New DVDs In June!

Out June 4:

"Breaking Bad: The Complete Fifth Season" - as seen on American Movie Classics - Bryan Cranston (Screen Actors Guild Award winner, Best Actor in a Drama) returns as Walter White, ex-chemistry teacher, cancer patient and manufacturer of methamphetamines - 2013 American Film Institute TV Program of the Year

"Escape From Planet Earth" - meet the blue aliens of the planet Baab and their hero, space rescuer Scorch Supernova! - features the voices of Brendan Fraser, Sarah Jessica Parker, James Gandolfini and Sofia Vergara (TV's "Modern Family")

"A Good Day to Die Hard" - Bruce Willis returns as super cop John McClane, out not only to rescue his estranged son from a Russian prison but also prevent a third World War! - also stars Jai Courtney ("Jack Reacher") and Cole Hauser ("The Cave")

"Warm Bodies" - a zombie named R rescues a girl from other zombies and starts becoming human again - and this is a romantic comedy! - stars Nicholas Hoult ("A Single Man"), Teresa Palmer ("I Am Number Four") and John Malkovich

We LOVE debut novelists.  This article breaks them down and talks them up.  

Sigh. So little time.   Check one or all of these out at the Merrick Library...

Fiction on Fire 

With a new book, Big Brother, the author behind We Need to Talk about Kevin tackles another hot-button issue: obesity. The ever-opinionated Lionel Shriver gives an earful. 

Click here to read more: Lionel Shriver Profile - Author Lionel Shriver Interview Big Brother Book - ELLE 

    
Shriver is a personal favorite and well worth your time. Check out these titles on the Merrick Library shelves:

The Post Birthday World
Double Fault
The New Republic: A Novel
So Much for That

U.S. spelling bee starts with a new challenge: Definitions

Young contestants in the Scripps National Spelling Bee launched two days of competition on Wednesday, facing the new challenge of not only having to spell obscure words correctly, but also knowing what they mean. Yikes!

Read this article from Reuters.

What's the future for public libraries across the pond?  The Arts Council England published a report on the  "library of the future".

An interesting analysis of this report from Melville House can be read here.  

New DVD's

Out May 28:

 

"Call the Midwife: Season One" - as seen on PBS - Vanessa Redgrave heads a talented BBC cast that dramatizes the true story of a group of dedicated women who aided the poorest females in East London during the 1950s

 

"Dark Skies" - what evil force is after the suburban Barrett family and for what reason? - stars Keri Russell, Josh Hamilton and J.K. Simmons (TV's "The Closer," Farmers' Insurance commercials)

 

"True Blood: The Complete Fifth Season" - what will the conflict between the "Authority" and "Fundamentalist" vampires mean for Sookie Stackhouse, the town of Bon Temps and all of humanity? - based on the novels of Charlaine Harris and starring Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer and Alexander Skarsgard

Have you finished reading Dan Brown's "Inferno" yet?  Dan Brown likes to claim that the historical events in his novels are ‘fact,’ but how much is true? Noah Charney of The Daily Beast finds 10 mistakes and oversimplifications in the new book Inferno.
Curious? Read it here...

Awesome Bookish Lamps...

want to see more? Click here, book-folk!

Have you noticed some of the changes to the 

New York Times Book Review?  

Under the helm of recently appointed Pamela Paul, 

read what Dustin Kurtz of Melville House 
thinks of these changes.

Huffington Post has an exclusive excerpt of the new Stephen King novel. Click here to read this tasty piece of Joyland...

Short story writer Lydia Davis wins the Man Booker International Prize for 2013.  

Read more about this author and the prize here...

Listen-Alikes

If you like to listen to Mystery and Suspense novels; try this selection of Audiobooks! 

 Featured in May's Booklist, "Cover of Snow" by Jenny Milchman, is narrated so well that readers will have to wait and see where the plot twists and turns take them! 

