We usually recommend a book to someone because we like the story or the setting or because it’s funny, etc. The other night a patron recommended an audiobook to me because the reader was really good.  Ed Sala’s reading of James Lee Burke’s White Doves at Morning was so compelling that this gentleman had come to the library to find more. The Library includes the name of audiobook readers in the catalog, making it easy to search for a favorite performer:

From the catalog page, select Sound/Video. From the first search box, select Audiobook Word(s) from the menu. In the second search box, enter the performer’s name.

AudioFile, a magazine devoted to audiobooks, has a Golden Voices list if you’re interested in finding more recommended readers or you might like one of Stephen King’s 10 favorite audiobooks.  I personally recommend Flo Gibson’s reading of Persuasion by Jane Austen.  On the page, Austen is amusing to me; but read aloud she is truly funny, with a wicked sense of humor and great timing.  Have you got a favorite audiobook reader?

When I ran across Vanessa Farquharson’s book, Sleeping Naked Is Green: How an Eco-Cynic Unplugged Her Fridge, Sold Her Car, and Found Love in 366 Days, I was intrigued.  While I don’t think I’ll be unplugging my fridge anytime soon (is that even possible in this heat?), selling my car (sorry, Jnai!), or looking for love (my husband wouldn’t approve), I am interested in living a greener life without going insane (or appearing that way).

I have tried to make small changes at home to be more green.  My husband and I haven’t done anything too drastic–although our families think our recent decision to cloth diaper our twins is a little extreme–but we’ve made minor adjustments here and there that (we hope) will reduce our carbon footprint and maybe save a polar bear or two from extinction.  We changed all our lightbulbs to compact flourescent bulbs, swapped to cloth napkins for everyday, replaced paper towels in the kitchen with dishrags and towels, and put a bucket in the shower to catch the water as it heats (which we then use to water our garden).  We also recycle and compost when we can.  But do we really have to stop eating at restaurants that use styrofoam take-out containers or stop using antiperspirants?

Although afraid of losing her cool hipster status and being mistaken for a hippie, or worse yet, a blogger, Ms. Farquharson took the plunge and began a daily blog about her changes in an effort to provide a humorous real-life view on the effect that living green might have on a regular everyday person.  All the while bearing a tiny, imaginary Al Gore on her shoulder,  she makes changes both small and large:  ”Switch to recycled paper towels,” “Lower the temperature on my water heater,” or “Sell my car.”  Some changes are a little more unusual (or just plain odd), such as “Skip gown at doctor’s office” or “Drip-dry dishes in dishwasher rack above houseplants.”

If you’d like to follow Ms. Farquharson’s continuing journey on the road to being green, check out her blog Green as a Thistle.  Interested in finding out your own carbon footprint and your impact on the environment?  Go to the EPA’s Household Emissions Calculator or The Nature Conservancy’s Carbon Footprint Calculator and get a personalized estimate.  Then maybe you, too, will decide to carry a totebag and give up on pajamas…

For those who like to debate Heather’s eternal question: book vs. movie,  2009 is a really interesting year for movie adaptations. Already we’ve gotten the long awaited Watchmen movie and Coraline was great in 3D. My Sister’s Keeper, from the Jodi Picoult novel, comes out next week and it looks like you’ll need a box of tissues to get through it. Next month brings us the long-awaited Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, from a film series that I think has done an especially good job of interpreting  J. K. Rowling’s books. Later this year we’ll get Julie and Julia, which was a blog and then a book about a woman living in a tiny New York City apartment deciding to cook every one of the recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Audrey Niffenegger’s heartbreaking The Time Traveler’s Wife comes to screens this fall (definitely read the book first) and don’t forget the next installment from the Stephenie Meyer vampire books, New Moon, set to come out in November. The kids get Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, based on a book about a town where it rains breakfast, lunch and dinner. The pictures in the book are hilarious and I want to see pancakes and syrup actually falling from the sky.

I’m most intrigued by the movie version of  Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak’s brief and mysterious picture book.  I wouldn’t have thought it could be done; but Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers, the creative minds behind the adaptation, are compelling artists themselves and I look forward to seeing their interpretation of Sendak’s work. The trailer is beautiful.

