Good Words!

Reading books may add years to your life. We already knew that.
Check out the study here. 
Don't know where to start? This best of historical fiction for 2016 should help.
Here's a sample:

   
Click the link to see the rest. There really are some terrific titles.

Our favorite bookworms...

Oh those Gilmore Girls!  Quite a cast of readers, I'll say.
Click here for some of the best books they've read.

Literary holiday gift ideas. For almost everyone!

For the entrepreneur, or adult Harry Potter fan, or Stranger Things binge-watcher, or Broadway baby, or outdoorsy-type, the book lover, the true-crime addicted or combinations of all of the above, click here for some ideas. 
We're wild about these titles. 

Happy Monday...

#truth

The New York Public Library is getting ready...

"Patience and Fortitude are decked out in wreaths and ready for the holiday season!" — at NYPL The New York Public Library.

Previous National Book Award Winners...

2015 Redeployment by Phil Klay
2014 The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
2013 The Round House by Louise Erdrich
2012 Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
2011 Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon
2010 Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Click here to see 60 years of the National Book Awards!

We are so thankful to all our patrons!

School's out!

Check out this early image of Camp Ave school. 

View more vintage photographs from Merrick Library's Historical Collection below:
http://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16694coll72

We give thanks for our dysfunctional families...

Our friends at BookBub have given us 
13 of the funniest books about this subject. 
        

All of these would make for great book discussions.
Place a reserve here. 

Set your DVRs.

The Affair, Season 3 starts tonight at 10pm on Showtime. The Walking Dead Season 7 continues on AMC at 9pm. Then there's the new HBO show Divorce starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Thomas Hayden Church at 10pm! And let's not forget Westworld on HBO at 9pm and Shameless on Showtime at 9.
What will you be watching?

Can Reading Make You Happier?

"Today, bibliotherapy takes many different forms, from literature courses run for prison inmates to reading circles for elderly people suffering from dementia. Sometimes it can simply mean one-on-one or group sessions for “lapsed” readers who want to find their way back to an enjoyment of books." - Ceridwen Dovey


This piece will have you believing. 

13 Books Like 'Black Mirror' For Fans Who've Already Watched Every Episode

Are you as hooked as we are? 

Don't know what the fuss is all about?

Read this terrific article from our friends at The Guardian. 

Congratulations to all the 2016 National Book Award winners!

Fiction: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Non-Fiction: Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
Poetry: The Performance of Becoming Human by Daniel Borzutzky
Young Adult: March: Book Three by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell (Illustrator)

Congratulations to Colson Whitehead!

Winner of the 2016 National Book Award for "The Underground Railroad"! 

2016 National Book Awards will be announced tonight!

The nominees in fiction are:

Click here for the full ballot. 
Keep up with all #NBAwards news by following them on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram.

Amazon's editors have spoken...

Here's their Top 20 of 2016.

        

How many have you read? Anything missing you'd recommend?

Who doesn't love Ted?

Book Riot put together 
10 of the best literary Ted talks of year (so far). 

With titles like this though:
Comma Queen 
My Year Reading a Book From Every Country in the World
My Year of Saying Yes to Everything 
Bring on the Female Superheroes
Why Open a School? To Close a Prison

Those are a few of my favorites. 
Watch them all here. They're worth your time. 

We love Ann Patchett...

so here are 15 of her favorites. 
Have you read any of them?
Click here to find out.

Literary re-imaginings..

One of my favorites is "A Thousand Acres" by Jane Smiley. Smiley retells Shakespeare's King Lear in a such a delightful way it won the Pulitzer prize in 1992. Request it here.  



Click here for more updates classics.

First ladies & their books...

Here's an interview with a former first lady (and former librarian) on all things bookish.

Read it here from our friends at Texas Monthly.

Ya gotta love Emma Watson...we sure do!

on November 2nd, Buzzfeed gave us this lovely tidbit:
Emma Watson is Secretly Leaving Books (in London)!

Emma has a book club called, "Our Shared Shelf".






The chosen book is left in places throughout the London transit system with little handwritten notes from Emma.
I mean, she is just awesome.  

Election Day is (finally) here...

Polls are open from 6am-9pm. 

Where is your polling location?
Click here. 

Did you see the NYT By the Book interview with...

Megyn Kelly?
If not, here it is. 

