Author Birthdays

March 31

John Fowles

Writer. Born in 1926 in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, SE England, UK. He studied at Oxford, served in the Royal Marines (1945–6), became a teacher, and published his first novel, The Collector, in 1963. His writings combine a topographical interest in Devon, a respect for the Victorian novel of social life and personal relationships, and an interest in contemporary developments in the French novel. His books include The Magus (1966), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969, filmed with a script by Pinter, 1981), The Ebony Tower (1974, televised 1984), A Maggot (1985), and Tessera (1993). Other work includes the autobiographical Daniel Martin (1977), a book of essays entitled Wormholes (1998), and The Journals: Volume 1 (2003).

Information found at: http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9299974

Family Craft - Handy Butterfly and Antennae Headband

4/2/07

4:00 p.m.

On Monday, April 2nd, at 4:00, children and parents are invited to join library staff and volunteers for a fun-filled after school crafting program. The craft activities are suitable for children age two to twelve. Make a butterfly using your hand shape for the wings or construct antennae of chenille stems and pompoms. To insure that there are enough supplies for all participants, reservations are encouraged, but not required. Sign up at the children’s desk, the check-out desk, or by calling 817-748-8248 or 817-748-8243.

Eggtacular for Little Ones

March 31

10am-2pm

Ages 3-5. Durham School, 801 Shady Oaks. $35 per person. Arts, crafts, face painting, visit from Easter Bunny, egg hunt, refreshments and more fun. Parents not required to attend. Register Online at http://southlake.recware.com/ or by mail or in person at Bicentennial Park Community Center, 400 North White Chapel Blvd., Southlake, Tx 76092. Online registration ends March 30 at 4pm. Questions? Call 817.748.8203 or 817.748.8019.

Author Birthdays

March 26

Tennessee Williams

Playwright, born in Columbus, Mississippi, USA. From an old Tennessee family (he adopted his first name by 1939 while in New Orleans), he was raised under the influence of his clergyman-grandfather. Moving with his family to St Louis (1913), he went on to several colleges, graduating from the State University of Iowa (1938). He moved around the country for many years, worked at odd jobs while he wrote short plays, had occasional productions in community theatres, and worked briefly as a scriptwriter for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1943). He gained sudden success with the New York production of The Glass Menagerie (1945), and his next and greatest success came with A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), which won a Pulitzer Prize. Although his life was marked by personal disarray, mental stress, and drug addiction, he enjoyed long-term relationships with male companions, and continued to be productive. In 1968 he converted to Catholicism. His later plays include Summer and Smoke (1948), The Rose Tattoo (1950), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955, Pulitzer Prize), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and Night of the Iguana (1961). He also published two novels and a fair amount of poetry. Several of his plays were made into successful films, but his later works were not well received and he became disaffected from the New York professional theatre. His best work is distinguished by a poetry, intensity, and compassion that guarantee him a permanent place as a major artist-dramatist. He died by choking on the cap of a bottle of pills.

Information found at: http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9532952

Author Birthdays

March 25


Flannery O'Connor



Writer, born in Savannah, Georgia, USA. She studied at the University of Iowa, and was brought up a Roman Catholic in the Bible-belt of the Deep South. Wise Blood (1952), the first of her two novels, is a bizarre tragi-comedy, and its theme of vocation is taken up again in her second, The Violent Bear It Away (1960). Regarded as one of the finest short-story writers of her generation, her collections include A Good Man Is Hard To Find, and Other Stories (1955) and Everything That Rises Must Converge (1965). She was crippled for more than 10 years by lupus erythematosus, from which she died.

Information found at: http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9426760

Irish & Celtic Dancing

Monday, March 26, 2007
6:30 – 8:00 p.m., in the library

On March 26 the Hibernia School of Irish Dance and the North Texas Caledonian Pipe & Drum Band will be performing in the library (as they have the last few years). They will have a bagpipe player stationed outside the building prior to the show to help draw interest. My understanding is that they have 18 different dancers this year, most from the Southlake area, so it will probably be a pretty fast-paced show. This performance is suitable for all ages.

