eBranch Blog

March 31, 2006

TV Is King

Entertainment Weekly picked their favorite current TV shows in the March 31, 2006 issue. If you need to get caught up on these shows, check out our DVD holdings:

Dramas:
1. 24 (Seasons 1-4)
2. The Sopranos (Seasons 1-5)
3. CSI (Seasons 1-4)
4. Battlestar Galactica (Seasons 1-2)
5. Lost (Season 1)
6. Everwood
7. Gilmore Girls (Seasons 1-5)
8. Law & Order franchise (Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, Law & Order Criminal Intent)
9. Veronica Mars (Season 1)
10. The Shield (Seasons 1-4)

Comedies:
1. Scrubs (Seasons 1-2)
2. The Office [To see where it all started, check out the British version of The Office starring Ricky Gervais]
3. South Park
4. The Simpsons (Seasons 1-7)
5. The Colbert Report

Last Chance
1. Will & Grace (Seasons 1-4)
2. West Wing (Seasons 1-5)
3. Alias (Seasons (1-4)
4. Charmed (Seasons 1-2)

Other Shows
Degrassi (Seasons 1-4)
Frasier (Seasons 1-8)
House M.D. (Season 1)
Smallville (Season 1)
Survivor (Season 1)

If you're more into Classic TV, check out these great shows.

All in the Family (Seasons 1-5)
The Andy Griffith Show
Bewitched [You might also enjoy last year's movie version of Bewitched, which was loosely based on the show.]
Cheers
The Dick Van Dyke Show (Seasons 1-5)
Friends (Seasons 1-10)
Golden Girls (Seasons 1-3)
Match Game
NYPD Blue (Seasons 1-2)
Roseanne
Sanford and Son (Seasons 1-2)
Seinfeld (Seasons 1-6)
The Waltons [You might also want to check out the movie Spencer's Mountain starring Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Hara]

March 30, 2006

Margaret Mahy Wins Hans Christian Anderson Award

Author Margaret Mahy was awarded the 2006 Hans Christian Anderson award, by the International Board of Books for Young People, on March 28. The Hans Christian Anderson award is given every other year to a living author or illustrator whose complete work have made a lasting contribution to children's literature.

Mahy is the author of numerous books including picture books, novels for children and teens, and nonfiction for both children and adults. Mahy is a resident of New Zealand. Her most recent books include:

Alchemy
Seventeen-year-old Roland discovers that an unpopular girl in his school is studying alchemy and finds that their destiny is linked with that of a power-hungry magician. (YA)

Dashing Dog (Illustrated by Sarah Garland)
A dashing dog, brushed-up-and-downery, dare-devil-daring and dog-about-townery dog, is twirled around, ruffled and scuffled and wobbled and whirled around. (Picture Book)

The Horribly Haunted School (Illustrated by Robert Staermose)
Monty is allergic to ghosts; if there's one around, he sneezes. When he discovers a ghost named Lulu haunting his home, his mother sends him away to the Brinsley Codd School for Sensible Thought, where she hopes he will learn that there are no such things as spirits. But Monty has only been inside the school a minute when he starts to sneeze. How can Monty stop believing in ghosts when the school itself turns out to be haunted by the ghost of Brinsley Codd? (Juvenile Fiction)

March 27, 2006

New Bestsellers 3/27/06

The following books are appearing on the best seller lists for the first time this week. For a complete listing see our collection of Best Seller Lists.

E = Essence Magazine
NYT = New York Times
PW = Publisher's Weekly
USA = USA Today
* = Titles that have previously appeared on the bestseller lists but are new to our catalog

Fiction

Stephanie Laurens. What Price Love?
The internationally bestselling author continues her extraordinary success with this lushly romantic new tale featuring the wildly poplar Cynsters. (NYT #14, PW #14)

Lisa Scottoline. Dirty Blonde
A riveting page-turner about love and murder that starts in the elite chambers of a sexy female judge and ends on the cold, gritty streets of Philadelphia. (NYT #5, PW #4, USA #10)