Request these titles from the library and you’ll be ready to start your own book vs. movie debate club.

You can find comics in your newspaper — if you have a magnifying glass and if there’s still a paper published in your town. If not, you’ll have to  follow the paper and the comics to your computer. The companies that syndicated the comics to the papers have websites. Comics.com, United Feature Syndicate’s site, is the most generous, giving you 6 months of your favorite strip for free online and you can go all the way back to 1950 for Peanuts and to 1979 for Dilbert.  King Features, home of Baby Blues and Mutts, puts just 4 days online for free and lets you subscribe to the archives for an annual fee. Gocomics gives you a few days of one of my favorites, Calvin and Hobbes.

But Calvin’s Duplicator isn’t quite the same online. Where can you go to find comics printed on good old-fashioned paper? Next time you’re in the library, stroll on over to the books labeled 741.5973. That’s where you’ll find comic strip collections at the library. Calvinball players, unite!

Summer is in full swing and many of us are planning fun and creative ways to enjoy the season. Whether one is embarking on the vacation of a lifetime, plotting a relaxing, economical “staycation” (check out Amanda’s blog post for great ideas on the subject) or planning to Be Creative @ the Library with the little ones (DCPL plug: check!) summer is the perfect time to allow one’s imagination to run wild.

My creative outlet of choice is writing (big surprise!) and I’ve just picked up a wonderful little book on the subject called The Writing Life by Annie Dillard. It’s a slender read–111 pages that go by in a flash–full of passages on the thrills and challenges of following one’s muse. The Writing Life touches various aspects of the writer’s task such as finding inspiration, the physical work of writing and even what it feels like when an idea goes awry or doesn’t develop in the way that one hopes.  This is a book about writing but I think it can apply to any endeavor of one’s creativity or passion. So follow your hearts, be creative and, if you’ve got some time, pick up this enjoyable, bestselling book at the Library.

Every Memorial Day I have to get past my cranky attitude about being all adult now and not getting a 10-week summer vacation.  Please tell me I’m not the only one who longs to sleep late, go barefoot and spend all day at the pool. If you’ve got the grown-up summertime blues like me, relive vacations of the past with the 2nd Annual Summer Reading for Adults program. Have fun and win prizes like a VIP pass to the Decatur Book Festival. Pick up a folder at any DCPL location or sign up online, then sit back with a good book and have a “popsicle” with a couple of olives. It may not be vacation reading, but it’s still summer and it stays light for a long time after work.

The number of twin and other multiple births is on the rise for various reasons, so the chances that you’ve “got twins” is actually a lot more likely than it was twenty years ago.  This year, the National Organization of Mothers of Twins Clubs, Inc. (NOMOTC) has declared April the first annual Multiple Birth Awareness Month in an effort to create awareness of the special issues facing families of multiples.

When I found out last fall that I was expecting twins, I assumed it was like any other pregnancy–or as my doctor put it–two for the price of one.  I soon found out how wrong I was!  Twin and multiple pregnancies often carry more risks, including preterm labor, preeclampsia, and gestational diabetes.  Pregnancy symptoms like nausea, fatigue, and swelling often increase as well.  Dietary requirements are vastly different for multiples because of the way they gain weight, and may require the expectant mother to follow a 3500+ calorie diet and drink a gallon of water a day!

While your doctor should always be your primary source of information during pregnancy, here are a couple of great books at the Library about expecting and raising twins to supplement your knowledge.

When You’re Expecting Twins, Triplets, or Quads: Proven Guidelines for a Healthy Multiple Pregnancy by Dr. Barbara Luke:  Dr. Luke’s recommendations have been shown to result in higher birth weights, fewer complications, and healthier multiples.  Includes recipes and nutritional supplement suggestions.  Don’t let the dietary requirements scare you! 

Twin Sense:  A Sanity-Saving Guide to Raising Twins–from Pregnancy through the First Year by Dagmara Scalise:  Includes topics such as preparing for birth, feeding, bathing, baby-proofing, creating the best sleeping environment, and traveling.

Check out these links if you’d like more info on the increase of multiple births or to learn more facts about multiples.  Another great source of information and support is your local multiples group, and you can find a list here.

