Category: Miscellany

Our New Assistant Director Has Arrived!

Posted on by Library User

We asked Jennifer Woodward, our brand new Assistant Director, to write something about her first week at FPL for the blog, and she did! We are so delighted she is here!

“Hello! My name is Jennifer Woodward and I am the new Assistant Director here at the Falmouth Public Library. I am thrilled to be here. I spent my first week on the job getting to know the library staff and the library building, as well as learning my new tasks and more about Falmouth. The library staff welcomed me with a party which featured a pie making contest! Both Liz Farland and Tammy Amon won the coveted Golden Spatula awards.

My most recent position was the Director of the public library in Northbridge Massachusetts. I’ve also worked in a corporate library, a law library and two other public libraries in Massachusetts. I grew up in Massachusetts, mostly in Plymouth, and spent my adult years (to date) in Metrowest and Central Massachusetts.

One of my new tasks is to choose which fiction books and DVDs to buy for adults. If you have any suggestions or thoughts about what you would like us to buy,  I would love to talk to you about it!

Thank you to the library staff and Director Linda Collins for helping make my first week a successful one.  And I hope to see you at the library soon!”

Simon Says …

Posted on by Library User

I am always astonished by all the science that takes place in the town of Falmouth, thanks to all of our scientific institutions. Recently I met Simon Ryder-Burbidge who is a guest student at WHOI. He and his colleagues are conducting a survey to understand how the community of Falmouth experiences “connection” to the ocean. They want to build a model for the design of community-based ocean policy, and they need your help! The survey is daunting at first, but as Simon tells me: ” It was a difficult balance to make it a manageable length without losing too much.” However, he also shares: “That being said, I’ve been very impressed by the level of participation so far. Some of the open-ended responses have been an absolute joy to read, and others very informative. People have been really generous with their time, and I do feel that something good is growing here.”

Simon and his colleagues are only looking for Falmouth residents, but Heather Goldstone, of WCAI, is also interested in your ocean stories. She writes: “Wherever you’re from, tell us your best ocean story. Throughout the summer, Living Lab Radio will be featuring your tales of ocean connections. E-mail a brief version of your story and your contact information to Living Lab Radio, or leave us a voicemail at (508) 289-1285.”

So you have two great opportunities to tell the world what the ocean means to you! You can find Simon’s survey for resident’s of Falmouth at www.lowlanderpress.com. As long as I was chatting with Simon, I also thought I’d ask him if he had any favorite books about the ocean, and this is what he told me:

“As for books, I have really been enjoying one called Cod by Mark Kurlansky (very locally relevant) at current. Blowing my mind about once per chapter so far.
Another one I really liked was Sex in the Sea by Marah Hardt. Some crazy stuff going on under the water. “
The full titles are Cod:  A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World and Sex in the Sea: Our Intimate Connection with Kinky Crustaceans, Sex–Changing Fish, Romantic Lobsters and Other Salty Erotica. Try some ocean reading to get you in the mood for filling out a survey or telling your ocean story!
Jill Erickson
Head of Reference & Adult Services

Summer Reading on The Point

Posted on by Library User

On today’s radio book show on The Point on WCAI we talked about great books for summer reading, if you have time for summer reading. If not, hold on to our suggestions until the autumn! Mindy Todd was joined by Jill Erickson, Head of Reference and Adult Services at the Falmouth Public Library and Jennifer Gaines, librarian at the Woods Hole Library. Thanks to all of our many callers, with all of your great book suggestions!

Our Books & Authors Festival will feature 16 authors over 8 weeks with 11 events! Authors include Robert Finch, Ellen Herrick, Patrick Dacey, Anne LeClair, and Anita Diamant! You can see all the details here! Geoff Wisner will be here on August 2nd, and you can read more about his visit and Thoreau’s 200th anniversary here.

Mindy’s Picks

Beyond the Bright Sea and Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk

Jennifer’s Picks

Summer World: a season of bounty by Bernd Heinrich

Population: 485, meeting your neighbors one siren at a time by Michael Perry

Coop: a year of poultry, pigs, and parenting by Michael Perry

Eels: an exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the world’s most amazing and mysterious fish by James Prosek

The Boys in the Boat:nine Americans and their epic quest for gold at the 1936 Olympics  by D. J. Brown

House on Crooked Pond by M. L. Shafer

The Children of Green Knowe by L. M. Brown. The first in a series of six books.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Nantucket Summer by Leila Howland. Contains Nantucket Red and Nantucket Blue in one volume.

Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. Here’s more information on the Woods Hole Library Summer Book Club, Social Justice.

Jill’s Picks

Art of the National Parks by Jean Stern, Susan Hallsten McGarry, and Terry Lawson Dunn

The Outer Beach: a thousand-mile walk on Cape Cod’s Atlantic Shore by Robert Finch.

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

“The Fall River Axe Murders” by Angela Carter in Saints and Strangers and in her Burning Your Boats: the collected short stories.

See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt. Tinder Press edition now available.

Home Made Summer by Yvette Van Boven

Thoreau’s Wildflowers by Henry David Thoreau, edited by Geoff Wisner, with drawings by Barry Moser

Thoreau’s Animals by Henry David Thoreau, edited by Geoff Wisner, illustrated by Debby Cotter Kaspari

The Shark Club by Ann Kidd Taylor

Picture Books:

Duck’s Vacation by Gilad Soffer

Jabari Jumps by Gaia Cornwall (And this supplies the illustration for this blog!)

The Storm by Akiko Miyakoshi

Listener Picks

Y is for Yesterday by Sue Grafton. Put in your hold now! Due out August 22nd.

My Struggle. Book One. by Karl Ove Knausgaard

The Hate u Give by Angie Thomas

Ruthless River by Holly Conklin FitzGerald

Bless Me Mother: how church leaders fail women by Finbarr M. Corr

The News from the End of the World by Emily Jeanne Miller

Edgar & Lucy by Victor Lodato

The Rent Collector by Camron Wright

Monticello: a daughter and her father by Sally Gunning

The Nature of Cape Cod by Beth Schwarzman

Summer Reading Suggestions!

Posted on by Library User

Hello Summer! As teachers and school staff wind down the school year, children’s departments in public libraries across the country are gearing up for summer reading! Here in the FPL Children’s Room, we’ve got lots of great upcoming events for our summer reading program entitled, “Build a Better World.” Some programs that I’m particularly looking forward to are the Summer Reading Kick Off Party, Saturday Cinema at the Library, and the Stuffed Animal Sleepover. See the FPL EventKeeper calendar for more events and info!

As a supplement to school summer reading lists, I’ve created a list of FPL Summer 2017 Recommended Reads. This is my third year creating such a list and at the risk of tooting my own horn, I have to say I think this is the best one yet. Not only is the design better (highly recommend canva.com for any readers who are looking for a good, free design program), but this year I’ve added pictures of the recommended books’ covers to make finding them easier. I am also intentional in including a diverse array of quality titles that serve as windows and mirrors for all readers! There is something for everyone here so stop by the FPL Children’s Room to find the book that’s right for you!

Stephanie Seales, Children’s Room

Tom Turkington’s Before I Forget: A Boyhood of Little Drama

Posted on by K.C. DeWall

It is always a pleasure to catalog the works of local authors, and Tom Turkington’s Before I Forget: A Boyhood of Little Drama is no exception.  Recently interviewed by Ken Gartner for The Enterprise, Mr. Turkington points out that his book is not simply about growing up in Falmouth; he does, after all, portray life in mid-20th century America, a time in history when families watched television together and  kids ran around freely and played throughout the neighborhood until the dinner bell rang.  Indeed, Before I Forget portrays a time when the pace of life seemed to pass so much slower—perhaps even for noted local runners such as Turkington and Gartner!

However, for those who are interested in local history, Turkington’s chronicles reference many of the unique characteristics of bygone Falmouth: the Fire Station whistle and the raft at Surf Drive Beach, to name just two.  In fact, for those who did grow up in Falmouth years ago, reading Before I Forget will certainly be a nostalgic walk down Memory Lane, as well as Scranton Avenue and Mill Road.  To be sure, whether remembering such teachers as Miss Mullen with her red hair and purple outfits on the Village School playground or reminiscing about Mr. Kalperis (also known as “Kalpy”) and the Lawrence High School track team; Turkington’s memoir not only depicts what it was like growing up during the fifties and sixties, but it also offers a rare glimpse into what it was like growing up in Falmouth, glimpses that may not be included in local history books and therefore often do run the risk of being forgotten.

Bird Books on The Point

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Today was the monthly  WCAI book show with Mindy Todd on The Point. We hope you got to hear Dennis Minsky  and Jill Erickson talk about bird books. We had such big piles of bird books, we think we’ll be doing another bird book show in the fall! Sorry we were pre-recorded today, so you couldn’t call in with your favorites, but if you have a favorite bird book, please add a comment to our list! Miss the show? You can listen here!