Omar Tyree. Boss Lady
"Tracy Ellison Grant is in charge again in Tyree's latest Flyy Girl novel (after For the Love of Money and Flyy Girl), this time as mentor to her go-getter younger cousin, Vanessa Tracy Smith, who narrates this glitzy urban story about the payoff of hard work. Tracy Grant rose to fame earlier with her autobiography Flyy Girl, which she parlayed into a booming career as a screenwriter, actress and producer. Now, an adoring and ambitious 16-year-old Vanessa moves from North Philly to L.A., and the novel tracks her three-year meteoric rise as Tracy's personal assistant and prot?g?e to Hollywood powerbroker." - Publisher's Weekly (E #5)

Carl Weber. So You Call Yourself a Man
A tale of three best friends who've grown up together--but the real test of manhood and friendship have only just begun. (E #7)

Valerie W. Wesley. Playing My Mother?s Blues
An emotionally rich and flavorful novel of past and present, loss and fulfillment is penned by the renowned author of "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do." (E #10)

Nonfiction

Bart D. Ehrman. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
When world-class biblical scholar Bart Ehrman first began to study the texts of the Bible in their original languages he was startled to discover the multitude of mistakes and intentional alterations that had been made by earlier translators. In Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman tells the story behind the mistakes and changes that ancient scribes made to the New Testament and shows the great impact they had upon the Bible we use today. (PW #8)

Michael R. Gordon. Cobra II
A revelatory work of investigative journalism, this comprehensive and unfiltered account of the war in Iraq is written by the only reporter who was embedded with the Allied land command. (PW #4)

Tom Joyner. I'm Just a DJ But...It Makes Sense to Me
Legendary radio personality Tom Joyner comes out from behind the microphone to share the wit and wisdom that made him a star. The "Tom Joyner Show" is broadcast five days a week on 110 stations and is heard by more than 10 million people. In 1998, Tom was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. (E #6)

Frances Mayes. A Year in the World
The author who unforgettably captured the experience of starting a new life in Tuscany in bestselling travel memoirs expands her horizons to immerse herself?and her readers?in the sights, aromas, and treasures of twelve new special places including Turkey, the British isles, Portugal, Spain, and North Africa. (NYT #8, PW #15)

BRUTAL, by Kevin Weeks and Phyllis Karas. (Regan-Books/HarperCollins, $25.95.) Life inside Whitey Bulger's Irish mob in Boston, by a reformed thug. (NYT #15)

WHAT JESUS MEANT, by Garry Wills. (Viking, $24.95.) A fresh reading of the Gospels emphasizes the radicalism of Jesus. (NYT #12)

March 20, 2006

New Bestsellers 3/20/06

The following books are appearing on the best seller lists for the first time this week. For a complete listing see our collection of Best Seller Lists.

The Criticas Spanish Language fiction and nonfiction bestseller lists were updated for March 2006.

E = Essence Magazine
NYT = New York Times
PW = Publisher's Weekly
USA = USA Today
* = Titles that have previously appeared on the bestseller lists but are new to our catalog

Fiction

Jeffrey Archer. False Impression
In his first thriller since The Eleventh Commandment, international bestselling author Jeffrey Archer takes the reader on a breathtaking journey, full of twists and turns, all leading back to the question of why so many people are willing to risk their lives to own Van Gogh?s Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear. And it?s not just because it could be worth one hundred million dollars. (PW #8)

Lisa Kleypas. Devil in Winter *
In this third entry of Kleypas's Wallflower quartet, heiress Evie Jenner is desperate to escape from her cruel relatives and proposes marriage to the rakish Viscount St. Vincent. However, she does not expect to fall in love. (USA #14)

Kate Mosse. Labyrinth
July 2005. In the Pyrenees mountains near Carcassonne, Alice Tanner, a volunteer at an archaeological dig, stumbles into a cave and makes a startling discovery - two crumbling skeletons, strange writings on the walls and the pattern of a labyrinth; between the skeletons, a stone ring, and a small leather bag. Too late Alice realizes that she has set in motion a terrifying sequence of events and that her destiny is inextricably tied up with the fate of those called heretics eight hundred years before. (PW #11)