Bob Jones Nature Center Discovery Class “Spring Scavenger Hunt”

March 25th

3-4:30 pm

Class will look for signs of Spring in Bob Jones Park. Ages: 4-8. $10 per class per child. Class held at Bob Jones Day Camp Picnic Shelters, 3901 N. White Chapel Blvd. Register Online at http://southlake.recware.com/ or by mail or in person at Bicentennial Park Community Center, 400 North White Chapel Blvd., Southlake, Tx 76092. Questions? Call 817.748.8203

Southlake Saturday Nite “March Madness”

March 24
7:oo pm

Durham School, 801 Shady Oaks, 4th - 6th graders. Wear the gear of your favorite basketball team. Live DJ, dancing, 4-on-4 basketball, inflatables, prizes and more! Uniformed DPS officer will be on site. Concessions sold under $2. Registration online at http://southlake.recware.com/ until March 24 at 3:00 pm or in person at the Bicentennial Park Community Center, 400 North White Chapel until 4:00pm March 23. Pre-register for $7 per person.Space Limited to 500. 817.748.8203. Walk Up Registration is no longer available. Upcoming Southlake Saturday Nite Dates: April 28 and May 12.

Alive Mature Driving Course for Southlake Seniors

March 22 and 23
9am - 1pm

Course is 10 hours, divided into 2 sessions, to be held at the Senior Center. Cost: $10 Registration required. Sign up at the Southlake Senior Activities Center, 307 Parkwood Drive, 817.748.8398.

Author Birthdays

March 18

John Updike

Writer, poet, and critic, born in Shillington, Pennsylvania, USA. He studied at Harvard (1954 BA) and the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Arts, Oxford (1954–5), and though he would not develop his youthful talents as an artist, he never lost his interest in art. He worked on the staff of the New Yorker for two years (1955–7), and while maintaining his relationship with that periodical, over the years he became a highly successful novelist, short-story writer, poet, and essayist, eventually settling in Georgetown, MA. His first novel, The Poorhouse Fair (1957), initiated the critical dispute about his writing: some critics would praise his wit, style, use of language, and his affinity for the middle class and their spiritual and sexual angst; others complain about his plots, the sexual content of his work, and the alleged lack of substance. For most readers, he became associated with such popular works as The Witches of Eastwick (1989) and his contemporary American Everyman, Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstron in Rabbit Run (1960), Rabbit Redux (1971), Rabbit is Rich (1981), and Rabbit at Rest (1990). Later novels include Brazil (1994), Seek My Face (2003), and Terrorist (2006). Some readers and critics feel that The Centaur (1963), an early mythic novel about a teacher in a small town, is his best work. He is also admired for his many reviews and essays on a wide range of writers, artists, and cultural issues.

Information found at:http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9513636

Author Birthdays

March 17

Pearl S. Buck

Writer, born in Hillsboro, West Virginia, USA. She was raised among Chinese children by American missionary parents in Chinkiang, China, and apart from attending Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Virginia, lived in China until she was 40. In 1922 she began writing on Chinese life for American magazines. Her second novel, The Good Earth (1931), won the Pulitzer Prize. Still her best-known book, it sold two million copies, established her as the foremost Western interpreter of China, and gained her the Nobel Prize for Literature (1938). The literary establishment disdained her prolificness, sentimentality, and didacticism, and many of her 80 volumes of novels, translations, and memoirs quickly faded. Her Chinese fiction in particular lost its immediacy after her move to the USA (1935), but she engendered widespread sympathetic public awareness of China. She established the Pearl S Buck Foundation (1964) and sponsored humanitarian work on behalf of Asian-American and retarded children.

Information found athttp://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9230389

Senior Center Lunch Bunch

March 16th

Join the Lunch Bunch at La Scala’s Italian Restaurant in Westlake. Transportation will be provided. Sign up at the Southlake Senior Activities Center, 307 Parkwood Drive, 817.748.8398.

Robert Hodges Softball Benefit

Who: Robert Hodges Benefit- Will help offset medical expenses and help the family with any and all expenditures.