Kelly mentions the "last great book she read" was City of Thieves by David Benioff.   We read that book back in 2013 as part of our Wednesday Afternoon Book Discussion. We read great books!  
To find out what we've read, see below:

2016 Titles  
The Hollow Ground, Natalie Harnett
If I Knew You Were Going... Judy Chicurel
Leaving Time, Jodi Picoult
A Remarkable Kindess, Diana Bletter
The Girl From the Garden, Parnaz Foroutan
Our Souls at Night, Kent Haruf
Orient, Christopher Bollen
The Book of Unknown Americans, Cristina Henriquez
Indiscretion, Charles Dubow
The Wonder Garden, Lauren Acampora
The Crooked Heart, Lissa Evans

2015 Titles
Burial Rites, Hannah Kent
Forgiving Maximo Rothman, AJ Sidransky
Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout
Museum of Extraordinary Things, A Hoffman
The Sweetness, Sande Bortiz Berger
Some Luck, Jane Smiley
Plainsong, Kent Haruf
The Children Act, Ian McEwan
Apple Tree Yard,  Louise Doughty
Benediction, Kent Haruf

2014 Titles
The Painted Girls, Cathy Marie Buchanan
The Dinner, Herman Koch
The Silent Wife, A.S.A. Harrison
Tender at the Bone, Ruth Reichl
Up From the Blue, Susan Henderson
And the Mountains Echoed, Khaled Hosseini
The Manor, Mac Griswold
Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward
Mary Coin, Marisa Silver

2013 Titles
Dear Life, Alice Munro
Lessons in French, Hillary Reyl
Hypnotist’s Love Story, Liane Moriarty
Running the Rift, Naomi Benaron
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, B.Fountain
Rebecca, Daphne de Maurier
Sutton, J.R. Moehringer
Turn of Mind, Alice LaPlante
Zeitoun, Dave Eggers
City of Thieves, David Benioff
City of Women, David Gillham

2012 Titles
Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Amy Chua
Beneath a Marble Sky, John Shors
In the Shadow of the Banyan, Vaddey Ratner
Invisible Wall, Harry Bernstein
Jerusalem Maiden, Talia Carner
Lost Wife, Alyson Richman
Mudbound, Hilary Jordan
Rules of Civility, Amor Towles
Submission, Ayelet Waldman
Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand

 2011 titles and further back!
(in alphabetical order)
Aloft, Chang-re Lee
Art of Racing in the Rain. Garth Stein
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
Big Fish, Daniel Wallace
Box Children, Sharon Wise 
Enemies: A Love Story, Isaac Bashevis Singer
Extremely Loud/Incredibly Close, JS Foer
Family Tree, Barbara Delinsky
Ghost at the Table, Suzanne Berne
Giant House, Elizabeth McCracken
Girls, Lori Lansens
Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls
Help, Kathryn Stockett
Home to Holly Springs, Jan Karon
I Don’t Want to Join a Book Club, Ironside
In the Shadow of the Banyan, V. Ratner
In the Woods, Tana French
Keeper of the Kid, Edward Hardy
Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, Walter Mosley
March, E.L. Doctorow
Mr. Pip, Lloyd Jones
Oxygen, Carol Cassella
People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks
Pilot’s Wife, Anita Shreve
Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
Reliable Wife, Robert Goolrick
River of Doubt, Candice Millard
Rug Merchant, Meg Mullins
Saffron Kitceh, Yasmin Crowther
Sag Harbor, Colson Whitehead
Secret Kept, Tatiana de Rosnay
Senator’s Wife, Sue Miller
Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafron
Sleeping Father, Matthew Sharpe
Someone Knows My Name, L. Hill
Someone Not Really Her Mother, Chessman
Space Between Us, Thrity Umrigar
Still Life With Chickens, C. Goldhammer
Syringa Tree, Pamela Glen
Tender Bar, J.R. Moehringer
They Did it With Love, K. Morgenroth
The Notebook, Nicholas Sparks
Those Who Save Us, Jenna Blum
Trespass, Valerie Martin
Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett

Uses of Enchantment, Heidi Julavits 

Vanishing Acts of Esme Lenox, O’Farrell

Visible World, Mark Slouka

Wait Till Next Year, Doris Kearns Goodwin

When All is Said and Done, Robert Hill

When the Emperor Was Divine, J. Otsuka

When the White House Was Ours, P. Shreve

Exactly. Happy Sunday!

Staff Picks!

Have you seen our Staff Picks section? 

Our librarians display their 

newest favorites

in fiction and non-fiction. 

Can't come in?

Here's the link from our website. 

Where the heck is the Staff Picks section?

Right next to the snack area on the first floor.

You can't 
miss it.