Similar novels are:

"And When She Was Good" by Laura Lippman

"The Crime of Julian Wells" by Thomas H. Cook

"Gone Girl" by Gilliam Flynn

"The Racketeer" by John Grisham

"Say You're Sorry" by Michael Robotham 

24 Classic Books' Original Titles...

The Sound and the Fury was originally entitled...wait for it...wait for it... Twilight !? What a different world that would have been!

The Sun Also Rises was going to be... Fiesta?
You really have to read more about the also-rans. 

Click this link to see other classics and the titles they almost had.  Yikes!  From Book Riot and The Huffington Post. 

New Audiobooks!

Inferno, by Dan Brown
In the heart of Italy, Harvard professor of symbology, Robert Langdon, is drawn into a harrowing world centered on one of history's most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces … Dante's Inferno. Against this backdrop, Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle.


The Redeemer, by Joe Nesbo
A fantastically gripping thriller from the best-selling author of The Snowman. Investigating the contract killing of a musician at the height of the Christmas season in Oslo, maverick detective Harry Hole discovers that the assassin killed the wrong person and is frantically searching for his target, a situation that leads to a race against time in the darkest corners of former Yugoslavia.

Pirate Alley, by Stephen Coontz
When a luxurious vacation cruiser in the Red Sea is attacked by Somali pirates, Jake Grafton, Tommy Carmellini, and a team of CIA and Navy SEAL operatives mount an undercover operation to save the hostages and halt a dangerous conspiracy.


Gulp, by Mary Roach
The humor scientist behind Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife takes a tour of the human digestive system, explaining why the stomach doesn't digest itself and whether constipation can kill you.

Wikipedia: male novelists are “novelists,” female novelists are “women novelists”.  

Say what?

"Oh, Wikipedia! You encyclopedic embodiment of the male gaze, look what you’ve done now. The category American Novelists  includes virtually no women."  

A must read from Abigail Grace Murdy of Melville House.

New DVDs

Out May 21:

 

"Beautiful Creatures" - how can the town of Gatlin be considered dull when there is a teenage witch there named Lena? - all-star cast including Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson, Emmy Rossum and Viola Davis ("The Help")

 

"A Common Man" - five bombs will go off in a Sri Lanka city if four of the worst terrorists are not released immediately! - stars Sir Ben Kingsley and
Ben Cross ("Chariots of Fire")

 

"The Last Stand" - the escape plan of a major drug kingpin into Mexico does not anticipate one obstacle: the bordertown of Sommerton Junction and its ex-LA cop sheriff - stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Forest Whitaker and Johnny Knoxville

 

"Parker" - even thieves have their moral codes, and the code of this thief tells him to wipe out those who tried to murder him- based on the novel "Flashfire" by Richard Stark (aka Donald E. Westlake) and starring Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez and Michael Chiklis (TV's "Vegas")

 

"Promised Land" - what side will you be on in the argument over whether or not to drill for natural gas in a struggling rural town? - stars Matt Damon, Frances McDormand, Hal Holbrook and John Krasinski ("Something Borrowed")

 

"Stand Up Guys" - how can you go wrong when Alan Arkin, Al Pacino and Christopher Walken play three buddy crooks out for what might be the last spree for one if not all of them? - also starring Julianna Margulies (TV's "The Good Wife")

 

Borrow A Nook Simple Touch!

Borrow A Nook Simple Touch!

We've loaded BRAND NEW Nook Books! 

And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini

Inferno, by Dan Brown
Tapestry of Fortunes, by Elizabeth Berg
Six Years, by Harlan Coben

                        

Come in and borrow one today!