Thomas Perry. Nightlife
Perry?s new thriller takes us on a dangerous cat-and-mouse game that pits two women against each other: a beautiful serial killer and the detective who is determined to stop her. (PW #14)

Jodi Picoult. The Tenth Circle
When the daughter of a comic book artist claims she has been raped at a party and her friends turn against her, she runs away to Alaska and her father must face his own violent past as he tries to find her. (PW #1, USA #3)

Stephen White. Kill Me
Stephen White has written a new breed of thriller. Throw out everything you think you know about twists, turns, and surprises. Get ready to meet the Death Angels. (PW #15)

Nonfiction

David Bach. The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner
Imagine this. You buy a home, live in it, then buy another. You build your wealth through real estate?and then retire rich. It may sound too good to be true. But it?s not. It has happened, it?s happening now and it will continue to happen for millions of people over the next few decades. The question is, will it happen for you? (PW #4)

Leslie Baumann, M.D. Skin Type Solution
From Dr. Leslie Baumann, a world-renowned dermatologist, comes a program that?s revolutionizing the way people everywhere think about?and shop for?skin care. Now you can identify and buy the products that are right for your true skin type. (PW #13)

Sylvia Browne. If You Could See What I See *
This enlightening work contains the Gnostic tenets of the author's church, the Society of Novus Spiritus. The text is a map of humankind's search for spirituality and the path to God. (PW #10)

Immacul?e Ilibagiza. Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust
Her life ripped apart by the bloody genocide that broke out in Rwanda in 1994, Ilibagiza forged a profound and lasting relationship with God through prayer and discovered a love so strong she was able to seek out and forgive her family's killers. (PW #9)

March 14, 2006

New Bestsellers 3/13/06

The following books are appearing on the best seller lists for the first time this week. For a complete listing see our collection of Best Seller Lists.

E = Essence Magazine
NYT = New York Times
PW = Publisher's Weekly
USA = USA Today
* = Titles that have previously appeared on the bestseller lists but are new to our catalog

Fiction

Rita Mae & Sneaky Pie Brown. Sour Puss
In this latest whodunit, Rita Mae Brown and her feline partner-in-crime-detection, Sneaky Pie Brown, return to the scene of their bestselling crimes?picturesque Crozet, Virginia. Love is in the air as spring comes to the small town, but no sooner has Mary Minor ?Harry? Haristeen remarried than she is rudely interrupted?by murder. And no sooner does the trouble start than curious cats Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, along with corgi Tee Tucker, sink their claws into the case.? (NYT #9, PW #11)

Heather Graham. The Island
Modern-day pirates and a sunken ship of treasure figure in this island adventure, as two strangers team up to explore the darker side of paradise. (NYT #15, PW #14)

Lisa Jackson. Fatal Burn
In this riveting new novel of romantic suspense, the "New York Times" bestselling author of "Deep Freeze" delivers the thrilling tale of a woman whose dark past ties her to a twisted madman who is plotting deadly revenge. (USA #2)

THE FALLEN, by T. Jefferson Parker. (Morrow, $24.95.) A San Diego detective investigates the death of a colleague in an atmosphere of municipal corruption. (NYT #16)

Edward Rutherfurd. The Rebels of Ireland
Once again Rutherfurd takes us inside the process of history by tracing the lives of several Dublin families from all strata of society, Protestant and Catholic, rich and poor, conniving and heroic. (NYT #10, PW #8)

Danielle Steel. The House
In a novel of daring and hope, of embracing life and taking chances, Danielle Steel brilliantly captures one woman's courageous choice to live her dreams and receive unexpected gifts in return. (NYT #1, PW #3, USA #8)

Nonfiction

Wayne W. Dyer. Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling
Each chapter in this book is filled with specifics for living an inspired life. From a very personal viewpoint, the bestselling author of "The Power of Intention" offers a blueprint through the world of spirit to inspiration. (PW #3)

EAT, PRAY, LOVE, by Elizabeth Gilbert. (Viking, $24.95.) A writer's yearlong journey in search of self takes her to Italy, India and Indonesia. (NYT #12)