And just in case you were wondering–we’re expecting two girls in a few short weeks, twins don’t run in the family, and we don’t have names yet!

If you haven’t noticed yet, the library now has a podcasting page, where you can listen, download, and subscribe to our Musical Bookings podcasts and our Author Talk podcasts.  Podcasts, as you may or may not know, are basically audio (sometimes video) “shows” that are available on the internet.  Think of it like a radio show, except you listen to it on either your computer or portable MP3 device.  In fact, many radio shows are available as podcasts, including NPR’s This American Life, Car Talk, and Fresh Air.

But because anybody with a mic and a computer can make a podcast, you don’t have to be Terry Gross to have a  show on the internet.  This has resulted in podcasts that focus in on many special niche interests that would never survive on normal radio, shows like Imprint (a show dedicated to the Twilight series), GolfBetter (dedicated to golf), and Manic Mommies (about motherhood).

I’m ashamed to admit that before last week, I had barely listened to any podcasts.  I imagined badly produced shows featuring 14 year old hosts talking about World of Warcraft (no offense).  But because I was in charge of helping coordinate the library’s podcasts, I decided to look around and see what was out there already.  Now I’m totally hooked!  There are many good podcasts.  After the jump, I’ll highlight three that I absolutely love.  Then I’ll give you a few technical tips on how to get started.

Read the rest of this entry »

How often have you seen a movie and just died to share it with someone? Has a particular movie made such an impact on your life that you have seen it like a million times?  For me, two of my favorite movies of all time (that the Library owns) are My Cousin Vinny and the Sound of Music. Anyone watching these movies with me has to endure my reciting the lines verbatim. The Sound of Music made such an impact on my sister and me that we recreated the movie over and over after seeing it on the big screen.

Have you ever wondered what some of the stars’ favorite movies are? I found an interesting book in our collection called,  You gotta to see this: more than 100 of Hollywood’s best reveal and discuss their favorite movies. There are several movies mentioned at least two times by the stars. These were On the Waterfront, Claudine, Casablanca , Terms of Endearment and Taxi Driver.

It was interesting to me to read what each star stated as their favorite movie and try to figure out the reason why. Sometimes, at least according to me, it depended on the star’s age. If it was a director who was giving his/her’s favorite picks, it aligned with the Oscar picks.  Some of the more interesting films picked were: Purple Rain, Anchorman, Bad News Bears, Sugar Cane Alley, Blues Brothers, Say Anything and The Bad Sleep Well.

What is your favorite film and why? If you have read or skimmed this book, what did you find interesting about the stars’ picks? Just like our favorite books, I believe that our situation at a particular time and our experiences influence our favorites. What about you?

According to the American Diabetes Association, there are about 23.6 million adults and children with diabetes in the U.S. Of this population, 5.7 million are unaware that they have the disease. Personally, I have family members and friends who are living with the disease. I know that being someone with a family history of diabetes  there are precautions and steps that I can take to stay healthy but I don’t always.

Today marks the 21st Annual American Diabetes Alert Day and now is as good of a time as any to become more aware and active against this disease.  One great place to start is by exploring the American Diabetes Association website for more information.  The Library also offers many great resources about diabetes, ranging from lifestyle and medical books to cookbooks featuring diabetic-friendly cuisine. Here are a few books that I really like:

The First Year: Type 2 Diabetes: An Essential Guide For The Newly Diagnosed by Gretchen Becker: Author Becker offers an informative and encouraging discussion look at diabetes and ways in which one can cope with it. Though this book is geared toward those who have been recently diagnosed with the disease, anyone can benefit from its advice.

Just The Fact Diabetes by Jenny Bryan: This is another well-written book for kids and young adults about diabetes. It addresses many aspects of diabetes including causes, a brief history of the disease and advancements in the treatment of it.

Diabesity: The Obesity-Diabetes Epidemic That Threatens America–And What We Must Do To Stop It by Francine R. Kaufman: The subtitle of this book bares the same ringing urgency as the book itself. The author is passionate about raising awareness of the problem of obesity and how it contributes to the diabetes epidemic.