New DVDs for the New Year!

Out January 3:

"The Guard" - where international crimefighting meets "The Odd Couple!" - stars Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle ("Iron Man 2")

"The Hangover Part II" - trust this group of friends to complicate a wedding, even in Thailand! - stars Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifanakis and Ed Helms (TV's "The Office")

"I Don't Know How She Does It" - promotion and temptation takes a marriage of professionals to the limit - stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Greg Kinnear and Pierce Brosnan

"Mildred Pierce" - the Emmy-winning HBO miniseries based on the provocative novel by James M. Cain and starring Kate Winslet, Evan Rachel Wood and Guy Pearce

"Puncture" - can a contaminated needle cause a local team of personal injury lawyers the famous mounting odds? - stars Chris Evans, Brett Cullen and Michael Biehn

Reader's Circle

Are you looking to start or join a book club? Welcome! This is a book club networking site with listings for local groups, author events, and phone chats. Check out the link on our Reader's Advisory Blog!

Book Club In A BAG

Welcome to the Merrick Library's Book Club in A Bag Program. Each bag contains 10 copies of a title, discussion information, discussion leader tips, and a book sign up sheet to help the leader keep track of the books. The Reference Department has been very busy gathering multiple copies of several titles for your discussion groups. You will be able to check them out as one complete kit. Also included will be everything you need to lead your group; author biographies, discussion questions, critical material and more! All of the work has already been done for you. All you need are some interested readers, some snacks, great conversation, and you are good to go! Please call the Reference Desk for more information. (516) 377-6112 x112 or x113.

New DVD Arrivals!

"Apollo 18" - ever wonder why we never went back to the moon? Here's one possible explanation - stars Warren Christie and Lloyd Owen

"The First Grader" - based on the true story of a venerable Kenyan who proves it is never too late to get an education - stars Naomie Harris and Sam Feuer

Books on the Big Screen!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
20 December 2011 (USA)

Journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Craig) is aided in his search for a woman
who has been missing for forty years by Lisbeth Salander (Mara), a
young computer hacker.

Director: David Fincher
Writers: Steven Zaillian (screenplay), Stieg Larsson (novel)
Stars:Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara and Stellan Skarsgård

New DVD Arrivals!

Out December 20:

"Glee: The Concert Movie" - the phenomenally talented cast of Fox's megahit series in performance - includes Dianna Agron, Cory Monteith and Lea Michele

"Margin Call" - an investment firm faces possible disaster in the face of 2008's financial meltdown - stars Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany and Demi Moore

"Midnight in Paris" - an engaged couple find they have life options - directed by Woody Allen and starring Rachel McAdams and Owen Wilson

"Straw Dogs" - newlyweds seeking peace in a Southern town find anyhing but solace - remake of the 1971 Sam Peckinpah classic and starring James Marsden, Kate Bosworth and James Woods

"The Tempest" - retelling of Shakespeare's final play concerning magic and revenge - stars Helen Mirren, Alfred Molina and Russell Brand

"Warrior" - enter the world of mixed martial arts and how it divides and then unites a family - stars Joel Edgerton, Nick Nolte and Jennifer Morrison

Booklist's Top 10 Health and Wellness Books

Alzheimer’s in America: The Shriver Report on Women and Alzheimer’s. By Maria Shriver and the Alzheimer’s Association.
Peabody Award–winning journalist Shriver presents a comprehensive, heartbreaking account of what it’s like to be an Alzheimer’s patient or caregiver in the U.S. today.

Beautiful Unbroken: One Nurse’s Life. By Mary Jane Nealon.
A poet and a nurse, Nealon draws on her passion for words and preternatural “way” with patients to create an extraordinarily graceful medical memoir and song to caregiving.

Becoming Dr. Q: My Journey from Migrant Farm Worker to Brain Surgeon. By Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa and Mim Eichler Rivas.
As a teenager in Mexico, Quiñones-Hinojosa was determined to pursue a better life in the U.S., never imagining that he would become a neurosurgeon, professor, and brain-cancer research scientist.

Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do about It. By Paul R. Epstein and Dan Ferber.
Health and global environment expert Epstein and award-winning science journalist Ferber report on how climate change is already causing an epidemic of epidemics, including malaria and cholera.

Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All. By Paul A. Offit.
Infectious-disease expert Offit intensifies his crusade to encourage parents to trust the scientific data proving the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

Doctor, Your Patient Will See You Now: Gaining the Upper Hand in Your Medical Care. By Steven Z. Kussin.
Physician Kussin’s primer on how to get the best possible medical care is dramatic, realistic, and potentially life-saving.

One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing. By Diane Ackerman.
With her signature brilliance and empathy, Ackerman (The Zookeeper’s Wife, 2007) tells the affecting story of how her husband, writer Paul West (The Shadow Factory, 2008), reclaimed language and mobility after a severe stroke.