 

Dennis’s Picks

“Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats

“The Kookaburas” and “White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field” from House of Light by Mary Oliver

Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich

The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman

Birdscapes: birds in our imagination and experience by Jeremy Mynott

Wesley the Owl: the remarkable love story of an owl and his girl by Stacey O’Brien

The Peregrine by J. A. Baker

The Running Sky by Tim Dee

 

Jill’s Picks

The Eponym Dictionary of Birds by Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins, and Michael Grayson

Bright Wings: an illustrated anthology of poems about birds edited by Billy Collins with paintings by David Allen Sibley (Includes Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens

The Birdman’s Wife by Melissa Ashley. Nominated for the Australian Book Industry Award for Fiction.

John Gould’s Birds, with a biographical introduction by Maureen Lambourne

A Convergence of Birds, edited & introduced by Joanthan Safran Foer

Joseph Cornell’s Manual of Marvels: how Joseph Cornell reinvented a French agricultural manual to create an American masterpiece

Mr. Cornell’s Dream Boxes by Jeanette Winter

Birds Art Life: a year of observation by Kyo Maclear

A Year of Falmouth Birds by Craig Gibson, photographer

 

 

 

Friday Reads: All the Old Knives

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This month the FPL Fiction Book Club read an espionage novel entitled All the Old Knives by Olen Steinhauer. This is the fifth espionage novel we have read in a six-month series that began with Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent and will end next month with Swimmer by Joakim Zander. One of the first questions, which I was not able to answer the day we discussed the book, was where does the title come from? We all knew about the idea of someone stabbing you in the back, but not about the old knives part. So, after a little investigation, I discovered that in fact this is a quotation by Phædrus from his Fables. It is translated as: “All the old knives that have rusted in my back, I drive in yours.” (By the way, Phædrus also gave us “to add insult to injury.”) Another quotation related question was what was “that old Stalin quote about tragedies and statistics” that is mentioned in the book. That quotation is attributed to Stalin and it is: “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.”

The most interesting thing to me, as the one person who attends both the Wednesday evening group and the Thursday morning group, was how radically different the two groups responded to the same book! The Wednesday evening group LOVED the book, and the Thursday morning group thought the author (who said it took him just a month to write the novel) should have done at least one more rewrite!

The plot is extraordinarily timely as it involves two CIA officers in Vienna, Henry Pelham and Celia Harrison, who were lovers at the time of a hostage crisis. Celia leaves the CIA and ends up in Carmel-by-the-Sea and Henry has tracked her down to see her one more time, to relive the past, maybe, or to put it behind him once and for all. Most of the novel takes place at a dinner at a restaurant in Carmel-by-the-Sea and the point of view switches between Henry and Celia. The author had the idea of setting this thriller at a restaurant after he watched the Masterpiece dramatization of Christopher Reid’s poem The Song of Lunch, which starred Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson. As he writes in the introduction to the book: “I wondered if I could write an espionage tale that took place entirely around a restaurant table.”

The people that loved the book, loved the pacing, and the story, and the fact that it was a quick read. The people who loathed the book thought there wasn’t enough story, the changing of point of view was too confusing, the character of Celia was unbelievable, and the prose wasn’t engaging enough. EVERYONE agreed that the ending was superb!! This novel is soon to be a major motion picture, so we are all waiting to see how the movie will differ from the novel.

The next meeting of the FPL Fiction Book Club will be March 15th at 7:00 PM or March 16th at 10:00 AM. The book we will be discussing is Swimmer by Joakim Zander, and you can pick up a copy at the Reference Desk.

Mindfulness, Gratefulness, and Happiness Books on The Point

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On today’s book show Mindy Todd, Jill Erickson, and Eric Linder of Yellow Umbrella Books in Chatham encouraged everyone to start the new year reading about and maybe even trying to practice a bit of mindfulness, gratefulness, and happiness. Below is our list of picks and listener picks as well, including a bonus list of books that didn’t make the air, but might interest you. Thanks for listening, and thanks for calling in with your suggestions. Happy New Year! And should you have missed the show on WCAI, you can listen online!

 

Mindy’s Pick

E. B. White on Dogs edited by Martha White

 

Eric’s Picks

Listening Below the Noise: a meditation on the practice of silence by Anne D. LeClaire

Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Chet & Bernie mysteries by Peter Abrahams

“The First Time Percy Came Back” in  Dog Songs: thirty-five dog songs and one essay by Mary Oliver

“The Snakes of September” and “Touch Me” in The Wild Braid: a poet reflects on a century in the garden by Stanley  Kunitz

The Outermost House: a year of life on the great beach of Cape Cod by Henry Beston

 

Jill’s Picks

The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, drawings by Robert Lawson. Read more of the backstory of The Story of Ferdinand at Anita Silvey’s Children’s Book-A-Day Almanac.

