Books to Movies.

It’s Kind of a Funny Story
Cast: Zach Galifianakis, Emma Roberts, Lauren Graham, Viola Davis, Zoë
Kravitz, Daniel London, Keir Gilchrist
Directors: Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck
Distributor: Focus Features
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Release Date: October 8th (limited)
Based on: IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY by Ned Vizzini

What’s a 16-year-old boy doing playing music and table tennis with adult psychiatric patients --- on a school day? It’s kind of a funny story…

It’s 5:00 AM on a Sunday in Brooklyn. Craig Gilner is bicycling up to the entrance of a mental health clinic; this bright 16-year-old is stressed out from the demands of being a teenager. Before his parents and younger sister are even awake, Craig checks himself into Argenon Hospital and is admitted by a psychiatrist. But the youth ward is temporarily closed --- so he finds himself stuck in the adult ward. One of the patients, Bobby, soon becomes both Craig’s mentor and protégé. Craig is also quickly drawn to another 16-year-old displaced to the adult ward, the sensitive Noelle, who just might make him forget his longtime unrequited crush, Nia.

With a minimum five days’ stay imposed on him by the adult ward’s staff psychiatrist Dr. Eden Minerva, Craig is sustained by friendships on both the inside and the outside as he learns more about life, love, and the pressures of growing up.

New Audiobooks!

In a quirky farmhouse outside Boston, seventy-year-old Percy Darling enjoys a vigorous but mostly solitary lifeuntil, in a complex scheme to help his oldest daughter through a crisis, he allows a progressive preschool to move into his barn. The abrupt transformation of Percys rural refuge into a lively, youthful community compels him to reexamine the choices hes made since his wifes death, three decades ago, in a senseless accident that haunts him still. No longer can he remain aloof from his neighbors, his two grown daughters, or, to his shock, the precarious joy of falling in love.


To reconnect 30 years after their mother's death, siblings Antoine and Melanie spend the weekend on Noirmoutier Island, a favorite childhood vacation spot. However, on the drive back to Paris, painful memories leave Melanie distracted, causing her to crash. At the hospital, Antoine uncovers a dark family secret, leaving both siblings questioning their childhoods and their mother's past.


Over twenty years, snapshots of an unlikely relationship are revealed on the same day--July 15th--of each year. Dex Mayhew and Em Morley face squabbles and fights, hopes and missed opportunities, laughter and tears. And as the true meaning of this one crucial day is revealed, they must come to grips with the nature of love and life itself. Soon to be a major motion picture from Focus Features/ Random House Films.


After a few years in London, housewife Eliza, her successful husband, and their teenage daughter return home to Washington, D.C. However, Eliza's homecoming sparks up memories of past torments, when she was abducted by a serial killer who is now sitting on death row.



Ed Eagle, the six-foot-six, take-no-prisoners Santa Fe attorney, has recovered from his encounters with Mexican organized crime and - more treacherously - his ex-wife, Barbara. Now, a mysterious new client has come his way, one who may shed light into some dark corners of Ed's past and put him in danger once more.




When a family of bonobo apes disappears from a laboratory, everybody is perplexed until they make a sudden appearance on a popular TV show.

Book banning alive and well in the U.S.

Nation confronts censorship head-on during Banned Books Week, Sept. 25 – Oct. 2. This is according to an article from American Libraries; the magazine of the American Library Assocation.

From coast to coast, libraries and bookstores will battle censorship and celebrate the freedom to read during Banned Books Week, Sept. 25 – Oct. 2, 2010. Thousands of participants will read from banned or challenged books and will discuss the impact censorship has on civil liberties.

Visit this link for the full article:
http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/news/ala/book-banning-alive-and-well-us

ReadingGroupGuides.com

ReadingGroupGuides.com

Complete reading group resource - provides nearly 1000 guides from a variety of publishers, searchable by author, title and subject.

New York Times Literary Treat of the Week....

Sheffield, Rob. Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut. Dutton.

This year’s Academy Awards and a recent Film Society of Lincoln Center gala both paid tribute to the late director John Hughes and his iconic 1985 creation “The Breakfast Club.” Sheffield, a rock and pop culture critic for Rolling Stone, also gives a nod to the Eighties and the part its hit tunes played in his personal development. Each chapter owes its title to a song from that decade. Madonna’s “Crazy for You” heads a visit to Lourdes, France and an analysis of how Catholicism provided a viewpoint to approaching rock music. Paul McCartney and Hall and Oates became “good imaginary friends,” while the alien in “E.T.” was remembered as “a sad muppet who thought he was David Bowie.” Bad wardrobe choices (Members Only jackets), first jobs, being a summer exchange student in Spain and winless on a high school wrestling team all have a soundtrack in this memoir. Anyone who feels critics are made and not born will have plenty of supporting ammunition in these pages.

Reviewed by Librarian Bob.

New HBO Series

On September 19 the HBO dramatic series "Boardwalk Empire" had its gala premiere. Depicting Altantic City at the start of the Roaring Twenties, "Boardwalk Empire" has been called by Daily News critic David Hinckley "the best new show on television this fall."
Heading the cast is the versatile actor, voice artist and director Steve Buscemi portraying bootlegger and City treasurer Enoch (Nucky) Thompson. Merrick Library has the following DVDs which feature the many talents of Mr. Buscemi:

Coffee and Cigarettes
Delirious
G-Force (voice work)
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
I Think I Love My Wife
Igor (voice work)
Interview
The Island
The Messenger
Miller's Crossing
Monster House (voice work)
Nurse Jackie: Season One (directing)
Romance and Cigarettes
Saint John of Las Vegas

New York Times Literary Treat of the Week...

Lippman, Laura. I'd Know You Anywhere. Morrow/HarperCollins.

Relocated from Great Britain, Eliza Benedict has a back story that can never be equaled by any of her new neighbors outside Washington, D.C. Twenty-five years earlier, known then as Elizabeth Lerner, she was kidnapped by serial murderer/rapist Walter Bowman. Strangely, she was allowed to live during her six-week captivity although she witnessed the killing of 13-year old Holly Tackett. Now Bowman faces execution in the Virginia prison system but wants to see Elizabeth/Eliza again. Bringing perpetrator and victim together is Barbara Lafortuny, a mutilated ex-teacher who spends a school district financial settlement on opposing the death penalty. In opposition are Holly's parents, who blame Eliza as much as Bowman for their daughter's death. Does Eliza want closure for her past or emotional strength especially given the rebelliousness of her own teenage daughter? Does Bowman really think his former hostage can help spare him? Such issues of pain, violence and memory are what Lippman weaves for the reader's consideration.

Also by Laura Lippman at Merrick Library:

Another Thing To Fall
By A Spider's Thread
Every Secret Thing
Hardly Knew Her: Stories
In A Strange City
The Last Place
Life Sentences
No Good Deeds
The Sugar House
To The Power Of Three
What The Dead Know