A Planet of Viruses. By Carl Zimmer.
Zimmer’s information-packed, superbly readable look at virological knowledge awakens readers to the fact that not only are viruses everywhere but we couldn’t live without them.

Remedy and Reaction: The Peculiar American Struggle over Health Care Reform. By Paul Starr.
Pulitzer Prize winner Starr explicates the controversial Affordable Care Act and questions whether Americans can “summon the elementary decency toward the sick that characterizes other democracies.

The Wild Life of Our Bodies: Predators, Parasites, and Partners That Shape Who We Are Today. By Rob Dunn.
Biologist Dunn explains that we need the microscopic critters, or tiny “wildlife,” that live in our bodies, and that our fanatic antibacterial efforts make us more, not less, vulnerable to disease.

New DVD Arrival!

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two" - the young wizard and his friends face the final battle with Lord Voldemort - stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Ralph Fiennes

Notable Books for Adults List, 2011

Notable Books for Adults List, 2011
Fiction

Nashville Chrome by Rick Bass.

This lovely and unsettling account of pop trio The Browns reels you in as though the concept of rags to riches were brand new.

Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue.

Five-year-old Jack vividly narrates the story of his life confined in a room with his mother in this unsettling exploration of resilience and hope.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.

A‘70s punk band becomes the touchstone for a motley crew who spin their interconnected stories over time and distance.

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin.

Two men – one black, one white – must confront the secrets surrounding their childhood friendship following the disappearance of two girls in rural Mississippi.

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.

This incisive portrait of the fractured Berglund brood captures the zeitgeist of contemporary America.

Next by James Hynes.

Welcome to the worst day of Kevin Quinn’s life as he battles the anxieties of the modern world in steamy Austin, Texas.

The Surrendered by Chang Rae Lee.

The complex entangled lives of three people forever scarred by the Korean War are sympathetically portrayed in gorgeous prose.

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes.

An ambitious and idealistic American Marine faces the horror, heroism, futility, and pragmatism of war in this visceral portrayal of life in-country.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: A Novel by David Mitchell.

A young clerk attempts to establish himself in the artificial and intense world of Dejima, the Dutch trading colony in 1800s Japan.

Skippy Dies by Paul Murray.

Filled warmth and humor, this coming-of-age novel set in a Dublin boys schools is a sprawling homage to adolescence, string theory, donuts, and unrequited love.

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli.

The adrenaline high that danger offers infects photojournalist Helen Adams as she documents the war in Vietnam.

The Lonely Polygamist: A Novel by Brady Udall.

In this big-hearted novel, Golden Richards and his clan navigate their chaotic lives as each clamors to be noticed.

Nextreads

Are you looking for the next great book to read or ideas for your book club? Sign up for NextReads!You can choose which electronic newsletters you want delivered to your email inbox by genre - choose as many or as few as you are interested in and submit!
Call or visit the reference desk for more information. (516) 377-6112

New DVD Arrivals!!

"Cowboys and Aliens" - a shackled stranger without memory leads an 1870s Arizona town against a force greater than any outlaw - stars Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde

"The Debt" - the record is set straight about the capture for Israel of a prominent Nazi war criminal thirty years before - stars Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and Jessica Chastain

Book Signing@ Book Revue

JOHN RULLO & KIRPAL GORDON

Sunday, December 11th, 3pm @ Book Revue in Huntington
Authors JOHN RULLO & KIRPAL GORDON will speak about and sign their respective novels "Planet Love" & "Round Earth, Open Sky."

PLANET LOVE: As the world seems to be turning apocalyptic, John Rullo experiences an inexplicable encounter with a supernatural entity that overwhelms him and turns his life inside out. Just when he thinks he has seen the full picture, a string of events unfold that leads to both the end of the world as he knew it and his role in Earth’s rebirth. Based upon real life events, Planet Love’s story of hope, intrigue and mystery speaks to our everlasting search for the ground of our being and our unity with all life.


ROUND EARTH, OPEN SKY: A psychological suspense thriller and a Native American sci-fi road novel, Round Earth, Open Sky by Kirpal Gordon is also a humorous inquiry into the nature of human identity. Sky Man, an immortal, tricked by human sorcery, falls out of the sky and into a dead human out in the Sonoran desert. When Moses, a Brooklyn photographer heading home, picks him up, every stop reveals another clue to the dead man’s identity which Sky Man coheres in order to make his ascent to his sky people. Available for $14.95 at the show.

A graduate of Queens College with a degree in communication arts and a minor in creative writing, John Rullo has spent the last forty years composing and performing songs in rock bands in the New York metropolitan area. Retired from his day job, he now writes his unique blend of irreverent memoir and Socratic inquiry with the same inspiration he’d first found in songwriting. The father of three grown children, he lives on Long Island with his wife, Joann.