An excerpt from War and Peace by  Leo Tolstoy, translated by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky

Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer: an approach to life in fullness by Brother David Steindl-Rast

99 Blessings: an invitation to life by Brother David Steindl-Rast. You might also want to take a look at his web page gratefulness.org and his TED talk.

Wherever You Go There You Are: mindfulness meditation in everyday life by Jon Kabat-Zinn

All the Odes by Pablo Neruda, particularly Ode to Happiness and Ode to the Tomato

The Power of Off: the mindful way to stay sane in a virtual world by Nancy Colier

52 Small Changes for the Mind by Brett Blumenthal

 

Titles For Which There Was No Time Left!

Five little books all by Thich Nhat Hanh, part of a Mindfulness Essentials collection published by Parallax Press:

How to Sit
How to Walk
How to Love
How to Eat
How to Relax

Dancing with Joy: 99 poems edited by Roger Housden

The Book of Joy: lasting happiness in a changing world by His Holiness the Dalai Lama & Archbishop Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams

The Lost Art of Reading: why books matter in a distracted time by David L. Ulin

Growing Up Mindful: essential practices to help children, teens, and families find balance, calm, and resilience by Christopher Willard

America the Anxious: how our pursuit of happiness is creating a nation of nervous wrecks by Ruth Whippman

10% Happier: how I tamed the voice in my head, reduced stress without losing my edge, and found self-help that actually works by Dan Harris

 

Listener Picks

How to Meditate by Eknath Easwaren

Last of the Saddle Tramps by Mesannie Wilkins with Mina Titus Sawyer

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a year of food life by Barbara Kingsolver

The Fisherman and His Wife: a brand new version by Rosemary Wells (e-mailed to us after we went off the air)

 

Cats & Dogs on The Point

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This morning Peter Abrahams joined Mindy Todd & Jill Erickson to talk about books about cats and dogs on WCAI. Thanks for the many, many suggestions you made during the show! We now have a plethora of cat and dog books on our reading lists, and we think that Peter might have come to better understand cats. Here are the titles mentioned on air.

 

Mindy’s Pick

E. B. White on Dogs edited by Martha White

Peter’s Picks

The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss

Cat by B. Kliban

Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot

I Am a Cat by Natsume Soseki

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Carbonel: the King of the Cats by Barbara Sleigh

“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe in Murder Short & Sweet edited by Paul D. Staudohar

Cat Wars: the devastating consequences of a cuddly killer by Peter P. Marra and Chris Santella

A Street Cat Named Bob and How He Saved My Life by James Bowen

Dewey: the small-town library cat who touched the world by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter

 

Jill’s Picks

The Animals’ Who’s Who by Ruthven Tremain

Pets on the Couch by Nicholas Dodman

Flush: a biography by Virginia Woolf

Shaggy Muses by Maureen Adams

Dog Songs: Poems by Mary Oliver

The Rose Garden: short stories by Maeve Brennan

Following Atticus by Tom Ryan

The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs foreward by Malcolm Gladwell

The Big New Yorker Book of Cats foreward by Anthony Lane

 

Listener Suggestions

The Cat Who … mystery series by Lilian Jackson Braun

Cats of Martha’s Vineyard: 101 island tales by Lynn Christoffers

The Trainable Cat by John Bradshaw and Sarah Ellis

“A Man and His Dog” short story by Thomas Mann

The Fur Person by May Sarton

A Dog Walks Into a Nursing Home by Sue Halpern

Dirty Wow Wow and Other Love Stories by Cheryl & Jeffrey Katz

The Autobiography of Foudini M. Cat by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer

Dogist: photographic encounters with 1,000 dogs by Elias Weiss Friedman

Anna Karenina, Levin’s dog Laska

 

 

Mindful Movement & Meditation is FULL, but …

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We are delighted that the three workshops scheduled with Dr. Sang H. Kim in October on mindful movement and meditation are full, however, we know that many of you that wished to attend are now on a waiting list.  So, we wanted to give you some other ways to connect with Dr. Kim. One of the ways is to check out one of his books, either Power Breathing or Mindful Movement. Another option is to go to his web page, One Mind One Breath, which is packed full of advice on mindful movement and meditation, including videos and instructions!