What: Joes’s Pizza and a Snow Cone Vendor will be onsite with proceeds going to the cause. Bring the family and come hungry. A silent auction will also be held with various sporting memorabilia available. Local professional sports figures will be signing autographs starting at 4:00 P.M., so come early. Donations are welcome!



When: March 18, 2007; Autograph Session Begins at 4:00 P.M.; Softball Game will Begin at around 5:00 P.M.



Where: Bob Jones Park at the softball fields.

MasterWorks Performance April 12th

7:00 pm

Tom McDermott will bring his blend original music, lively audience participation, and a variety of musical instruments with original and multi-cultural tales to the Library. Fun for the whole family!

Author Birthdays

March 12

Jack Kerouac

Writer, born in Lowell, Massachusetts, USA. He studied at Columbia University (1940–2), and served in the merchant marine (1942–3) and the navy (1943). Later he studied at the New School for Social Research (1948–9). He lived with his mother in Lowell, held a variety of jobs, and travelled throughout the USA and Mexico. The publication of On the Road (1957), a semi-autobiographical tale of his wanderings with Neal Cassady, instantly established his reputation as a spokesman for the Beat Generation. His friends, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs Jr, were strongly supportive when conservative critics of the day were upset by the subject matter of the book and by what Kerouac called his ‘spontaneous prose’. Although his new-found fame helped to promote his previously unpublished books, he was profoundly disturbed by his loss of privacy. He lost his gift for high-speed writing, drank heavily, and tried to escape his notoriety by living in California. His last major work, Big Sur (1962), described the price he paid for success, and he lived out his final years back in Lowell with his mother. An earlier play, Beat Generation, written in 1957 but shelved after several rejections, was rediscovered in a Jersey City warehouse in 2004. Published in 2005, the book details a day in the drink and drug-fuelled life of Kerouac's alter ego, Jack Duluoz.

Information found at http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9363719

Author Birthday

March 11

Douglas Adams

Writer, born in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, EC England, UK. He studied at Cambridge, then worked as a writer, producing material for radio and television shows, and also for stage revues. He is known for his humorous science fiction novels, especially The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979, originally a radio series, 1978, 1980, later televised). Later works include The Meaning of Liff (1984, with John Lloyd), Mostly Harmless (1992), The Illustrated Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1994), The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: the Primary Phase (1996), and The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: the Secondary Phase (1996). The Salmon of Doubt, a collection of unpublished pieces and fragments of an unfinished novel, was published posthumously in 2002.

Information found at http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9175766

Author Birthdays

March 10

James Herriot

Veterinary surgeon and writer, born in Glasgow, W Scotland, UK. Beginning in the 1970s, he brought the vet's world to the notice of the public with a number of best-selling books, such as It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet and Vet in a Spin, as well as several compilations and children's books. Feature films and television series made his work known all over the world, especially the television series All Creatures Great and Small (1977–80). The stories prompted a thriving tourist industry based on ‘Herriot country’, and transformed the public image of his profession, making veterinary medicine one of the most competitive university subjects. In 1992 he was the first recipient of the Chiron Award, created by the British Veterinary Association for exceptional service to the profession.

Information found at http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9336867

Southlake Sidewalk Plan

One of the key objectives of the Southlake 2025 Plan is to improve pedestrian access to the city’s major destinations. As a result, Southlake is in the process of developing a Sidewalk Plan to complement the city’s existing Trail Master Plan (known as the Southlake Pathways Plan). The Sidewalk Plan is intended to address the link between individual properties to the major trail network and to identify missing sidewalk links. The primary outcome of the Sidewalk Plan will be a priority list for sidewalk projects that are critical in pedestrian connectivity to neighborhoods, schools, parks, shopping, employment, and trails. This priority list will then be implemented through the city’s Capital Improvement Program.

Public comment is vital to this process which is why the city is holding a city wide SPIN meeting:

Date: Monday, March 12, 2007
Time: 7:30 P.M.
Location: 3rd Floor Training Rooms

The city is inviting all Southlake residents and businesses to attend this meeting to learn more about the Sidewalk Plan and to provide input.

