The Friday Five

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

Get busy living or get busy dying.”
― Stephen King, The Shawshank Redemption

“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”
― Maya Angelou

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”
― William Shakespeare

“I would always rather be happy than dignified.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Happy Birthday, Michael Caine!

English actor Michael Caine took his screen name from the 1954 film The Caine Mutiny. He has played a wide variety of roles over his six-decade career and been nominated for an Oscar in each of them from (1960s to 2000s). He is a perhaps best known for his role in 1986's Hannah and Her Sisters and 1999's The Cider House Rules. Queen Elizabeth II knighted him in 2000 for his contribution to cinema.

Some of my favorite Michael Caine roles include The Weatherman, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and The Man who Would be King. For a complete list of Michael Caine films available at the library, please click here. What's your favorite?

The (Imagined) Lives of Others: Biographical Fiction

The term "faction" could be applied to these novels depicting the lives and times of real people. Actual historic events and imagined dialogue combine to bring these entertaining tales to life.

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

Fact and fiction blend in a historical novel that chronicles the relationship between seminal architect Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney, from their meeting, when they were each married to another, to the clandestine affair that shocked Chicago society.

The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir

A vivid fictional portrait of the tumultuous early life of Queen Elizabeth I describes her perilous path to the throne of England and the scandal, political intrigues, and religious turmoil she confronted along the way, from the deaths of her parents, Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, to the fanaticism of her sister, Mary I.

Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold

Recently widowed Dorothea Gibson examines her difficult life with a late, beloved, celebrity author during Queen Victoria's reign in this novel based on the real-life troubled marriage of Charles Dickens.

Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland

Hoping to honor his father and the family business with innovative glass designs, Louis Comfort Tiffany launches the iconic Tiffany lamp as designed by women's division head Clara Driscoll, who struggles with the mass production of her creations.

Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran

While the tensions rise between the royalty and the people, Madame Tussaud is requested to tutor the King's sister in wax sculpting and must find a way for her family to survive the coming revolution.

The Friday Five

Each Friday, we'll be bringing you five memorable quotes from books and authors to brighten your weekend! Know of any good ones? Please share!

"The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance, but live right in it, under its roof."
— Barbara Kingsolver (Animal Dreams)

"Stuff your eyes with wonder… live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. "
-Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)

"Maybe everyone can live beyond what they're capable of."
— Markus Zusak (I Am the Messenger)

"That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet."
- Jhumpa Lahiri (The Namesake)


“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
- J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

Happy Birthday, Ann Packer

Author Biography

Ann Packer was born in Stanford, California, in 1959, and grew up near Stanford University, where her parents were professors. She attended Yale University and then, after five years working at a publishing company in New York, she went on to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, selling her first short story to The New Yorker a few weeks before receiving her degree. A fellowship at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing followed, and she spent two years living in Madison, Wisconsin, which would later become the setting of her first novel, The Dive from Clausen’s Pier.

While living in Wisconsin, Packer published short stories in literary magazines and had a story chosen for inclusion in the annual O. Henry Awards prize stories anthology. With support from the Michener-Copernicus Society of America, she completed her first book, Mendocino and Other Stories. The National Endowment for the Arts provided a fellowship, and she spent much of the next decade working on The Dive from Clausen’s Pier. A critical success that became a national bestseller and was translated into ten languages, Dive received a Great Lakes Book Award, an American Library Association Award, and the Kate Chopin Literary Award. Packer’s second novel, the bestselling Songs Without Words, was published in 2007.

What is her Writing Like?
The characters in Ann Packer's intimate, emotionally powerful, and unflinchingly candid stories are usually picking up the pieces after a devastating tragedy. Her leisurely paced, meditative tales contain meticulously detailed, psychologically nuanced, and in-depth portraits of ordinary parents, children, and friends as they cope with difficult questions, ambiguous emotions, and persistent guilt stemming from the deaths of loved ones. Her vivid, lyrical, and atmospheric writing captures familiar suburban life and how it can be tainted with angst, confusion, and sorrow after sudden tragedies. Start with: The Dive From Clausen's Pier.

Family Movie Night

Join us tomorrow night in the library at 6:30pm for a screening of Puss in Boots. Admission is always free and refreshments will be provided. Be there or be square!

Bad Medicine

Most medical suspense stories are set in hospitals or laboratories and feature medical personnel as main characters. While the protagonist is often asked to solve a crime, he or she is just as likely to be racing against time to find a cure for an epidemic.

The Cure by Robin Cook

New York City medical examiner Laurie Montgomery faces the case of her career involving the suspected poisoning murder of a CIA agent and possible links to a powerful pharmaceutical company and start-up stem-cell research labs.

Rules of Vengeance by Christopher Reich

Rendered a fugitive when he is wrongfully implicated in a terrorist attack that interrupted his secret rendezvous with his dishonored spy wife, physician Jonathan Ransom struggles to clear his name, only to discover that he may be a pawn in an international plot.

The Last Surgeon by Michael Palmer

Dr. Nick Garrity and psych nurse Gillian Coates determine that one-by-one, each of those in the operating room for a fatally botched case is dying. Their discoveries pit them against genius Franz Koller--the highly-paid master of the "non-kill." As doctor and nurse move closer to finding the terrifying secret behind these killings, Koller has been given a new directive: his mission will not be complete until Gillian and Garrity, the last surgeon, are dead.

Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell

The carefully orchestrated life of Manhattan emergency room doctor and witness-protection program participant Peter Brown unravels in the course of a day that begins with a mugging and a new patient who knows him from his previous existence.