eBranch Blog

June 30, 2008

Locus Award Winners Announced

This year's Locus Awards winners were announced last week. The Locus Awards are presented to the winners of Locus Magazine's annual reader's poll to provide suggestions and recommendations to Hugo Award voters. They are presented in several categories including Science Fiction, Fantasy, and more. Listed below are some of the winners:

Science Fiction Novel
Michael Chabon. The Yiddish Policeman's Union
A murder mystery based on the premise that a Jewish settlement was created in Alaska following World War II. In the small town of Sitka, Alyeska, Detective Meyer Landsman finds the body of a prominent town figure who has ties to organized crime. As Landsman digs deeper, he discovers that this is only the tip of the iceberg--and all signs point to a greater danger lurking in the shadows.

Fantasy Novel
Terry Pratchett. Making Money: A Novel of Discworld
Who would not wish to be the man in charge of Ankh-Morpork's Royal Mint and the bank next door? It's a job for life. But, as former conman Moist von Lipwig is learning, life is not necessarily for long.

Young Adult Book
China Mieville. Un Lun Dun
When twelve-year-old Zanna and her friend Deeba find a secret entrance leading out of London and into this strange city, it seems that the ancient prophecy is coming true at last. But then things begin to go shockingly wrong. ~Book Jacket

First Novel
Joe Hill. Heart-shaped Box
Rock star Judas Coyne is a collector of the bizarre and grotesque, so when he sees a ghost for sale on the internet he buys it. It comes delivered in a black heart-shaped box.

Anthology
Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan. The New Space Opera
The brightest names in science fiction pen all-new tales of space and wonder: Kage Baker, Stephen Baxter, Gregory Benford, Tony Daniel, Greg Egan, Peter F. Hamilton, Gwyneth Jones, James Patrick Kelly, Nancy Kress, Ken Macleod, Paul J. McAuley, Ian McDonald, Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Mary Rosenblum, Robert Silverberg, Dan Simmons, Walter Jon Williams.

Art Book
Shaun Tan. The Arrival
In this wordless graphic novel, a man leaves his homeland and sets off for a new country, where he must build a new life for himself and his family.

Collection
Connie Willis. The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories
In which may be found personal correspondence, travel guides, references to royalty, weather reports, parking fines, and other violations, including matters of life and death (and afterwards), an epiphany or two, and an appendix.

Please see past Locus Award winners for more great Science Fiction and Fantasy!

June 20, 2008

Tasha Tudor 1915-2008

Tasha Tudor passed away on June 18, 2008. She was 92. Tasha Tudor illustrated many children's books over the years. Two of her books were Caldecott Honor books: 1 is One (1956) and Mother Goose (1944).

Around the Year
Brief rhymes and drawings of activities popular in the nineteenth century portray events that occur in each month of the year.

A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
A collection of poems evoking the world and feelings of childhood.

The Tasha Tudor Cookbook
In words and the enchanting watercolors for which she is renowned, she shares the recipes she has gathered over a lifetime - some that have been passed down for generations and some that she created specially for her children and grandchildren.

June 17, 2008

June Kids Newsletter

The June/July issue of the Kids Newsletter is now available!

The Kids Newsletter is produced every other month and features news about Harris County Public Library children's programming. It also contains interviews with our Children's Staff and new children's materials that we have just added to our collection.

This issue features the Texas Summer Reading Club which starts on June 6, 2008 and ends on August 9, 2008. Children earn a certificate by reading 10 books, reading 500 pages or reading for 5 hours this summer.

The staff interviews in this issue are with Alexandra Corona and Miss Chris. Alexandra is the Family Literacy Specialist for Harris County Public Library and Miss Chris is a Children's Librarian at the Clear Lake City-County Freeman Branch Library.

June 12, 2008

Spur Award Winners Announced

The Spur Awards are given annually by the Western Writers of America in a variety of categories. Winners are announced during the awards banquet at the annual Western Writers of America Convention. The following are highlights from the 2008 winners:

Best Western Long Novel
Aryn Kyle. The God of Animals
When her older sister runs away to marry a rodeo cowboy, Alice Winston is left to bear the brunt of her family's troubles - a depressed, bedridden mother; a reticent, overworked father; and a run-down horse ranch. As the hottest summer in fifteen years unfolds and bills pile up, Alice is torn between dreams of escaping the loneliness of her duty-filled life and a longing to help her father mend their family and the ranch.

Best Western Short Novel
Sandra Dallas. Tallgrass
This is her town as Rennie Stroud has never seen it before. She has just turned thirteen and, until this time, life has pretty much been what her father told her it should be: predictable and fair. But now the winds of change are coming and, with them, a shift in her perspective. And Rennie will discover secrets that can destroy even the most sacred things.

Best First Novel
Thomas Maltman. The Night Birds
The summer of 1876 is a time of fear and uncertainty for young Asa Senger and his German immigration family. Vast clouds of locusts descend once more on the Great Plains, stripping the land bare. The James/Younger gang, a band of murderous thieves, is rumored to be riding north into the area. And all the while, Asa can sense lurking just under the surface of his daily life something appalling that his parents will never speak of.

Best Western Nonfiction Contemporary
Robert M. Utley. Lone Star Lawmen: The Second Century of the Texas Rangers
Based on unprecedented access to Ranger archives, this fast-paced narrative stretches from the days of the Mexican Revolution (where atrocities against Mexican Americans marked the nadir of Ranger history) to the Branch Davidian saga near Waco and the recent bloody standoff with "Republic of Texas" militia. Readers will find in these pages one hundred years of high adventure. Utley follows the Rangers as they pursue bank robbers, bootleggers, moonshiners, and "horsebackers" (smugglers who used mule trains to bring liquor across the border). We see these fearless lawmen taming oil boomtowns, springing the ambush of Bonnie and Clyde, facing down angry lynch mobs, and tracking the "Phantom Killer" of Texarkana. Utley also highlights the gradual evolution of this celebrated force, revealing that while West Texas Rangers still occasionally ride the range on horseback and crack down on smugglers and rustlers, East Texas Rangers - who work mostly in big cities - now ride in high-powered cars and contend with kidnappers, forgers, and other urban criminals. But East or West, today's Rangers have become sophisticated professionals, backed by crime labs and forensic science.

Best Western Drama
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Jesse James was a fabled outlaw, a charismatic, spiritual, larger-than-life bad man whose bloody exploits captured the imagination and admiration of a nation hungry for antiheroes. Robert Ford was a young upstart torn between dedicated worship and murderous jealousy, the "dirty little coward" who coveted Jesse's legend. The powerful, strange, and unforgettable story of their interweaving paths and twin destinies that would collide in a rain of blood and betrayal-is a story of America in all her rough, conflicted glory and the myths that made her.

Please see past Spur Award winners for more great Western reads!

June 02, 2008

June/July Issue of Our Space Newsletter Available

The June/July issue of Our Space: People & Books @ HCPL is now available.

The current issue features a staff interview with Ramses Sanches, a circulation assistant at Baldwin Boettcher. The customer interview is with Fran Serena, a Spring Branch Memorial library customer. Two book lists are featured, one on beach reads and one on All Things Da Vinci.

While each newsletter is available to read on our website, you can also subscribe to this newsletter or any of the other topical newsletters we offer by email or RSS Feed.

New Titles Cataloged Lists Updated

The New Titles Cataloged in the Past 30 Days have been updated for May 2008.

The lists are in PDF file format and require the free Adobe Reader to view. We hope you enjoy the new format. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about this change please use our Feedback Form.