New DVDs at the Merrick Library

"My Dog Tulip" - The acclaimed animated memoir of a man and his German shepherd - features the voices of Christopher Plummer, Isabella Rossellini and the late Lynn Redgrave

"Ironclad" - Knights struggle to the death against King John in the era of Magna Carta - stars Paul Giamatti, James Purefoy and Derek Jacobi

"Trust" - A family is ripped apart by the father's determination to find his daughter's attacker - stars Clive Owen and Catherine Keener

"Source Code" - How often must a time traveler relive a tragedy to prevent a greater one? - stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan and Vera Farmiga

Tom Cruise is Jack Reacher

It has been confirmed that Tom Cruise has been cast as Jack Reacher, the character in Lee Child's his popular series, in the upcoming film production of One Shot.

Many fans are concerned with this choice, since Jack Reacher is described as a 6'5" 220lb menacing force to be reckoned with. Lee Child thinks that Tom Cruise's global stardom will make up for the lacking physical similarities. Opinions?

New DVD Arrivals

"Arthur" - A modern remake of the classic 1981 comedy, starring Russell Brand, Jennifer Garner and Helen Mirren

"Limitless" - A thriller concerning the price of having it all, starring Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish and Robert DeNiro

"Potiche" - from France - A comedy about finding hidden potential under one's own roof, starring Cathering Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu

"Take Me Home Tonight" - A comedy that deals with surviving the quest for the object of one's dreams, starring Topher Grace and Anna Faris

Books into Movies!

The First Avenger: Captain America
Cast: Chris Evans, Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving, Dominic Cooper, Neal McDonough, Derek Luke, Stanley Tucci, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Kenneth Choi
Director: Joe Johnston
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
MPAA Rating: Not yet rated
Release Date: July 22nd (wide)
Based On: Captain America, the Marvel Comics series by Ed Brubaker

Steve Rogers volunteers to participate in an experimental program that
turns him into the Super Soldier known as Captain America. As Captain
America, Rogers joins forces with Bucky Barnes and Peggy Carter to
wage war on the evil HYDRA organization, led by the villainous Red
Skull.

Sarah's Key
Cast: Kristin Scott Thomas, Niels Astrup, Melusine Mayance, Frédéric Pierrot, Michel Duchaussoy
Director: Gilles Paquet-Brenner
Distributor: The Weinstein Company
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Release Date: July 22nd (limited)
Based On: SARAH'S KEY by Tatiana de Rosnay

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a 10-year old girl, is taken with her parents
by the French police as they go door-to-door arresting Jewish families
in the middle of the night. Desperate to protect her younger brother,
Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard --- their secret hiding place
--- and promises to come back for him as soon as they are released.
Sixty-seven years later: Sarah's story intertwines with that of Julia
Jarmond, an American journalist investigating the roundup. In her
research, Julia stumbles onto a trail of secrets that link her to
Sarah, and to questions about her own romantic future.

Share Your Vision for NYS Libraries!!

Click on the image to take a short survey and share your 2020 vision for libraries with the Regents Advisory Council on Libraries

New Audiobook Arrivals!!

When her husband swindles his billionaire clients, Meredith Martin Delinn loses not only her home, but her friends and reputation as well. About to lose her house, Meredith is offered a lifeline from her old friend Connie, who proposes the two of them spend the summer in Nantucket to unwind and heal emotionally. As both women tend to their emotional traumas, they slowly learn to live again.




Jack, terminally ill and preparing to say goodbye to his family, has a miraculous recovery after his wife is killed in a car accident and struggles to reunite his family at her childhood home on the South Carolina oceanfront.







When a corpse is found swinging from the marble angel in her family's cemetery, heiress Ashley Donegal turns to an elite team of paranormal investigators to find the truth and must risk everything to unravel family secrets with the help of Jack Mallory, a gifted New Orleans musician with a special ability.






