Are you looking for something good to read?  The HCPL Book Hunters have selected the best books they read in 2011.  Selections include adult fiction, older fiction, and nonfiction; children's literature; and teen literature. For personalized book recommendations, fill out a Book Hunters profile today.

Several titles in each category were picked by multiple book hunters; these are featured below.  Visit us on Pinterest for the complete selection of titles.

Beginning June 1, 2011, Harris County Public Library is implementing a change to our interlibrary loan (ILL) service.  Effective that day, we will no longer offer ILL service for the following material types:  DVDs, VHS titles and music (CD/cassette). 

We will continue to offer ILL service for books, audio books in CD or cassette formats, periodical articles, photocopies and microform. 

See the Interlibrary Loan Policy for the full policy.

We polled our staff on what their best reads of 2010 were.  It's a mix of fiction, nonfiction, young adult, and children's. Like everyone else, we read both current titles and older titles, which you'll see reflected in the list.  What were your favorite reads last year?  View all titles...

Yahoo! has put together two 100 Movies to See Before You Die lists: The All-Time Greats and The Modern Classics. The All Time Greats is an alphabetical list of movies from around the globe that Yahoo!

The Denver Post Photo Blog has an amazing set of photos - Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943 - from the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.  They are reproductions from color slides taken by the US Farm Security Administration from 1939-1943.  The photos are from all over the country, including some from Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.  I think my favorite photo from the set is a real life "Rosie the Riviter," I love how her face is mirrored in the side of the "Vengeance" dive bomber.

NPR asked it's listeners to nominate and vote for the Top 100 Killer Thrillers.  So, after 17,000+ ballots were cast on the 600 nominated novels, the top ten is:

HBO's ten part series The Pacific debuts on March 14. I'm sure we'll be watching it as my husband and I enjoyed Band of Brothers, which was by the same producers (Tom Hanks, Stephen Spielberg and Gary Goetzman).  Unlike Band of Brothers, which was based on Stephen Abrose's book, The Pacific follows several main characters and is based on memoirs published after World War II.  The following are tie-in books in HCPL's collection:

HCPL's Book Bites column appears monthly in Houston Family Magazine.  Each column features suggested books for toddlers through teens.  Get the new list every month in the magazine, available at all of our branches.  Previous columns.