Our Nook eReaders are pre-loaded with many titles.  Merrick Library card holders can check them out for 14 days. The titles currently on our Nooks are:

The Innocent, by David Baldacci

Once We Were Brothers, by Ronald Balson

Sandcastle Girls, by Chris Bohjalian

Gold, by Chris Cleave

The Hunger Games Trilogy, by Suzanne Collins

Panther, by Nelson DeMille

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

Heading Out of Wonderful, by Robert Goolrick

Calico Joe, by John Grisham

Summerland, by Erin Hilderbrand

Fifty Shades Trilogy, by E.L. James

Defending Jacob, by William Landay

Sutton, by J.R. Moehringer

11th Hour, by James Patterson
The Storyteller, by Jodi Picoult

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, by Anna Quindlen

Shoemaker's Wife, by Adriana Trigiani

Unnatural Acts, by Stuart Woods

There are also several classics available on the Nooks, including:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas

Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

20, 000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

Bestselling author Anchee Min pens a follow-up to ‘Red Azalea’ about her long, hard road to success in the U.S. The Daily Beast spoke with her about immigration, China today, and the ecstasy and terror of writing honestly. Click here to read this terrific interview. 

Not familiar with Anchee Min?  

Come in to the Merrick Library today to pick up these wonderful titles: 

Empress Orchid
Becoming Madame Mao
Pearl of China
Wild Ginger 
and of course, The Cooked Seed

 "We know, baby. It's still cold outside. But that doesn't mean you can't start lining up your summer reads because regardless of the weather, you can always escape into the sizzle of imagination, especially when we've chosen some thrilling books to take you out of your comfort zone..." as per Publishers Weekly.

Click here to see more fabulous titles, then come in today and put some of these on reserve! 

The very first Thomas Pynchon book to be made into a film?  

"Inherent Vice"...!

"It's the first book by Pynchon to be made into a film, and as with all things Pynchon, people have been fairly closed-mouthed about the project. "  With a big name director and an Oscar winning actor attached (and no, I'm not going to tell you) you'll have to read this piece from the LA Times.  Get the book version at the Merrick Library. 

'As I Lay Dying' Trailer: James Franco's Update on William Faulkner Classic Will Bow At Cannes.   Really?  

Read the the article and watch the movie trailer here. From Huffington Post. 

65 Books You Need To 

Read In Your 20s*

The books that will move you, inspire you, make you cry, make you think, make you laugh. Even if you read them in high school or college, you’ll have a different perspective on them now that you’re "Out In The World". See what they are here, from BuzzFeed.

*This is a really interesting list of great titles but you don't have to be in your 20s to enjoy them. In fact, you've probably already read some. If not, pick one up now at the Merrick Library. Or maybe even grab one of these titles for your book group. 

"Why Paper Is Not Dead".  A must read article by Ian Sansom extolling the virtues and presence of paper in our lives.  Read Sansom's interesting blog piece here.

What's a Library?  See Rita Meade's post from BookRiot... With a special shout-out to Alyssa Milano. Why the shout-out? Read this enlightening, smart, funny and spot-on piece to find out.

Dan Brown's new book, Inferno, hits the shelves today! How much do you know about the man and his bestselling books?  Why not take this quiz from The Telegraph and find out...

Cracking Dan Brown’s 

‘Inferno’ Code

Dan Brown‘s Inferno will be released tomorrow, and it is currently the top ranked book on Amazon. To help you prepare, we found a few clues buried in a sample chapter of the new book. Read this at Galleycat.com

Ruth Rendell......Booklist Feature Article

Ladies in Waiting: 5 Authors Who Would Kill to Be Ruth Rendell.

Ruth Rendell is arguably the best British psychological crime author writing today. She’s garnered just about every mystery award there is (including a Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger and the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award), and, after writing for nearly 50 years—and under two personas—she shows no sign of stopping. Under her own name, she writes both the Inspector Wexfield detective series as well as stand-alone psychological suspense novels and masterful short stories, while her books under the pseudonym Barbara Vine feature more complex characters and more emphasis on the psychological-suspense aspect of the plot rather than a crime.

Also Try....

Nicci French

Sophie Hannah

Erin Kelly

P. D. James

Minette Walters

Famous mothers/authors share Mother's Day favorites...Check out this link from USA Today

Heading out to see Gatsby this weekend? Well, from the "you can't win 'em all" category, our friends at Flavorwire.com offer this for your viewing pleasure...