A famous lifestyle arbiter and her shy chef daughter have their lives profoundly transformed on the eve of their 60th and 30th birthdays when a chance encounter in an elevator and a holiday weekend indiscretion lead to new chances at love.







Hoping to set up his own spy operation in his Boston home town, Nick Heller is contacted by a desperate family friend to rescue his kidnapped daughter, whose terrifying incarceration in an underground crypt is being broadcast on the Internet.

Featured Staff Picks!

On the day she was abducted, Annie O'Sullivan, a thirty-two year old realtor, had three goals--sell a house, forget about a recent argument with her mother, and be on time for dinner with her ever- patient boyfriend. The open house is slow, but when her last visitor pulls up in a van as she's about to leave, Annie thinks it just might be her lucky day after all. Interwoven with the story of the year Annie spent as the captive of psychopath in a remote mountain cabin, which unfolds through sessions with her psychiatrist, is a second narrative recounting events following her escape--her struggle to piece her shattered life back together and the ongoing police investigation into the identity of her captor.

The truth doesn't always set you free.
Still Missing is that rare debut find--a shocking, visceral, brutal and beautifully crafted debut novel.



When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, she quickly begins a secret double life: exceptional schoolgirl during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker in the evenings. Disguising the more difficult truths of her life-like the staggering degree of her poverty, the weight of her family's future resting on her shoulders, or her secret love for a factory boy who shares none of her talent or ambition-Kimberly learns to constantly translate not just her language but herself back and forth between the worlds she straddles.

Through Kimberly's story, author Jean Kwok, who also emigrated from Hong Kong as a young girl, brings to the page the lives of countless immigrants who are caught between the pressure to succeed in America, their duty to their family, and their own personal desires, exposing a world that we rarely hear about. Written in an indelible voice that dramatizes the tensions of an immigrant girl growing up between two cultures, surrounded by a language and world only half understood, Girl in Translation is an unforgettable and classic novel of an American immigrant-a moving tale of hardship and triumph, heartbreak and love, and all that gets lost in translation.

Book Signing!

BERNIE WILLIAMS
Friday, July 29th, 7pm @ the Book Revue in Huntington
Former New York Yankee, BERNIE WILLIAMS, will sign his new book Rhythms of the Game.

Bernie Williams' ability to play major league baseball at a high level
was directly influenced by his musical training and his deep
understanding of the similarities between musical artistry and
athletic performance. Through a series of conversations, narratives,
and sidebars, Bernie Williams discovers and reveals the influence of
music and its rhythms on the game of baseball. Readers of Rhythms of
the Game will gain an insight into the similarities between musical
artistry and athletic performance. The book is written for musicians
and athletes looking to improve their level of performance on the
stage or on the field, as well as for a general audience interested in
gaining a deeper understanding of the underlying influence of music on
the game of baseball.

New DVD Arrivals!

"Downton Abbey" - developing drama of the wealthy Crawley family of 1912 England and their household staff - as seen on the PBS series "Masterpiece Classic" - stars Elizabeth McGovern, Hugh Bonneville and Maggie Smith

"Upstairs, Downstairs" - it's a new family and servants that brings Rose Buck back to 165 Eaton Place - update of the time-honored 1970s series recently seen on "Masterpiece Classic" - stars Jean Marsh, Eileen Atkins and Keeley Hawes

"The Lincoln Lawyer" - drama of manipulation and legality based on the best selling novel by Michael Connelly - stars Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei and Ryan Philippe

"Miral" - drama set amidst the conflict and violence of past and present day Palestine - stars Willem Dafoe, Frieda Pinto and Vanessa Redgrave

"Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" - from Thailand - a man facing death finds recalling his past not so straight forward - winner of the Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival

Amazon Posts the Best Books of 2011 (So Far)

Looking for a great new book recommendation?

Amazon is boasting the "best of 2011...so far".

