Books, Movies, and Music
Have a recommendation for us? Suggest an item for purchase.
Books
Books, Movies, and Music blog
-
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - 5:07pm
View this item in the catalog.
The subtitle of MWF Seeking BFF (“married white female seeking best friend forever”) is my yearlong search for a new best friend, and that’s exactly the mission Bertsche chronicles here: her year-long project to find a best friend in a new city. After leaving her lifelong best friends behind in New York and moving to Chicago with her husband, Bertsche decides she needs a local best friend, and the best way to find “the one,” she determines, is to go on 52 “friend dates” throughout the year. The narrative is infused with the author’s bubbling personality, and she includes research on friendship; MWF Seeking BFF is similar to Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project in this way, though this is a less rigorous, more fun read. Recommended for anyone who’s ever had to move to a new place and make new friends, but especially for women in their 20s and 30s.
-
Posted on Saturday, April 14, 2012 - 9:44am
View this item in the catalog.
Faith is told mostly in the first person from the point of view of Sheila, whose older half-brother Art, a priest, is accused of child molestation in Boston in 2002. Sheila believes he is innocent; her younger brother Mike is less sure; their mother can't bear to speak of it. Haigh conveys the intricate emotional balances of the family and the Boston Irish Catholic community beautifully; there is much more to the story than the newspapers report, and Sheila discovers and relates it all to the reader. Haigh handles the sensitive subject matter deftly and unflinchingly. This is a unique book.
-
Posted on Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - 5:58pm
View this item in the catalog.
This account of the Massachusetts Bay Colony is respectful and sarcastic, reverent and flippant. Sarah Vowell has a deep interest not just in the order of events, but in the hows and whys behind them; she examines Governor John Winthrop’s journals in great detail, and her efforts to understand his and the other Puritans’ motivations are unflagging. However, she’s not above poking fun at some of their more ridiculous beliefs and petty squabbles. For those whose knowledge of this early era of U.S. history consists of hazy memories of grade-school Thanksgiving plays, The Wordy Shipmates is a great refresher course, and Vowell is an entertaining teacher who strives to connect past to present. The audiobook is also excellent, with Vowell narrating and an additional cast for voices such as John Winthrop and Anne Hutchinson.
-
Posted on Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - 7:06pm
View this item in the catalog.
The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic – And How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World is a real-life detective story where the detective is hunting down not a criminal but the cause of a disease. The “detectives” in this page-turner are Reverend Henry Whitehead and Dr. John Snow, who together investigate the outbreak of cholera in London in 1854. The way that they solve the case using mapping techniques is fascinating; Snow proved that the spread of the disease was due to contaminated drinking water, not a "miasma" in the air.
-
Posted on Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - 5:45pm
View this item in the catalog.
A retelling of Jane Eyre set in Scotland in the 1950s and ‘60s, The Flight of Gemma Hardy is at once familiar and fresh. At first the story keeps so close to the original it seems that only the names have been changed, but at the character grows, so does the story; by the time the author really begins to depart from Charlotte Bronte’s original, the reader - whether a devotee of Jane Eyre or not - is on board. Gemma is a bit more outspoken and willing to stand up for herself than Jane is, though like Jane, she's often in the unenviable position of being the person with the least power no matter where she goes - her uncle's house, her boarding school, her job as an au pair in the far-flung Orkney Islands of Scotland. Margot Livesey has done a wonderful job of honoring Jane Eyre while also creating something lively and new.
Pages
Wilmington Memorial Library
175 Middlesex Ave.
Wilmington, MA 01887
Main Phone: (978) 658-2967
Youth Services: (978) 694-2098
Hours & Directions
M-Th 9am-9pm, Fri 9am-5pm
Sat 9am-5pm (closed Saturdays during summer)
Follow us!
 |  |  |
 |  |  |