Exciting book to film news!

You may have read this morning that M.R. Carey's best selling smash hit The Girl with all the Gifts will be released in theaters sometime this year.

The trailer is one huge spoiler alert for those who haven't read the book so proceed to that link with caution. I'll just say here that it looks like it's going to be pretty darn good, with loads of creepy kids plus Glenn Close. 'Nuff said.

And you may be absolutely jumping out of your seat if you are anything like me over the news that Margaret Atwood's historical novel about real life convicted murderer, Grace Marks, will be coming to Netflix as a miniseries this year.

Also, If you are anything like me, you will be made insanely jealous by the news that I will be seeing the fabulous and brilliant Margaret Atwood live in person at the Great Big Annual American Libraries Association conference this weekend. I may be paralyzed with fangirl-itis and unable to speak if I happened to meet her but I will do my best to report back here on her, and other news of interest to readers. A question for you, our readers: Given the chance, what would you ask your favorite author?

P.S.
Speaking of speculative fiction: Holy mackeral, this is a big list of speculative fiction in translation. Thanks, Book Riot!

me on Sunday, returning to Richmond with ALA swag

Spring Into Gardening!

Spring is here and now is the time to get dirty and grow! Whether your thumb is green or brown, Richmond Public Library has an abundance of great books to guide you on your path to a green yard, an oasis of flowers and a harvest of fresh veggies, even if you only have a porch or patio to plant.

Many city gardeners are discouraged by a lack of space, too little sun, or poor soil conditions.  Two recent publications provide excellent tips for growing in containers, improving soil and choosing plant varieties that thrive in different locations.

Small-Space Vegetable Gardens by Andrea Bellamy includes garden design, soil-building tips, plant selection and other ideas for gardening on balconies, patios, parking strips and vertically up walls.  
Grow All You Can Eat in 3 Square Feet is a DK publication that explores a variety of innovative gardening spaces.Tips cover maximizing yields from intensive planting and choosing the best varieties for containers.  


Location and climate play an important role in choosing successful plant combinations.  Here in RVA we have hot, humid summers that vary from drought to downpours.  The Timber Press Guide to Vegetable Gardening in the Southeast by Ira Wallace begins with Gardening 101 and moves through each month with timely suggestions.  "August:  Heat and harvest" and "September: Second spring" are just two examples found in this valuable resource.


All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space by Mel Bartholomew is an updated edition of one of the first books to promote the idea that it is possible to grow vegetables in very small gardens. Using a grid based system, Bartholomew promises "more produce in less space with less work."

Fresh herbs can change even the simplest recipe and most are easy to grow in containers and raised beds.  Some may even blend in with flower beds and evergreen borders.  RPL has many excellent herb titles in the collection, including The Culinary Herbal by Susan Belsinger and Arthur O. Tucker. Covering 97 "tried and true" varieties, the authors share growing tips and recipes for vinegars, butters, pastes and syrups.

No outdoor space to call your own? Greenery confined to inside?  What's Wrong with My Houseplant by David Deardorff provides organic solutions to pests and diseases that may creep into your home. Includes tips for trees, vines, perennials and more.

Bulbs are one of the hidden gems of the garden, popping up when you forget them, hibernating at different times of the year, and multiplying annually. Not just for spring, these bloomers can fill the spaces between seasons and add a burst of color to a neglected corner. They are even good in containers.  The Complete Practical Handbook of Garden Bulbs is just that, an excellent overview, with hardiness zones and planting specifications for hundreds of varieties.



For the youngest gardeners the Library is filled with a "harvest" of titles, from specific plants, habitats, and gardening tips, to beautiful picture books that celebrate life in and around the garden.  Here are just a few titles to start.  "Dig in" to your local library for more!

If You Plant a Seed by Kadir Nelson. 
These friendly animals reap an extra benefit from their garden plantings: kindness.

Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt by Kate Messner.
We can see the wonderful plants growing in the garden. This author skillfully introduces what's happening among the plants, under the leaves, and down below the dirt where many animals make their homes.

Older kids can get their hands in the dirt and create fun projects with The Nitty-Gritty Gardening Book: Fun Projects for All Seasons.  Ideas are arranged by season and include bean-pole tents, seed starting, hanging gardens, compost bins, winter terrariums and more.

Whatever your gardening pleasure, get out and get dirty and visit your local library for inspiration!


Upcoming RVA Garden Events:

Maymont Herbs Galore 
Saturday, April 30, 2016

Sunday Stroll in Dorey Park
Sunday, April 24, 2015

Virginia Native Plant Society Plant Sales
Various dates

Lewis Ginter Spring Plant Fest
Friday, May 6, and Saturday, May 7, 2016

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Ginter Park!

Pictured (probably): 

Margaret Williams, Margaret Worsham and Burgess Collins

Did you know that the Ginter Park Branch turned 50 this year? The doors were first opened in May of 1964. If you haven't seen it, check out the image of Ginter Park's grand opening preparations in Wednesday's Times-Dispatch. To celebrate this milestone just as we begin preparing for renovations scheduled to take place next year I'm sharing this list of 50 books published in 1964. Perhaps you would have found a few of these on the new books shelf. Some I've read, many I haven't, but I discovered quite a few to add to my to-read list. Any familiar favorites?

1. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

2. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (still creepy and gross after 50 years) by Roald Dahl

3. A Moveable Fest by Ernest Hemingway

4. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and other Pieces by James Thurber

5. Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby, Jr.

