As gas prices rise and water levels dwindle, prepare for (a possibly
sweltering) Summer with this great interactive resource suggested by the
staff at our South Novato Library:
Water
Wise Gardening: Marin & Sonoma Counties, a CD-ROM developed by
the Marin Municipal Water District, has been surprisingly popular with
our patrons. Chock-full of helpful information on gardening with water
wise plants specifically for Marin, it includes an extensive garden design
section as well as over 1,000 recommended varieties of water wise plants
such as groundcovers, shrubs and trees.
The Marin Tenants Organizing Project has posted on its website
the library resource list, Exploring
Tenants’ Rights at the Civic Center Library. This great pathfinder
is chock full of useful print resources (including links to ebook versions
for immediate online access) and valuable websites to educate and empower
both tenants and landlords.
As Library Director, I recently made the decision to
take some additional time to study the funding measure for our Services
& Facilities Vision Plan because it had become apparent that it was unreasonable
to expect to be able to do a good job of preparing for a November 2008 ballot.
I am extremely grateful to the more than 1,500 community members and volunteers
who have participated to date in the discussion and design of our vision
plan.
This plan details the facility needs
of our 4 large regional libraries and 7 branches and includes more than
$135 million in necessary improvements. While the need for improvements
to our facilities has not changed over the two years that we have been developing
this plan, the political realities and the available financing alternatives
have taken some rather drastic twists and turns. We want to get it right,
to take our time, do our due diligence and ensure we can get our communities
the libraries they want and need. I’ll be meeting with our Library
supporters and advisors and together we will determine how to craft a measure
which gives us the best chance of success in a future election.
Marin County Free Library's Summer
Reading Program for children and teens will begin in mid-June. For children
3 years of age to those entering 5th grade, "Catch
the Reading Bug" is the name of the game. For teens who want to
transform themselves through reading, it's "Metamorphosis
@ Your Library". Wonderful performers and great reading-incentive
prizes are planned. All activities are free.
Parents
may be interest to know that research
supports the positive benefits of summer reading, as children who read for
pleasure over the summer are more likely to retain their reading skills and continue
to build their vocabulary.
Share the fun of reading with someone you love this summer - visit your local
Marin County Free Library branch to learn more about summer reading, scheduled
events and activities. Make sure you have a library card, then fly on over
after the last day of school, join the fun and bee sure to read!
Planning your vacation? If your vacation includes taking along some good reading,
consider a quick trip to the Book Place for your reading needs. Save a bundle
on books (and put that money toward souvenirs!) For those of you not able to
get away, consider our Travel section for planning that someday vacation, or
for a bit of armchair traveling. We have a section on local Northern California
getaways for those gas-saving trips as well.
Stock up on reads for the kids too--make books a part of their summer vacation.
Our store hours are Tues/Thurs/Sat 10-4, Wed and Sun Noon-4, and Friday 10-7;
we're closed Monday. For more information about the Friends
and The Book Place, visit our website: http://marinlibraryfriends.marin.org.
BRANCH
EVENTS
The Marin County Free Library hosts a wide variety of cultural and educational
branches responsive to the needs in our communities. In addition to special
events for adults, teens, and kids, the Library hosts regular book clubs,
storytimes, bilingual and Spanish language events. For further information
about specific Library
Events and Classes please visit our branch
event webpage or our online
calendar for a complete listing.
HOURS
and LOCATIONS
Marin County Free Library branches are located throughout East and West
Marin. Open days and hours of operation vary by branch. With 11 locations
to choose from as well as 24/7 access
on our website to reference
assistance, the online
catalog, databases,
and eBooks
you'll never be far from the information you need.
COMPUTER
AND INTERNET CLASSES
The Marin County Free Library offers classes and one-to-one tutoring in
computer basics, the Internet, e-mail, the Library’s online resources, Microsoft
Word, Excel, and more. Please check
our website for times, locations, and registration information.