For more information, please contact the Planning and Development Services Department at (817) 748-8069

Author Birthdays

March 6

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Writer, journalist. Born on March 6, 1928, in Aracataca, Colombia. Considered one of the leading Latino writers, García Márquez grew listening to numerous family tales, such as his grandfather's war stories and his parents' dating adventures. He published his first story while in college and then became a journalist.
García Márquez drew international acclaim for the novel Cien años de soledad (1967), which was later translated as One Hundred Years of Solitude. With this book, he is credited with helping to introduce the world to magical realism, a literary genre that combines facts and fantasy. Another one of his novels, El amor en los tiempos del cólera (1985), also drew a worldwide audience. The work, partially based on his parents' courtship, is also known by its English title, Love in the Time of Cholera.
In recent years, García Márquez has explored his own life in his work. His memoir Vivir para contaria (2002), published the next year as Living to Tell the Tale, received warm reviews and accolades from critics and fans. Throughout his career, García Márquez has won numerous awards and honors for his work, including the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Information found at http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=189132

Interview of Director Kerry McGeath

The North Texas Regional Library System sponsered an interview of our director Kerry McGeath about customer service in the library. Mr. McGeath discusses his customer service philosophy and shares the secret to the success of the Southlake Public Library. You can listen to the interview here.

New March Titles

Look for these titles coming out this month. Call 817-748-8243 to place a hold on your favorite today!

Nineteen Minutes

by Jodi Picoult

Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens -- until the day its complacency is shattered by a shocking act of violence. In the aftermath, the town's residents must not only seek justice in order to begin healing but also come to terms with the role they played in the tragedy. For them, the lines between truth and fiction, right and wrong, insider and outsider have been obscured forever. Josie Cormier, the teenage daughter of the judge sitting on the case, could be the state's best witness, but she can't remember what happened in front of her own eyes. And as the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show, destroying the closest of friendships and families.

Whitethorn Woods

By Maeve Binchy

When a new highway threatens to bypass the town of Rossmore and cut through Whitethorn Woods, everyone has a passionate opinion about whether the town will benefit or suffer. But young Father Flynn is most concerned with the fate of St. Ann’s Well, which is set at the edge of the woods and slated for destruction. People have been coming to St. Ann’s for generations to share their dreams and fears, and speak their prayers. Some believe it to be a place of true spiritual power, demanding protection; others think it’s a mere magnet for superstitions, easily sacrificed. Not knowing which faction to favor, Father Flynn listens to all those caught up in the conflict, and these are the voices we hear in the stories of Whitethorn Woods—men and women deciding between the traditions of the past and the promises of the future, ordinary people brought vividly to life by Binchy’s generosity and empathy, and in the vivacity and surprise of her storytelling.

Go Put Your Strengths to Work

by Marcus Buckingham

Beginning with the million-copy bestsellers First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham jump-started the strengths movement that is now sweeping the work world, from business to government to education. Now that the movement is in full swing, Buckingham's new book answers the ultimate question: How can you actually apply your strengths for maximum success at work?
Research data show that most people do not come close to making full use of their assets at work -- in fact, only 17 percent of the workforce believe they use all of their strengths on the job. Go Put Your Strengths to Work aims to change that through a six-step, six-week experience that will reveal the hidden dimensions of your strengths. Buckingham shows you how to seize control of your assets and rewrite your job description under the nose of

your boss.

Daddy’s Girl
by Lisa Scottoline

Scottoline introduces readers to another strong heroine as likable as Mary DiNunzio, Bennie Rosato, and Cate Fante. Nat Greco is a mild-mannered law school professor who finds her world spinning out of control after she agrees to an impromptu guest lecture at a local jail with a colleague. Within minutes of arrival, a riot locks down the jail, Nat's life is threatened, and her coworker is injured. She flees the classroom and encounters a grisly crime scene. After dispatching someone to her associate, she attempts CPR on a dying prison guard, who gives her a message for his wife. Nat's attempts to deliver the message ensnare her in a web of corruption, danger, and intrigue that threaten her reputation and her life.

