Happily Ever After

I grew up on fairy tales - sitting in the tower with Rapunzel, wandering the woods with Hansel & Gretel, testing porridge with Little Red Riding Hood. At some point I decided I had outgrown fairy tales and it was time to start reading big-people-books. That's why I was so excited to discover some of these great fairy tales for adults:

In our fiction collection...
No One Noticed the Cat, by Anne McCaffrey
That Hideous Strength; a Modern Fairy-Tale for Grownups, by C.S. Lewis
The Cricket on the Hearth, A Fairy Tale of Home, by Charles Dickens
The True Story of Hansel and Gretel, by Louise Murphy
Polically Correct Bedtime Stories, by James Finn Garner

For the retelling of classics, visit our non-fiction collection at 398.21.

I haven't read all of these - yet - but I can't wait. And this is just a sample. We have a great list of Fairy Tales with a Twist in our Young Adult room for the teens, too. (Try Beastly by Alex Flinn for a little beauty and beast adventure as a start.) Happy reading!

Word Woman

Welcome to another weird and wonderful installment of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! Can you believe that it's almost August already? Back-to-school time is just around the corner, so why not warm up your neural pathways with the Word of the Week:

Snollygoster: [noun] a shrewd, unprincipled person, especially a politician. -- "Hatchet Jobs and Hardball: The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang", Grant Barrett, Ed., Oxford University Press, New York, 2004.

Example: Frank complained that his ex-wife's lawyer was such a snollygoster that he was lucky to still have a pair of pants left to him by the time the trial was over.

I was recently introduced to a friend of a friend who eats only raw foods. To put his eating habits into perspective, that means no meat or dairy, no baguettes, no cooked grains or pastas, no eggs, no tofu products, and absolutely none of grandma's home-made baked goods. So what does he eat?

Well, it turns out you can make pseudo meats, cheeses, breads, cakes, cookies, and ice creams using mixtures of nuts, vegetables, and spices, and you can use a vegetable peeler to slice certain vegetables, like zucchini, into fettuccini-like "noodles." People who eat raw also use food dehydraters to "cook" certain foods, which works, although these foods never actually get hot; the reasoning behind these non-traditional eating choices has to do with the belief that raw foods are easier to digest than cooked foods and that cooking food destroys some of the vitamins and nutrients in raw items.

It all sounded insane to me, and perhaps not very delicious, but then I got to thinking: when the weather is hot, I hate to heat up the house by cooking; maybe these people who eat raw are on to something. So I started looking at raw food recipes online and I have to say that some of these recipes sound potentially tasty. Chocolate mouse made with avocado instead of milk? Zucchini noodles topped with sun dried tomato and olive marinara? I'm willing to entertain these options.

Yes, I think I might delve in the world of raw food. I don't know what will happen to me, but I've naturally put a couple of raw food recipe books on hold at the Library to help guide me through my ignorance.

Now do you think me crazy?

Blast from the Past

Here are some titles you may have missed...all made The New York Times best seller list top spots a year ago today.



Library call numbers are listed in brackets, some titles are also available in large print and audio book CD formats.

FICTION:
#1 Tribute by Nora Roberts - A former child star returns to Virginia to rehabilitate the farm owned by her grandmother, and actress who died mysteriously. [ROBERTS]

#2 Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich - Stephanie Plum and her boyfriend Joe Morelli become involved when his cousin's bank robbery goes bad. [EVANOVI]

#3 The Last Patriot by Brad Thor - Scot Harvath, a Homeland Security superagent, searches for an ancient secret that could defeat Islamic militants. [BKCD THOR]

#4 The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski - A mute takes refuge with three dogs in the Wisconsin woods after his father's murder. [WROBLEW]

#5 Swan Peak by James Lee Burke - The Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux can't seem to escape trouble on his Montana vacation. [BURKE]


NONFICTION
#1 When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris - The humorist's latest essays. [814.54 SEDARIS]

#2 Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler - Humorous personal essays from the stand-up comedian. [306.7092 HANDLER]

#3 Fleeced by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann - Americans are fleeced by government, business, labor unions and lobbyists. [320.973 MORRIS]

#4 What Happened by Scott McClellan - A former White House press secretary regrets that "I allowed myself to be deceived" by top officials. [973.931 MCCLELL]

#5 sTori Telling by Tori Spelling with Hilary Liftin - The actress's memoir. [B SPELLING]


Readers, did you pick up any of these titles last July? If so, share what you would recommend (or not), or tell us what you're reading now by posting a comment.

To see what is hot THIS summer visit The New York Times books section online. Have fun reading!

In the Bag

Is your book group looking for some new titles to read? Try one of our book chat kits. We'll loan you 10 copies of a book plus a discussion guide and author information. And we have tons of kits to choose from. Look through out list, and then be sure to reserve your titles in advance. Don't see the title you really want to read? Let us know and we'll look into creating a new kit at your request!

If you're not already in a book group, come to ours. We meet the second Tuesday of the month at 7 p.m. in the small meeting room. Join us to discuss Mark Zusack's The Book Thief on Aug. 11. Copies of the book are available at the Accounts Desk.

Teens: we have a book group just for you, too. Join us Saturday, Aug. 8, at 3 p.m. to talk about The Diary of Anne Frank. For Teens Only, entering grades 7-12.