BOOKCLUBS
Marin County Free Library branches host a wide variety of monthly reading
groups. Club members meet each month for a lively discussion about a particular
book or theme. Please check
our bookclub listing for locations, times, selections, and contact information.
STORYTIMES
The Marin County Free Library offers storytimes at each of the branches
for children in various age groups. Please check
our Storytimes page for times and ages.
BOOKMOBILE
The Marin County Free Library Bookmobile visits geographically isolated
communities throughout the County. Most stops are made twice within a four-week
period each month. Copies of the Bookmobile schedule are available at all
County Library branches and on the Bookmobile’s
webpage.
Place your request
early and be one of the first to check out these new releases. More
fiction and non-fiction previews are available through BookLetters.
Each of our BookLetters
listings provides links to our online catalog, so you can check availability and
easily request materials be delivered to your local branch library. You can also
subscribe to one or more of these lists and have updated information send to you
via email
or RSS feed.
Cletus Frade, a Marine pilot recruited by the OSS, investigates two interwoven German operations--the first to buy passage for Jews to Argentina and Uruguay from concentration camps, and the second to find out where the money is going.
...More
The Downhill Lie: A Hacker's Return to a Ruinous Sport
By Hiaasen, Carl 2008/05 -
Knopf Publishing Group
9780307266538
Check Our Catalog
Hiaasen's chronicle of his shaky return to the bedeviling pastime of golf--culminating with the savage 45-hole tournament--will have readers rolling with laughter in this extraordinary book for the ordinary hacker.
...More
From the author of the New York Times bestseller and Oprah's Book Club selection House of Sand and Fog comes a new painful, page-turning novel that seizes the reader by the throat.
...More
Have a suggestion for a title that you think the library should purchase? You can offer your suggestion via the form on the MARINet website at http://marinet.lib.ca.us/acquire.
Bestsellers
Here's a selection of recent Best Sellers, as published
by the New York Times. More best selling fiction and non-fiction titles
are available through BookLetters.
Each of our BookLetters
listings provides links to our online catalog, so you can check availability and
easily request materials be delivered to your local branch library. You can also
subscribe to one or more of these lists and have updated information send to you
via email
or RSS feed.
In this terrifying thriller with a global backdrop, the characters' lives collide head-on as a series of events is set in motion that could change the world. The Whole Truth delivers all the twists and turns, drama, and quick pacing that David Baldacci fans expect.
...More
The most important woman in the history of television journalism offers this memoir that is heartbreaking and inspiring, surprising and fun, sometimes startling, and always riveting.
...More
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lahiri delivers eight dazzling stories that take readers from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they explore the secrets at the heart of family life.
...More
Have a suggestion for a title that you think the library should purchase? You
can offer your suggestion via the form on the MARINet website at http://marinet.lib.ca.us/acquire.
New Audio Books
The following are selected audio book titles from our collection. More
recorded book selections are available through BookLetters.
Each of our BookLetters
listings provides links to our online catalog, so you can check availability and
easily request materials be delivered to your local branch library. You can also
subscribe to one or more of these lists and have updated information send to you
via email
or RSS feed.
A complete list of the MARINet libraries' audio CD & cassette holdings
is available online via a quick
search.
BookPage Notable Title In his first legal thriller since 2005s The Broker, New York Times bestselling author Grisham returns to familiar ground. In most states in America, justice is for sale--and only the rich can afford it.
...More
Unabridged. 7 CDs. America's #1 bestselling author,
James Patterson, delivers a magical story in which a woman falls in love
with her imaginary friend. ...More
BookPage Notable Title Lucas Davenport has had disturbing cases before, but never one quite like this. Filled with his brilliant trademark suspense, Phantom Prey is the shocking new novel from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author. Unabridged. 10 CDs.
...More
Have a suggestion for a title that you think the library should purchase? You can offer your suggestion via the form on the MARINet website at http://marinet.lib.ca.us/acquire.