Bill Sammon. Strategery
Strategery is a term borrowed from a Saturday Night Live skit and self-deprecatingly adopted by the White House for their meetings. White House Correspondent Bill Sammon is borrowing it yet again in his latest account of this unlikely-yet historic-president. It is written with verve and piercing insight by Sammon, who has been granted unprecedented access to President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their most senior advisers. No other journalist has interviewed the president more times than Sammon. (NYT #9, PW #12)

PW Religion

Douglas Brinkley & Julie Fenster. Parish Priest: Father Michael McGivney and American Catholocism
The authors re-create the life of Father McGivney, a fiercely dynamic yet tenderhearted man. Though he was only thirty-eight when he died, Father McGivney has never been forgotten. He remains a true "people's priest," a genuinely holy man -- and perhaps the most beloved parish priest in U.S. history. (#8)

Michael Lerner. The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right
Presenting an eight-point progressive spiritual covenant with America, Lerner provides a blueprint for how the Democratic Party can effectively challenge the Right and position itself to win the White House and Congress. (#7)

50 Multicultural Books Every Child Should Read Book List

This list of must-have multicultural books was compiled by the Cooperative Children's Book Center, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Preschool
Natasha Tarpley. I Love My Hair!
A young African American girl describes the different, wonderful ways she can wear her hair.

Ages 5-7
Joy Jarjo. The Good Luck Cat
Because her good luck cat Woogie has already used up eight of his nine lives in narrow escapes from disaster, a Native American girl worries when he disappears.

Ages 7-9
Francisco X. Alarcon. From the Bellybutton of the Moon, and Other Summer Poems / Del ombligo de la luna, y otros poemas de verano
A bilingual collection of poems in which the renowned Mexican American poet revisits and celebrates his childhood memories of summers, Mexico, and nature.

Ages 9-12
Yale Strom. Quilted Landscape: Conversations with Young Immigrants
Twenty-six young people of different ages and nationalities describe their experience of leaving their countries and immigrating to the the United States.

March 08, 2006

New Bestsellers 3/6/06

The following books are appearing on the best seller lists for the first time this week. For a complete listing see our collection of Best Seller Lists.

The Wall Street Journal Best Sellers Lists have been discontinued.

E = Essence Magazine
NYT = New York Times
PW = Publisher's Weekly
USA = USA Today
* = Titles that have previously appeared on the bestseller lists but are new to our catalog

Fiction

Steve Berry. The Templar Legacy
The ancient order of the Knights Templar possessed untold wealth and absolute power over kings and popes ... until the Inquisition, when they were wiped from the face of the earth, their riches lost. But now two forces vying for the treasure have learned that it is not at all what they thought it was - and its true nature could change the modern world. (NYT #4, PW #4, USA #10)

Robert Crais. The Two Minute Rule
The "New York Times" bestselling author of "The Forgotten Man, L.A. Requiem," and "The Last Detective" returns with an intense, edge-of-your seat suspense novel about a reformed bank robber out to avenge the death of his son. (NYT #6, PW #7)

Martha Grimes. The Old Wine Shades
Richard Jury considers the authenticity of a fantastical tale, told by a stranger and fellow patron at the Old Wine Shades pub in London, about a string theory scientist's wife, son, and dog, who disappeared without a trace nine months earlier. (PW #8)

Nonfiction

Howie Carr. The Brothers Bulger
A portrait of Boston's infamous Bulger brothers, Whitey and Billy--one as the city's most feared mobster, the other as a power in the Massachusetts State Senate. (NYT #10, PW #15)

NYT Business

Charles Fishman. The Wal-Mart Effect
Charles Fishman has penetrated Wal-Mart's wall of secrecy, gaining the first in-depth and truly revealing access to a host of former Wal-Mart executives as well as managers at leading brand companies that sell to Wal-Mart, and digging up the untold story of "the Wal-Mart effect. (#10)

March 07, 2006

78th Annual Academy Award Winners

The 2005 Academy Awards were announced on Sunday, March 5, 2006. Nominees are listed below for the major awards; winners are indicated with an *. Check out previous winners for Motion Picture, Documentary Feature, Foreign Language Film, and Animated Feature.

