An Unexpected Picturebook

Just about everyone has heard of, read, or watched the movie adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events. Now this celebrated author has teamed up with Jon Klassen, the author and illustrator of This is Not My Hat to create a unique new picturebook called The Dark.

The Dark is a fabulous picturebook that deals with a very common fear. Laszlo is a young boy who is afraid of the dark. In his house the dark is alive, but usually stays in the basement. One night it comes to Laszlo’s room, but not to scare him. Laszlo follows the dark and finds nothing that he needs to fear. I really enjoyed the simple economy of text, and the illustrations that give the words and the dark life throughout the story. This might be just the tool to help some children overcome their fear of the dark, however the notion of the dark as a sentient being might just freak out some children a little bit.

I highly recommend The Dark to those that enjoy picturebooks, and those that enjoy the slightly twisted writings of Lemony Snicket. It would work well read at home and in a storytime or classroom setting. The story and illustrations are simplistic, but carry some extra power because of that, rather than seeming to lack because of it.

Erotic Romance vs. Erotica

Erotic fiction has been around for a very long time.  One of the most erotic pieces of poetry is the Song of Songs in the Bible.  The late 18^th century brought us the French aristocrat, Marquis de Sade whose name gave us the sexual kink of “sadism”.  In the early 20^th century, Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Tropic of Cancer helped reform obscenity laws in the United States.  In the 1970’s there was a dramatic increase in erotic fiction with Fear of Flying, and My Secret Garden.  The 1980’s brought us Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty Trilogy.  Many new publishers were founded to keep up with the demand of erotic fiction.

Erotic romance gained more ground with the introduction of ebooks.  By the mid 2000’s when traditional romance publishers saw the interest in this genre, they launched imprints dedicated to the print publication of erotic romance.

There has always been a strong core of erotic romance readers, but with the introduction of the Fifty Shades trilogy, erotic romance became more main stream.  However, it is often confused with erotica.   Generally speaking, erotic romance ends with “happily ever after” and erotica does not.  Erotic romance has more of a story line, exploring love and emotions and centering on two main characters.  It’s all about the romance with the sexual journey second.  It differs from mainstream romance because it is more sexually graphic.  Erotica is all about sex and little else.  It can entail some romance, but the focus is the sex.

The Cheshire Library has been seeing more and more requests for books like Fifty Shades, or erotic romance.  In an effort to fulfill our patrons’ requests, we have placed orders for similar books.  The second most popular author of this genre is Sylvia Day.  She self-published Bared To You and when Berkley Books heard how popular it was, they immediately published it in paper.  It was followed by Reflected In You and the third book in the trilogy, Entwined With You, will be released in June.

Megan Hart is another author that is very popular.  We own several of her titles.

1. Tempted 
2. Switch
3. Deeper
4. The Space Between Us

There are three other trilogies that are “like Fifty Shades” and they have received excellent reviews.  They are:

The Submissive Trilogy by Tara Sue Me

1. The Submissive
2. The Dominant (due out in August)
3. The Training (due out in October

The Stark Trilogy by Julie Kenner

1. Release Me
2. Claim Me
3. Complete Me (due out in July)

Breathless Trilogy by Maya Banks

1. Rush
2. Fever
3. Burn (due out in August)

You may place holds on these items.  Let us know how you like them and if you’re interested in the library acquiring other titles.

Richie Havens, 1941-2013

Richard Pierce “Richie” Havens was an American singer-songwriter guitarist who passed away on April 22, at the age of 72.  His music appealed to a wide variety of listeners,  encompassing elements of folk, soul, and rhythm and blues.  His career was amazing and wide-reaching, and chances are, with 29 albums to his name, even if you don’t know his name, you’ve heard his work.

            Havens began his career in Brooklyn, organizing neighborhood street-corner singing by the age of 16, moving on to gospel, folk, and signing on with Bob Dylan’s manager in the mid-60’s. By 1969, he was the opening act for Woodstock, taking the stage for nearly three hours. He ran out of material and wound up improvising the folk-song inspired “Freedom,” which became one of his most famous hits. In the 70’s, he branched out into acting, both on stage and in films such as Greased Lightning. He made popular television appearances on both Ed Sullivan Show and Johnny Carson. While his albums climbed onto the Billboard charts, Havens began writing and performing highly successful commercials for Amtrack, Maxwell House Coffee, the cotton Industry (“The Fabric of Our Lives”), and others.