Award Winners
"When William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for literature
in 1950, he gave a speech memorable for its insistence on the survival of all
that is noble in the human spirit, especially the talent and inspiration of the
writer. Then he gave away the prize money to establish a fund to support and encourage
new fiction writers. The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is the successor to William
Faulkner's generosity. It is an award designed to be independent of the demands
of the publishing industry, free from all constraints of sales and marketing,
free to flow from the judgment of a writer's peers." -- penfaulkner.org.
A complete listing of PEN/Faulkner
and other Award Winners are available through BookLetters.
Each of our BookLetters
listings provides links to our online catalog, so you can check availability
and easily request materials be delivered to your local branch library. You can
also subscribe to one or more of these lists and have updated information send
to you via email
or RSS
feed.
Winner - 2007 Pen/Faulkner Award BookPage Notable Title The bestselling author of "The Plot Against America" now turns his attention to one man's lifelong confrontation with mortality. From his first glimpse of death during his childhood through his vigorous, seemingly invincible prime, Roth's hero is a man bewildered not only by his own decline but by the unimaginable deaths of his contemporaries and those he has loved.
...More
Winner - 2006 Pen/Faulkner Award BookPage Notable Title In the last years of the Civil War, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman marched 60,000 Union troops through Georgia and the Carolinas, cutting a 60-mile wide swath of pillage and destruction. That event comes back in this magisterial novel.
...More
Winner - 2005 Pen/Faulkner Award A BookPage Notable Title From the National Book Award-winning author of "Waiting, here is his most ambitious work to date; a powerful, unflinching novel that opens a window on an unknown aspect of a little-known war--the experiences of Chinese POWs held by Americans during the Korean conflict--and paints an intimate story against a sweeping canvas of confrontation. Set in 1951 and based on historical accounts, "War Trash takes the form of the memoir of Yu Yuan, a young Chinese army officer, a "volunteer" fighting unofficially in Korea when he is captured. Yu's fluency in English thrusts him into the role of unofficial interpreter in the psychological warfare--between the prisoners and their captors and between rival groups of prisoners--that defines the world of the POW camp. Yu's only
...More
Have a suggestion for a title that you think the library should purchase? You
can offer your suggestion via the form on the MARINet website at http://marinet.lib.ca.us/acquire.
Kids Corner
The Seer of Shadows
By Avi 2008/04 -
HarperCollins
9780060000158
Check Our Catalog
BookPage Notable Title Horace, apprenticed to a shady photographer in New York City in 1872, is placed in an awkward position when his employer decides to take advantage of a wealthy lady who tells them that her daughter has recently died.
...More
Snow Falling in Spring: Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution
By Li, Moying 2008/03 -
Farrar Straus Giroux
9780374399221
Check Our Catalog
BookPage Notable Title
This inspiring memoir follows Moying Li from age 12 to 22, illuminating
a complex, dark time in China's history as it tells the compelling story
of one girl's difficult but determined coming-of-age during the Cultural
Revolution. Farrar, Straus & Giroux ...More
The book introduces in simple text and illustrations the characteristics and habits of a variety of dinosaurs.
...More
Have a suggestion for a title that you think the library should purchase? You
can offer your suggestion via the form on the MARINet website at http://marinet.lib.ca.us/acquire.
New DVDs
The following DVD titles have recently been added to our collection. Complete
lists of the MARINet libraries' DVD and video holdings are available online via
a quick search.
You can also browse our BookLetters Movie Database for descriptions and video
clips of hundreds of new releases and favorite classics. Each of our BookLetters
listings provides links to our online catalog, so you can check availability and
easily request materials be delivered to your local branch library.
National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets
Treasure hunter Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicholas Cage) looks to discover
the truth behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, by uncovering the
mystery within the 18 pages missing from assassin John Wilkes Booth's diary.
Great Debaters
Melvin B. Tolson is a professor at Wiley College in Texas. Wiley is a small
African-American college. In 1935, Tolson inspired students to form the
school's first debate team. Tolson turns a group of underdog students into
a historically elite debate team which goes on to challenge Harvard in the
national championship. Inspired by a true story.
