Springfield Library Corner
December 26, 2002

ELEANOR'S CHOICE: FUN AND USEFUL WEBSITES FOR THIS WEEK

Classical Music Pages at http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/classmus.html

Counted Cross Stitch, Needlework, and Stitchery Page at http://www.dnai.com/~kdyer/

Hogmanay Explained – Scottish New Year’s Eve at http://www.edinburghshogmanay.org/explained.cfm

Recipezaar at http://www.recipezaar.com/

Lily Net Page at http://camosun.bc.ca/~jbritton/netlil/lilynetpage.htm

St. Stephen and the Wren at http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/9314/stevewren.html

JOY'S PICKS

Beading is fun and easy with Sonal Bhatt’s “Totally Beads.” Follow the author’s straightforward directions and you’ll be creating original jewelry and hair accessories that all your friends will envy. This book is written for juvenile readers, but anyone interested in this craft can have a great time exploring these neat projects.

If you like to visit different restaurants and you’re interested in local history be sure to check out “Pennsylvania’s Historic Restaurants and their Recipes” by Dawn O’Brien. This is a delightfully informative journey into the past. These establishments have fascinating legends and some may even be inhabited by ghosts. And if you can’t actually eat in one of these places you can try out a recipe or two. This acquisition was a donation from one of our generous patrons. It was published in 1986, and includes the now defunct Old Original Bookbinders.

William Jordan explores the bond between humans and lesser species in “A Cat Named Darwin.” Four legged creatures have the ability to reveal our emotional skeletons. The author humorously recounts his love affair with the feline who unexpectedly enters his life. This story will delight all pet owners.

Do you think you’re a math whiz? Try to solve any or all of the seven puzzles in Keith Devlin’s “The Millennium Problems” and you may just find yourself a million dollars richer. The author compares the solution of these problems to competing in the Olympics. So get busy practicing and go for the gold!

The Rolling Stones have remained in the spotlight for forty years. “Rolling with the Stones” is band member Bill Wyman’s historical collection of facts, memories and photos that will delight rock and rollers of all generations. Those of you baby boomers who listened to the Stones in their early years will have a wonderfully nostalgic journey into your youth. You’re sure to learn some surprising stuff! And, as they say, if you lived through the sixties, you probably don’t remember them all that well.

NAT'S "YOU SAW IT HERE AT SPRINGFIELD FIRST"

Nat ends the year with a threesome of fact, fiction and something in between.

Are you doing business on the Internet? Better grab hold of “The GigaLaw Guide to Internet Law” and learn about copyright, trademark and patent issues. And while you’re at it, get a handle on all the other laws affecting cyberspace like the Children’s Internet Protection Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and now, the USA Patriot Act of 2001.

Jose Saramago won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. Reading “All the Names,” I thought, “here is Kafka’s and Garcia Marquez’s Portuguese cousin.” Expect his newest work, “The Cave” to lead you through unexpected passageways as you follow Cipriano Algor, an elderly potter who one day is told to stop delivering his pots (people want plastic these days) and then tries his hand at ceramic figurines…

“Caught in Fading Light: Mountain Lions, Zen Masters and Wild Nature” by Gary Thorp: the author hikes the hills of Northern California, and here he recounts his adventures and offers wide-ranging reflections, employing the Japanese literary diary style known as nikki bungaku. The narrowness of the book (the text is only about 3” wide) contributes to the flow of the reading experience.

LIBRARIAN'S PICK OF THE WEEK

“The Dead of the Night” by Catherine Hunter. On page one of this engrossing mystery, Sarah Petursson is reading one of the “Midnight Mystery Series” books that everyone else at Zina’s Mystery Au Lait Café is reading.

Hunter scares us, her real readers, by page three, as the room in which Sarah is reading suddenly goes black, which bodes well for the author. The problem is that the “Midnight Mystery Series” seems to be the catalyst for the murders of the members of the Au Lait book club, as one by one they are killed off.

Set in Winnipeg, this book has that cozy home-town feeling while giving us a good jolt of paranoid fear. Don’t read this alone at night!

Also new and recommended: “A Whistling Woman” by A.S. Byatt; “Wild Pitch” by Mike Lupica; “How to Be Alone” by Jonathan Franzen; “Underland” by Mick Farren; “Dead Aim” by Thomas Perry; “That Old Ace in the Hole” by Annie Proulx; “A Knife in the Back” by Bill Crider; “Crooked Heart” by Cristina Sumner; and “Fat Ollie’s Book” by Ed McBain.

New in nonfiction: “Guide to Wild Dinosaurs” by Adam Yates; “Yoga Rx” by Larry Payne; “Measuring America” by Andro Linklater; “Behind the Line” by Russell Miller; “Scotty” by John Stacks; “Samuel Pepys: the Unequalled Self” by Claire Tomalin; “Toni Morrison: Telling a Tale Untold” by James Haskins; “Poison” by Gail Bell; and “Mr. Bloomfield’s Orchard” by Nicholas Money.