            Havens was a firm supporter of various ecological and charitable concerns.  He founded the Northwind Undersea Institute, an oceanographic children’s museum on City Island in the Bronx, which led to the creation of the Natural Guard,  to teach children how they can help the environment.  He was a performer at The Benefit Concert for The Longest Walk, an American Indian spiritual walk, the Tibetan Freedom Concert, the fundraising concert for Pete Seeger’s 90^th birthday, and many others.  He was honored with the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award, the American Eagle Award by the National Music Council, and was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2006. He played the Cannes film festival, and President Clinton’s inauguration.

Havens died suddenly of a heart attack, following several years of kidney issues. His cremated remains are scheduled to be scattered across Yasgur’s farm this summer, where the original Woodstock took place.

            You can check out some of the superb Richie Havens legacy at Cheshire Public Library with the following CD’s:

            

Guest Post – Kelley reads : Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

 by Teen Librarian Kelley
Finally got around to reading “Cloud Atlas” (and NOT because they made a movie of it!). I really enjoyed it- I found it amusing how Mitchell plays with the tropes and cliches of various genres (sci-fi, hardboiled crime fiction, belles lettres, etc) across the stories in the book and manages to tie them all together in very clever ways. Brilliant, and tremendous fun!

Author Profile/Book Review: Against the Edge by Kat Martin

Kat Martin is a New York Times bestselling author of over fifty historical and contemporary romance suspense novels.  She currently lives in Missoula, Montana with her husband.  Kat is a graduate of the University of California where she majored in Anthropology and studied History.  Before starting her writing career in 1985, she was a real estate broker.  That’s where she met her husband, Larry Jay Martin, author of more than 20 westerns and mysteries.

Most of her ideas for books just pop up in her head, but she does occasionally get ideas from newspapers and television.  Her books are published in twenty foreign countries.

Against the Edge is book number eight in the Against series.  You  don’t need to read the others in any order as they stand alone just fine.

Former Navy SEAL Ben Slocum receives the shock of his life when a stranger appears on his doorstep announcing that a child he didn’t even know he had is missing.  Claire Chastain is a friend of the boy’s late mother and is desperate to find him and seeks Ben’s help.  They band together to track down the kidnapper, all the while trying to fight the attraction they feel for each other.  Ben enlists the help of his fellow private investigators and end up traveling through several states in search of an off grid survivalist group who might have his son, Sam.  To add an interesting twist to the story, Claire’s old boyfriend shows up with his own trouble that Claire gets drawn into.

This book is filled with drama, suspense, action, romance, and likeable characters.  It is fun to watch Ben and Claire’s relationship take hold.  The author weaves a believable story of both characters’ pasts that adds great interest to the book.  The secondary characters (some have been introduced in past Against books) add another enjoyable layer.

The Savvy Shopper

I am the antithesis of a fashion guru. I spent twelve years in sweats and T-shirts as stay at home mom. If I don’t like the colors of the year, I don’t buy clothes. I wear what I like, whether it’s gypsy skirts, rhinestones, boatnecks, or a tiara. I have a 20-year old bridesmaid’s dress that has more miles on it than my “regular” clothes, and a 15-year old coat with a broken zipper that I repaired with velcro and folk-art trim. I go to a mall maybe twice a year, when I can’t avoid it. I have a hoard of patterns I’ll pull out and whip up shirts or shorts or skirts from old clothes or sheets. So I am at a total loss about why I like reading books about fashion and purchasing. Maybe because it’s so foreign to me, it becomes a peep-show into another world.

My curiosity began with the book Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Luster by Dana Thomas. Thomas traces the rise of super-elite fashion items, from Vuitton to Chanel to Burberry and more – names I know only from magazine ads. What began as high-quality, individually hand-crafted merchandise, as was almost inevitable, is now made almost exclusively overseas to boost profits. The quality has decreased along with it, but not the price. After reading how these super-designers began as simple sewers who went home and made their own creations, I pulled out my sewing machine, designed and sewed my own custom-tailored handbags, and vowed never to purchase someone else’s design again.

In Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, by Elizabeth Cline, Cline focuses on how the clothing industry has taken a dive since the 1990′s. By 2000, almost all clothing production has moved overseas in an attempt to maintain high profits and offer low, low prices. The 2000s saw the rise of Fast Fashion, meaning stores try to be in perpetual production, having new items every week instead of seasonally at the sacrifice of quality, style, and size, with some companies able to follow trends from concept to store in as little as six weeks. The marketing scheme of low, low prices is disastrous for the environment and for the economy, balanced on people who compulsively buy more than they can afford and possibly wear, items that fall apart after three washings and then are thrown away at the rate of hundreds of tons per month – mostly polyester, which is uncomfortable, not recyclable, and not even useful as rags – and no, neither the Salvation Army nor the poor of Africa want these useless third-rate garments. It creates the sweatshops and child labor of Asia, where the focus is on ever-cheaper labor costs to maintain profit – modern slavery. It has destroyed the US garment industry, and put thousands of US workers out of jobs.

In Cheap: The The High Cost of Discount Culture, by Ellen Ruppert Shell, Shell covers much the same idea but in the concept of our press-board, Ikea-Walmart-Dollar Store culture. Instead of buying fewer high-quality goods that may last decades, our instant-gratification society is held up with super-cheap garbage that might last a year, if lucky. As forests are cut away to make the pulp that goes into throw-away furniture, as the demand for metals goes up to furnish wire or aluminum for lamps and chairs, the ecology of entire communities can be laid waste – let alone trying to find landfill space for all the broken cheap items. Cheap is nowhere near as cheap as you think it is. While Shell makes many interesting and valid points, at times her book slipped into heavy economics, which made my head spin. Skip the numbers, read the rest of the book.

In Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value and How to Take Advantage of It, William Poundstone discusses the psychology involved in pricing items and making purchases. Do you remember the gas crises of the ’70′s, when gas stations waged war by dropping to 48 6/10ths, or 54 and 3/10ths instead of 9/10ths?  And we rushed to save a quarter of a penny? Do you wonder how stores can afford to give  60% sale and stay in business?  Or why you jump for joy when you snatch an item at Marshall’s that reads $59 – Compare at $135 and think you’re getting the steal of the century? Did you know that people will work for chocolate with the same behaviors as for money? Poundstone discusses how consumers are manipulated by very precise, controlled, and deliberate pricing strategies meant to maximize profit and induce you to buy – and how you can avoid those traps.

Nothing in this world comes without a price. Fashion, art, craftsmanship, and superb quality are becoming lost to generations in our quest not for beautiful items that will last years, but for more, more, more, more, an unsustainable chant fueled by governments that don’t know what else to say, most of which winds up in landfills where it may take more than a century to degrade. Choose wisely when making purchases, think about where the product is made, is it made with fair trade wages, is it good for the planet.  If you do buy, no matter what quality or price, always remember: reduce, reuse, recycle.

Designing with Duct Tape

Duct tape is a marvel for emergency repairs to home, boat, shoes, and much more. However, this wonder has also found many more uses by those with too much time on their hands or a giant creative streak. These days some people are selling duct tape art work, clothing, accessories and more to help pay their bills. I have seen wallets, purses, hats, ties, dresses, jackets, and more created with just imagination and duct tape. The assorted colors and custom patterns that manufacturers are making duct tape with only help those looking to create rather than simply repair items with this study and versatile adhesive.

Would you like to try your hand at creating with duct tape, want to create a craft project to keep hands busy, or are just curious about the hows and whys of creating with duct tape? Well, have we got the books for you.

Stick It!

Stick it! : 99 D.I.Y. Duct Tape Projects by T. L. Bonaddio is a great place to start. This book is geared towards young adults and adults complete with folders and detailed step-by-step directions to walk readers through 99 duct tape craft projects in a full range of difficulty levels. Some of the craft ideas included are bracelets, flip-flops, wallets, purses, and pillows. I highly suggest stocking up a variety of colored duct tapes before trying your hand at any of these projects.

Kids; Guide to Duct Tape Projects

The Kids’ Guide to Duct Tape Projects by Sheri Bell-Rehwoldt is a great place for the younger set to get started with duct tape creations. This book contains complete instructions for eight relatively easy duct tape projects in a step-by-step format along with safety tips and a craft glossary to help newcomers to crafting in general get started. Projects included here are a book cover, cell phone pouch, wallet, rose, picture frame, game board, and a couple of fashion items.

The Duct Tape Book

For those not quite ready to jump in with both feet, but not so nervous that they want to go for the children’s book, I suggest starting in the middle with The Duct Tape Book : 25 Projects to Make with Duct Tape. This book, as the title promises, offers a selection instruction to 25 duct tape creations. With the help of this book you can create formal wear, puppets, purses, hats, picture frames, and more.

If this selection of duct tape books only wets your appetite and make you eager for more, simply stop in the library and we can help you find what you need to met your creative interests!