Sustainable Table
What's on your plate? Where does it come from? What effects does it have
on the environment and your body? What can you do to help? There are many
questions about the sustainability of our current agricultural practices.
This film tries to find some of the answers to problems that we face today
and will face tomorrow.
September Dawn
Takes an up-close look at the devastation wrought by religious fanaticism
and set against the backdrop of the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre. As a
wagon train of westward-bound settlers makes its way across southern Utah,
a confrontation with a congregation of Mormons soon leads to deadly consequences
for all involved. Centered on the massacre, which continues to stir controversy
over a century and a half after the fact.
Charlie Wilson's War
In the early 1980s, Charlie Wilson is best known as a womanizing US congressional representative from Texas. He seemed to be in the minor leagues, except for the fact that he is a member of two major foreign policy and covert-ops committees. However, once Charlie is prodded by his major conservative supporter, Joanne Herring, Wilson learns about the plight of the people who are suffering from the effects of the brutal Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. With the help of the maverick CIA agent, Gust Avrakotos, Wilson dedicates his canny political efforts to supply the Afghan mujahideen with the weapons and support needed to defeat the Soviet Union. Ultimately, Charlie learns that while military victory can be obtained, there are other consequences and prices to that fight that are ignored to everyone's sorrow. Based on a true story.
Starting Out the Evening
Battling illness and unable to finish a novel that has taken him ten years
to write, aging novelist Leonard Schiller is slipping into literary obscurity.
At one time a famous author, Schiller has been all but forgotten by the
readers, colleagues and critics who once praised his works. When Heather
Wolfe, an ambitious graduate student, convinces Schiller that her thesis
could reintroduce his writing to the world, the reclusive writer is forced
to confront his past regrets.
Lust, Caution
Set against the backdrop of Japanese occupied Shanghai in 1942, a young
woman finds herself swept up in a radical plot to assassinate a ruthless
and secretive intelligence agent. As she immerses herself in her role as
a cosmopolitan seductress, she becomes entangled in a dangerous game of
emotional intrigue, love and betrayal. In Mandarin, with English, French,
or Spanish subtitles.
Bucket List
Corpprate billionaire Edward Cole and working class mechanic Carter Chambers
have nothing in common except for their terminal illnesses. While sharing
a hospital room together, they decide to leave it and do all the things
they have ever wanted.
Rendition
The policy of "extraordinary rendition" began under the Clinton
administration and accelerated after September 11, 2001. The policy allows
for the handing over of suspected terrorists to countries that use torture
as an interrogation tool. Anwar El-Ibrahimi is an Egyptian-born man who
disappears on a flight from Africa to Washington, DC. He is sent to a North
African country where torture is practiced and the CIA gives approval. Anwar's
pregnant American-born wife wants to know what happened to her husband.
A reluctant CIA agent begins to question his assignment after witnessing
an unorthodox interrogation. A severe interrogator plies his trade on Anwar
while a U.S. terrorism honcho is willing to turn a blind eye to the unpleasantness,
especially if it stops a terrorist attack.
Sita, a girl from Jambu Bichari Sita
Sita, a beautiful young girl who lives in a remote village in Nepal, has
fallen in love with Sushil, a rickshaw driver. But when her marriage arrangement
falters, she meets a stranger who promises her a new life in the city. Sita
is faced with a choice that will changer her life forever.
Derailed
Charles is a financially successful Chicago advertising director with a
sick daughter and a slightly troubled marriage. Charles has a chance encounter
with Lucinda, a lovely and quick-witted financial advisor who is also stuck
in marital rut. Their chemistry is instant, but their eventual one-night-stand
is interrupted by a mugger, who is out to milk Charles for every dollar
he's got.