Born and bred and currently in residence in New York City, Kirpal Gordon has also lived in Mexico, the Texas Hill Country, Arizona’s Valley of the Sun, New Orleans and the mid-Hudson Valley. His stories, essays, reviews, prose poems and interviews regularly appear in print and on the net. For samples of his work or information on his literary services, readings and performances, visit www.KirpalG.com.

Books to Movies

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)
16 December 2011 (USA)

Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson join forces to outwit and
bring down their fiercest adversary, Professor Moriarty.

Director: Guy Ritchie
Writers: Michele Mulroney, Kieran Mulroney,
Stars:Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law and Jared Harris

Check out Shelfari!

Shelfari is a community-powered encyclopedia for book lovers.

Create a virtual bookshelf, discover new books, connect with friends and learn more about your favorite books – all for free.

New DVDs!

Out December 13:

"Kung Fu Panda 2" - the further animated adventures of Po the Dragon Warrior featuring the voices of Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Seth Rogen and Jackie Chan

"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" - when a drug makes a chimpanzee human within there is revolution without - stars James Franco, John Lithgow and Frieda Pinto

100 Notable Books of 2011 - NYTIMES.COM

The 100 Notable Books of 2011 according to the New York Times is out!

Visit this link for details....http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/books/review/100-notable-books-of-2011.html

New DVD Arrivals!

Just Out:

"Case Histories" - BBC whodunits recently aired on the PBS series "Masterpiece Mystery" and based on the acclaimed novel by Kate Atkinson - stars Jason Isaacs

Out December 2:

"Friends With Benefits" - no matter what a couple does, love has its complications - stars Mila Kunis ("The Black Swan") and Justin Timberlake ("The Social Network")

"The Smurfs" - the animated family favorites have dropped into the real world - stars Hank Azaria and Neil Patrick Harris and featuries the voices of Jonathan Winters, George Lopez and Katy Perry

Out December 6:

"The Help" - the ultimate insider's book turns a Sixties Southern town on its ear - based on the mega-best selling novel by Kathryn Stockett and starring Emma Stone, Bryce Dallas Howard and Cicely Tyson

"Mammuth" - from France - a man takes a motorcycle trip to insure his retirement, financially and otherwise - stars Gerard Depardieu and Isabelle Adjani

"Mr. Popper's Penguins" - how they turned an apartment upside down and reunited a family - based on the classic children's tale by Richard Atwater and starring Jim Carrey, Carla Gugino and Angela Lansbury

"Point Blank" - from France - how far will a male nurse go to save his kidnapped and expectant wife? - stars Gilles Lellouche and Elena Anaya

Book Signing @ Book Revue!

PAUL GRIFFIN
Tuesday, December 6th, 7pm @ Book Revue in Huntington.

Author, PAUL GRIFFIN, will speak about and sign his new book, "Stay With Me".

An urban romance that will capture your soul, break your heart, and restore your faith in the human spirit Fifteen-year-olds Cece and Mack didn't expect to fall in love. She's a sensitive A student; he's a high school dropout. But soon they're spending every moment together, bonding over a rescued dog, telling their secrets, making plans for the future. Everything is perfect. Until. "Until." Mack makes a horrible mistake, and in just a few minutes, the future they'd planned becomes impossible. In this stark new reality, both of them must find meaning and hope in the memories of what they had, to survive when the person they love can't stay. From award-winning writer Paul Griffin, "Stay with Me" is both heartbreaking and uplifting, filled with characters (both dog and human) that will forever change the way you look at the world.

Paul began writing his first novel as he finished college, in 1988. That novel and many others went unpublished. Meanwhile, he worked on the truck docks and in construction, as a dog trainer and a driver, teacher, tutor, EMT, butler, bartender, waiter, cook and dishwasher (alongside Vin Diesel). The hardest and best work was the teaching. Paul started working with at-risk, incarcerated and special needs teens in 1989, with a concentration in conflict resolution workshops aimed at stemming the spread of violence, substance abuse and HIV/AIDS among young adults. These days his workshops focus on helping young men and women tell their life stories as they reach out to counselors, judges, admissions officers and potential employers. Twenty years to the day after Paul graduated Dartmouth, Penguin/Dial released his “first” (twenty-fourth) novel Ten Mile River and then The Orange Houses a year later. Dial is publishing a third novel, Stay With Me, in the fall of 2011, a fourth, Burning Blue, a mystery, in 2012 and a fifth, tentatively a sci-fi romance, in 2013. Paul lives in Washington Heights, NYC with three dogs and one wife, documentary moviemaker Risa Morimoto.