Burning Bright
by Tracy Chevalier

Following the accidental death of their middle son, the Kellaways, a Dorsetshire chair maker and family, arrive in London's Lambeth district during the anti-Jacobin scare of 1792. Thomas Kellaway talks his way into set design work for the amiable circus impresario Philip Astley, whose fireworks displays provide the same rallying point that the guillotine is providing in Paris. Astley's libertine horseman son, John, sets his sights on Kellaway's daughter, Maisie (an attention she rather demurely returns). Meanwhile, youngest surviving Kellaway boy Jem falls for poor, sexy firebrand Maggie Butterfield. Blake, who imagined heaven and hell as equally incandescent and earth as the point where the two worlds converge, is portrayed as a murky Friar Laurence figure whose task is to bind and loosen the skeins of young love going on around him-that is, until a Royalist mob intrudes into his garden to sound out his rather advanced views on liberty, equality and fraternity.

Grace (Eventually): and Other Thoughts on Faith
by Anne Lamott

This third in a series (following Traveling Mercies and Plan B) records Lamott's attempts to live with grace. Now 20 years sober and the single mother of a 17-year-old son, the author shares 23 stories of her life, eight never before published. Covering everything from politics to child rearing to experiences teaching Sunday school, the essays are well written and heartfelt. Lamott is most effective when talking about her spiritual beliefs and how they developed over time. She gets her message across without being preachy, and she's never condescending, instead telling us what she did in certain situations and how it worked or didn't work.

Obsession
by Jonathan Kellerman

Patty Bigelow had struggled under the burden of raising her sister's abandoned eight-year-old daughter, Tanya, 15 years earlier, but was determined to bring stability to the child's life. At one point she even sought out advice from child psychologist Alex Delaware. After Patty died, Tanya was left with a deathbed confession of murder echoing in her mind. Now, 'she' was the one seeking out Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis to find clues to a crime that may or may not have been real.

Author Birthdays

March 2

Dr. Suess (Theodore Geisel)

Writer and illustrator of children's books, born in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA. He studied at Dartmouth College, NH, did postgraduate work at Oxford and the Sorbonne, worked as an illustrator and humorist for US periodicals, then became a writer and animator in Hollywood, settling in La Jolla, CA. He wrote the screenplay for the award-winning animated cartoon Gerald McBoing Boing (1950). His famous series of ‘Beginner Books’ started with The Cat in the Hat (1957) and Yertle the Turtle (1958). By 1970, 30 million copies had been sold in the USA, and Seuss had become synonymous with learning to read. His books for adults include You're Only Old Once! (1986) and Oh, the Places You'll Go! (1990).

Information found at http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9479638

John Irving

Writer, born in Exeter, New Hampshire, USA. He studied at the universities of New Hampshire (1965 BA), Iowa (1967 MFA), Pittsburgh (1961–2), and Vienna (Austria) (1963–4), and went on to teach at Mount Holyoke (1967–72), the University of Iowa (1972–5), and at Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Middlebury, VT. His first three novels received little attention, but he made his name with The World According To Garp (1978, filmed 1982). He is considered an inventive writer who combined elements of tragedy and antic comedy. He is also widely praised for several later novels, including The Hotel New Hampshire (1981, filmed 1984), The Cider House Rules (1985, filmed 1999, Oscar), A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989), A Widow for One Year (1998), and Until I Find You (2005). In 1999 appeared My Movie Business: A Memoir.

Information found at http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9350064

Author Birthday

March 1

Ralph Ellison

Writer. Born March 1, 1913 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He studied music at Tuskegee Institute before moving to New York City to study sculpture. A protégé of Richard Wright, whom he met in 1937, he wrote reviews, essays, and short stories.
Ellison spent seven years writing Invisible Man (1952, National Book Award), and although it was his only novel it gained him a place as a respected American writer and remains one of the central texts of the African-American experience. His other major work, Shadow and Act (1964), is a collection of his essays and interviews, and the short story, Flying Home, was published posthumously in 1996.
After teaching at various universities, he became the Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities at New York University (1970–9). He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969.

Information found at http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9286702