10 Disappointing Film Adaptations of Classic American Novels

Enjoy the list and the video clips right here...

This link is a must read before you see the movie this weekend...

"Ginevra King, Fitzgerald's 'Gatsby' Inspiration And His First Love, Was Quite A Gal..."

"She was a rich debutante named after a da Vinci painting. She was F. Scott Fitzgerald's first love. And she was reportedly the woman who served as the principal inspiration for Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," the celebrated novel hitting the big screen via a long-awaited Baz Luhrmann adaptation Friday.  Read all about it here... 

New DVD

Out May 14:

 

"Cloud Atlas" - the past, present and future unite to show how the influence of one person's life can change the world - based on the acclaimed novel by David Mitchell - national and international acclaim includes five German Film Awards - all-star cast in multiple roles led by Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Susan Sarandon and Hugh Grant (at one point he plays a cannibal!)

New Audiobooks!

Love, Water, Memory, by Jennie Shortridge
Waking up knee-deep in the San Francisco Bay with no memory of her past, Lucie learns that she has a rare form of amnesia and reunites with a loving fiancé she does not recognize only to discover unsettling truths about her own personality, findings that are complicated by unsettling changes in her fiancé's feelings.

Someday, Someday, Maybe, by Lauren Graham
From Lauren Graham, the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood, comes a witty, charming, and hilariously relatable debut novel about a struggling young actress trying to get ahead?and keep it together in New York City.


A Dual Inheritance, by Joanna Hershow 
Forging an intense friendship in their senior year at Harvard, Ed, a Jewish, girl-crazy scholarship student; and Hugh, A Boston Brahmin who delicately pines for the one who got away; abruptly and mysteriously go their separate ways years later and pursue very different lives that are shaped by their past bond.



Silken Prey, by John Sandford
Investigating the murder of a political fixer who had blackmailed his ambitious heiress employer during a vicious smear campaign, Lucas Davenport follows disturbing leads to the Minneapolis police department and a ruthless woman who threatens his life.



Keep it Pithy, by Bill O'Reilly
An essential collection of writings on forefront modern issues by the three-time Emmy Award-winning media figure is organized thematically by his core values and offers insight into how his opinions and ideas have been proven or disproven throughout his career. 

Books to Movies!

"The Great Gatsby" arrives in theaters May 10, 2013.

The Great Gatsby is a novel by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story takes place in 1922, during the Roaring Twenties, a time of prosperity in the United States after World War I. The book received critical acclaim and is generally considered Fitzgerald's best work. It is also widely regarded as a "Great American Novel" and a literary classic, capturing the essence of an era. The Modern Library named it the second best English language novel of the 20th century.

 

20 Amazing Outdoor Libraries and Bookstores From All Over the World...

"At long last, the weather is warming up, allowing for long walks, open windows, and (of course) the return of reading outside. But there’s yet another pleasure that you may not have tried — browsing for books outside!"  Once again Flavorwire has some great pictures for you to see. Please click here. 

New DVDs

Out May 7:

"Hyde Park on Hudson" - based on a true story - the extramarital life of President Franklin Roosevelt becomes a complication when the King and Queen of England arrive for a weekend - stars Bill Murray, Laura Linney and Olivia Williams ("Anna Karenina")

"Jack Reacher" - Tom Cruise brings Lee Child's relentless investigator to life as he pursues a sniper who has killed five people "seemingly" at random - also starring Robert Duvall and Rosamund Pike ("An Education")

"The Oranges" - how to bring havoc to suburbia: have the rebellious daughter of one household have an affair with a man from another - stars Hugh Laurie, Leighton Meester, Oliver Platt, Catherine Keener and Allison Janney (TV's "The West Wing")

"Safe Haven" - in order to be happy with the widower she just met a woman must deal with a dark secret from her past - based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks and starring Julianne Hough, Josh Duhamel and Cobie Smulders (TV's "How I Met Your Mother")