We Own the Night
New York City, November 1988. Bobby Green is the manager of a Russian nightclub
owned by Marat Buzhayev. The club is frequented by gangsters like Buzhayev's
nephew Vadim. Despite Bobby's hedonistic and amoral lifestyle, he is committed
to his girlfriend Amada. Bobby has a secret, however, which he guards closely.
His brother is Police Captain Joseph Grusinsky and his father, Bert, is
a legendary Deputy Chief. Bobby's strained relationship with his father
and brother is tested when Bert warns his son that the police mean to clean
up the drugs and Bobby will have to have to choose a side. After Joseph
is badly wounded in an assassination attempt, Bobby finds that he can no
longer remain neutral. When he discovers his father could be next, Bobby
realizes they will only be safe when Nezhinski and his organization are
destroyed, so Bobby and Joseph join forces for an all-out assault.
Reservation Road
Two fathers are forced to live with the same tragedy in two very different ways after an incident that involves them both on the same road.
The Clinton 12
"Narrated by award-winning actor James Earl Jones, The Clinton 12 tells
the compelling story of the integration of the first public high school
in the South as a result of the Brown vs. the Board of Education decision
by the US Supreme Court. The title refers to the 12 black teenagers who,
in the fall of 1956, were forced to attend the all white high school in
Clinton, Tennessee"--Container
King Corn
Fueled by curiosity and a dash of naiveté, college buddies Ian Cheney
and Curt Ellis return to their ancestral home of Greene, Iowa, to find out
how the modest corn kernel conquered America. With the help of real farmers,
powerful fertilizer, government aid, and genetically modified seeds, the
friends manage to grow one acre of corn. Along the way, they unlock the
hidden truths about America's modern food system.
I'm Not There
Six characters recreate different stages in Bob Dylan's career, from Greenwich
Village folk singer to electric guitar trailblazer to born-again preacher.
Golden Compass
In a wondrous parallel world where witches soar the skies and Ice Bears rule the frozen North, one special girl is destined to hold the fate of the universe in her hands. When Lyra Belacqua becomes the keeper of the Golden Compass, she discovers that her world and all those beyond are threatened by the secret plans of Ms. Coulter. With the help of Lord Asriel and a group of unlikely allies ready to stand at her side, Lyra embarks on an extraordinary quest that celebrates friendship and courage against all odds.
Children of the Sun
Follows the lives of people brought up in the Kibbutzim in 1920s and 30s
Israel, a social experiment to create a new and improved human. In this
society, traditional family was replaced by the collective, the individual's
will was subjugated to the common good and everyone was equal.
The Orphanage
Laura decides to purchase her beloved childhood orphanage with dreams of
restoring and reopening the long abandoned facility as a place for disabled
children. The new environment awakens the imagination of Laura's son. His
ongoing fantasy games played with an invisible friend quickly turn into
something more disturbing. Upon seeing her family increasingly threatened
by the strange occurrences in the house, Laura looks to a group of parapsychologists
for help in unraveling the mystery that has taken over the place.
The Savages
Jon and Wendy Savage are two siblings who have spent their adult years trying
to recover from their abusive father, Lenny. Suddenly, a call comes in that
Lenny's girlfriend has died and he cannot care for himself. Lenny suffers
from dementia and her family dumps Lenny on his children. Despite the fact
Jon and Wendy have not spoken to Lenny for twenty years and he is even more
loathsome than ever, the Savage siblings feel obliged to take care of him.
Now together, brother and sister must come to terms with the new and painful
responsibilities with their father. The siblings are forced to face the
struggle with their now personal demons.
Have a suggestion for a title that you think the library should purchase? You can offer your suggestion via the form on the MARINet website at http://marinet.lib.ca.us/acquire.
Looking for bestsellers, fiction, non-fiction, mysteries or audio books? Check
out some of our most popular recommendations on BookLetters.
You can also subscribe to one or more book
lists and have updated information send to you via email
or RSS
feed. E-Connect publication
E-Connect is an online publication distributed monthly by the Marin County Free Library.
Contact: Library@co.marin.ca.us