There are several non-fiction titles on this list that are on our Staff Picks list including:
Bossypants - Former SNL writer Tina Fey's hilarious memoir
Lost in Shangri-La - A true survival story of WWII
In the Garden of Beasts - The thrilling true account of the daughter of America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany

Exploring ‘The Worlds of Maurice Sendak’

The Westhampton Free Library is hosting the exhibit "In a Nutshell: The Worlds of Maurice Sendak." The national traveling exhibition opens at the Westhampton Free Library on Friday, July 8, and will be on exhibit through Aug. 18.

Maurice Sendak is best known as the illustrator of more than 100 picture books, including “Where the Wild Things Are.” He was born to Polish immigrants in Brooklyn in 1928, and his childhood was typically American in a number of ways. At the same time, he became fascinated as a child with the worn black-and-white photographs of his European relatives, and the influence of both of these worlds — the threads of Jewish family, geography, and culture — can be seen in his imaginative works.

“In a Nutshell” was organized by the Rosenbach Museum & Library,
Philadelphia, and developed by Nextbook, Inc., a nonprofit organization
dedicated to supporting Jewish literature, culture and ideas, and the American Library Association Public Programs Office. The national tour of the exhibit has been made possible by grants from the Charles H. Revson Foundation, the Righteous Persons Foundation, the David Berg Foundation, and an anonymous donor, with additional support from Tablet Magazine: A New Read on Jewish Life.

Contact the Westhampton Free Library for more information.

Featured Staff Picks of the Week!

The acclaimed author of the Kurt Wallander mysteries, writing at the height of his powers, now gives us an electrifying stand-alone global thriller.

January 2006. In the Swedish hamlet of Hesjövallen, nineteen people have been massacred. The only clue is a red ribbon found at the scene.

Judge Birgitta Roslin has particular reason to be shocked: Her grandparents, the Andréns, are among the victims, and Birgitta soon learns that an Andrén family in Nevada has also been murdered. She then discovers the nineteenth-century diary of an Andrén ancestor—a gang master on the American transcontinental railway—that describes brutal treatment of Chinese slave workers. The police insist that only a lunatic could have committed the Hesjövallen murders, but Birgitta is determined to uncover what she now suspects is a more complicated truth.

The investigation leads to the highest echelons of power in present-day Beijing, and to Zimbabwe and Mozambique. But the narrative also takes us back 150 years into the depths of the slave trade between China and the United States—a history that will ensnare Birgitta as she draws ever closer to solving the Hesjövallen murders.




In the fishing community of Fjallbacka, life is remote, peaceful, and for some, tragically short. Foul play was always suspected in the disappearance twenty years ago of two young campers, but their bodies were never found. But now, a young boy out playing has confirmed the grim truth. Their remains are discovered alongside those of a fresh victim, sending the tiny town into shock. Local detective Patrik Hedstrom, expecting a baby with his girlfriend Erica, can only imagine what it is like to lose a child. When a second young girl goes missing, Hedstrom's attention focuses on the Hults, a feuding clan of misfits, religious fanatics and criminals. The suspect list is long but time is short-which of this family's dark secrets will provide the vital clue?

Romance Awards

The winners are in for the 2011 RITA® and Golden Heart® Awards given by the Romance Writers of America.

New DVDs out this week!

"The Land Girls: Series 2" - The continuing story of a group of women farmers in World War Two England, starring Nathaniel Parker

"Of Gods and Men" - Trappist monks in 1990s Algeria must either flee or face Muslim terrorists, a Grand Jury Prize winner at Cannes Film Festival!

New DVD arrivals

"Arthur" - a modern remake of the classic 1981 comedy, starring Russell Brand, Jennifer Garner and Helen Mirren

"Limitless" - a thriller concerning the price of having it all - starring Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish and Robert DeNiro

"Potiche" - from France, a comedy about finding hidden potential under one's own roof, starring Cathering Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu

"Take Me Home Tonight" - a comedy that deals with surviving the quest for the object of one's dreams, starring Topher Grace and Anna Faris