Our lists have all been updated with current winners. Links to previous winners we have recently received have also be updated. We now have a complete collection of the winners of the Best Motion Picture award with the addition of 1937's The Life of Emile Zola.

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role:
* Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote
Terrence Howard in Hustle & Flow
Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain
Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line
David Strathairn in Good Night, and Good Luck

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role:
* Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line
Judi Dench in Mrs. Henderson Presents
Felicity Huffman in Transamerica
Keira Knightley in Pride & Prejudice
Charlize Theron in North Country

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role:
* George Clooney in Syriana
Matt Dillon in Crash
Paul Giamatti in Cinderella Man
Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain
William Hurt in A History of Violence

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role:%0
* Rachel Weisz in The Constant Gardener
Amy Adams in Junebug
Catherine Keener in Capote
Frances McDormand in North Country
Michelle Williams in Brokeback Mountain

Achievement in Directing:
* Brokeback Mountain - Ang Lee
Capote - Bennett Miller
Crash - Paul Haggis
Good Night, and Good Luck - George Clooney
Munich - Steven Spielberg

Best Motion Picture of the Year:
* Crash
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Good Night, and Good Luck
Munich

Best Animated Feature of the Year:
* Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Howl?s Moving Castle
Tim Burton?s Corpse Bride

Best Documentary Feature:
* March of the Penguins
Darwin?s Nightmare
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Murderball
Street Fight

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year:
* Tsotsi (South Africa)
Don?t Tell (Ialy)
Joyeux No?l (France)
Paradise Now (Palestine)
Sophie Scholl - The Final Days (Germany)

2005 National Book Critics Circle Awards Winners

The National Book Critics Circle Awards are awarded annually in several categories including fiction. The awards are chosen by the 700+ members.

Fiction

E.L. Doctorow. The March
In 1864, after Union general William Tecumseh Sherman burned Atlanta, he marched his sixty thousand troops east through Georgia to the sea, and then up into the Carolinas. The army fought off Confederate forces and lived off the land, pillaging the Southern plantations, taking cattle and crops for their own, demolishing cities, and accumulating a borne-along population of freed blacks and white refugees until all that remained was the dangerous transient life of the uprooted, the dispossessed, and the triumphant.

Nonfiction

Svetlana Alexievich. Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

Biography/Autobiography

Francine Du Plessix Gray. Them: A Memoir of Parents - Autobiography
Alexander Liberman and Tatiana du Plessix were two extravagantly talented Russian emigres who fled wartime Paris to become New York's first and grandest "power couple." Their life stories spanned the twentieth century, and reflected the sociopolitical complexities at the heart of it. Them: A Memoir of Parents is written by their daughter, Francine de Plessix Gray. In this memoir, she tells the saga of their triumph and decline - a saga that mirrors, and could only have concurred with, the chaos of the last half century.

Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of Robert J. Oppenheimer - Biography
The first full-scale biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, ?father of the atomic bomb,? the brilliant, charismatic physicist who led the effort to capture the awesome fire of the sun for his country in time of war.

Poetry

Jack Gilbert. Refusing Heaven

March 02, 2006

Charlotte Zolotow Award Book List

The Charlotte Zolotow Award is given annually for outstanding writing in a picture book published in the United States in the preceding year. Established in 1998, the award is named to honor the work of Charlotte Zolotow, a distinguished children's book editor for 38 years with Harper Junior Books, and author of more than 70 picture books.

2006
Mary Ann Rodman. My Best Friend
Six-year-old Lily has a best friend all picked out for play group day, but unfortunately the differences between first-graders and second-graders are sometimes very large.

March 01, 2006

Events & Programs Calendar - New and Improved

We debuted, today, our new Events & Programs calendar, which replaces our old Events & Programs database. With the new calendar:

- You have a calendar view, with an optional list view.
- You can see at a glance, the events for the day, week, and month.
- You can search events for that branch or the system as a whole.
- Events are categorized better (for example, there are now event types for Book Discussion, Book Club, Toddler Time, and Baby Time among others).
- You can register online for an event, when available - this is indicated by an underlined title in the calendar.

The calendars can be accessed from individual branch pages or from the Events & Programs link on the front of our website.

We hope you enjoy the new and improved calendar of events.