie; his elusive sister, Isabelle; their unhappy parents; Isabelle's twin daughters, Adeline and Emmeline; and the children's caretakers. Contending with ghosts and with a (mostly) scary bunch of living people, Setterfield's sensible heroine is, like Jane Eyre, full of repressed feeling—and is unprepared for both heartache and romance. And like Jane, she's a real reader and makes a terrific narrator. That's where the comparisons end, but Setterfield, who lives in Yorkshire, offers graceful storytelling that has its own pleasures.

Larissa Glasser, Librarian, Main Library
	The novelization of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey explains a great deal of the story that may have been lost on people who have watched the film. The "black monolith" mystified me for years - its appearance in the film obviously wasn't supposed to be some avant-garde stunt, but what did it mean? As it turns out, it is a benevolent galactic cattle prod that compels the human race to EVOLVE--to use tools, to communicate, to invent. When I put that piece of the puzzle together, my appreciation for the story behind the film brought me to Arthur C. Clarke's novelization. The story also explores the DOWNSIDE to the evolution of technology in the character of the supercomputer HAL 9000. Does HAL have human traits? Science / speculative fiction's relevance to "real" literature is still debatable, but its ability to predict (or instruct???) our world's advancement has been obvious for over a century.
	The Police jumped on the Punk Rock bandwagon of late-70's Britain. However, as their music developed, they began explorations in sound that were unique in the world of Contemporary Pop Music. Andy Summers (along with Alex Lifeson of Rush) is one of the pioneers of incorporating chorus effects and jazz voicings into his guitar playing. Zenyatta Mondatta spreads a haze of dark-sounding pop that the band later perfected on their final album, Synchroncity. The only song you may recognize is the opener "Don't Stand So Close To Me," but listen closely to the remainder of the album for some amazing explorations of reggae, space rock, and new wave. It sticks like glue. The Police will attempt to cash their meal ticket in 2007with a reunion tour of The United States.

Paul Harvey, Librarian, Main Library

NONFICTION

FICTION

Lisa Ingemi, Librarian, Endicott Branch
	Facing the Wind: A True Story of Tragedy and Reconciliation by Julie Salamon
	This true crime story (MY Favorite genre) begins in 1978 with Bob Rowe, a Brooklyn lawyer, who kills his whole family but is found not guilty by reason of insanity after spending several years in a mental institution and later released. He continues his life remarries and has another child until his death. This book would make a great book for any book club as it deals with the controversial issue of the death penalty and forgiveness. Can we truly forgive and allow another to move on? You decide...
	The Library by Sarah Stewart
	Elizabeth Brown just loves to read and read she does. But what is a person to do when they have such a large collection of books that just keeps growing and growing? This has been a favorite book of mine since I first read the story. In fact, drop by the Endicott Branch and check out the poster above the reference desk and you will see the poster version of "The Library" and the book for all to read .... Enjoy!!!
	Back to Bedlam by James Bunt
	For those who don't know me I love to paint (interior of my house that is) for me, I pop in this CD and paint for hours at a time. I particularly like tracks 1,2 and 4. I won't tell you what they are as you will need to check it out yourself!!! So get James Blunt and maybe even try a bit of painting at your house this weekend.

Patricia Lambert , Director, Main Library

Julianne Leary, Library Assistant, Main Library
	Gracelin O'Malley by Ann Moore
	From Publishers Weekly The Troubles are harrowingly described in this finely wrought tale of an Irish beauty married above her station to an English landlord. Grace is the light of her household and only 16 when she is married off to Bram Donnelly, the lord of the manor. Her crippled brother, Sean, hates to see her go, knowing that his friend Morgan McDonagh loves her. She quickly realizes that Bram is a cruel, abusive drunk with a shady past, and that she does not fit in his world. Grace gives birth to twins a boy and a girl but only the girl survives, much to her husband's displeasure. When the potato blight hits and starving people come to the estate for food, Bram shows his true colors, not only refusing to help, but murdering some of them and turning his wrath upon Grace for feeding them. When he realizes he could lose the manor, he hatches a scheme with his mistress to come up with a male heir. Tensions escalate among his suffering tenants, and he knows he's a marked man he even rides his property with his young daughter tied to his back to keep from being shot. Woven into the story is a subplot involving Sean, Morgan and other desperate peasants who have begun to talk of revolution. Grace, somehow stronger than ever, is determined to help. The searing conditions of the Irish famines, exacerbated by the unspeakable greed and brutality of the English, come to grim life in this realistic tale too realistic for some, perhaps but Moore's refusal to ignore the stark plight of the Irish and her lyrical, pitch-perfect prose raise this book far above the romance genre and make for historical fiction at its finest.