6. Harriett the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

7. Herzog by Saul Bellow

8. A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe

9. Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe

10. The Penultimate Truth by Phillip K. Dick

11. Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King, Jr.

12. Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban (Frances is still adorable after all these years)

13. A Nation of Immigrants by John F. Kennedy

14. The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead by Timothy Leary

15. Flowers for Hitler by Leonard Cohen

16. Apocalypse Postponed by Umberto Eco

17. The Face of Another by Kobo Abe

18. The Wind's Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. LeGuin

19. You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming

20. The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber

21. The Phantom of Pine Hill (Nancy Drew #42) by Carolyn Keene

22. Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey

23. Colonialism and Neocolonialism by Jean-Paul Sartre

24. Nerve by Dick Francis

25. Ribsy by Beverly Cleary

26. The Fortunate Pilgrim by Mario Puzo

27. The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail by Wallace Stegner

28. Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt

29. Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein

30. A Little Learning: the first volume of an autobiography by Evelyn Waugh

31. One Fat Englishman by Kingsley Amis

32. The Ravishing of Lol Stein by Marguerite Duras

33. Gantenbein by Max Frisch

34. The Duchess of Jermyn Street by Daphne Feilding

35. My Years at General Motors by Alfred P. Sloan

36. Hard to be a God by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (The Strugatsky brothers are a favorite of mine. Roadside Picnic is newly re-translated and highly recommended)

37. My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin

38. Shadow Of A Bull by Maia Wojciechowska

39. I Have a Horse of My Own by Charlotte Zolotow

40. This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart

41. The Character of Physical Law by Richard P. Feynman

42. The Nova Express by William S. Burroughs

43. Asterix and the Big Fight (Asterix, #7) by René Goscinny

44. May I Bring a Friend by Beatrice Schenk De Regniers

45. Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown

46. Whistle for Willie by Ezra Jack Keats

47. The Raw and the Cooked by Claude Levi-Strauss

48. A Cellarful of Noise by Brian Epstein

49. Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung

50. An Area of Darkness by V.S. Naipaul

Readings for the end of the world

Do you DIY? Are you frugal? Maybe even thrifty? Are you prepared for anything? Even zombies? I know what you’re probably wondering. “But Natalie, why am I doing all of this canning when I could be on the beach? I mean, the world is probably going to end soon in some calamitous meteor strike or zombie plague and I can’t take it with me. Right?”

You couldn’t be more wrong.

What if you’re the only one left? Do you have enough canned goods? Can you sew a gown out of a tarp? Brew your own beer or gasoline?

These are the kinds of things I ponder while shelving, especially when I come across books like Be Thrifty, a compact yet surprisingly heavy handbook with a place for a (now pilfered) penny on the cover. The front of Be Thrifty: How to live better with less warns readers against being “cheap”, but I wonder where that line is? Could it be cheap (and a little paranoid) to consider this book an excellent bargain because 1) It totally doubles as a post-apocalyptic preparedness manual and 2) I checked it out at the library FOR FREE?

NO.

The book covers a lot more than just the DIY aspects of budget-wariness, such as picking good cheap wines, but since currency will be squirrel pelts and juice boxes when the world ends we’ll focus on DIY and leave the coupons for another day. So I got to searching the shelves for other handy references for the end of the world (or weekend projects) and it turns out that there is a do-it-yourself guide for literally (yes, literally) everything so I picked a few to share and tossed in some of my favorite “end of the world as you know it (and I feel fine)” reads for good measure. What a bargain!

Surely this isn’t cheap! This is just plain industrious. And fabulous! (Full disclosure: I have been making my own clothes for years.)

How to design your own clothes and make your own patterns (1975)

This?  Not a chance.  Makeup, lotions, cleansers and such are pricey while many of these recipes have about 4 little ingredients.  They even have a recipe for henna hair dye.

A guide to natural cosmetics (1973)

Home butchering?  Julie Powell got her hands...meaty?  yeah, meaty, for you. Remember folks, it’s just going to be you and the squirrels...  

Cleaving : a story of marriage, meat, and obsession (2009) Powell, Julie.

Can it, freeze it, pickle it, you get the idea:

Putting food by

Greene, Janet C.

Maybe it’s not too late to save the planet?  

Do-it-yourself home energy audits : 140 simple solutions to lower energy costs, increase your home's efficiency, and save the environment

DIY Doctor? The doctor is in...YOU? Last man on earth, heal thyself? I hope you have plenty of sterile gauze!

Doctor yourself : natural healing that works

Also, don't forget that Monday is Earth Day. There are so many ways we can reduce our impact on the environment and try to get a few more spins on this lovely planet of ours.

Or else...

Books That Shaped America

The Library of Congress has begun its multi-year “Celebration of the Book” with an exhibition entitled “Books That Shaped America.” The books were selected by the Library’s curators, not because they were the best books, but because they were the most influential. The Library is soliciting public comment and suggestions for future extensions of the list through an online survey, available at The LOC website.

We at the Richmond Public Library are joining the Library of Congress in the debate, with our own exhibition of the 88 “Books That Shaped America.”

Intern Brad Krautwurst considered the 88 titles and organized them into seven broad categories, from "More American than Apple Pie: Influential Figures in American Mythos" (including books by American luminaries such as Benjamin Franklin and Frederick Douglass) to "Movers and Shakers: Books that Changed Public Thought" (with titles running the gamut from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged to Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique) to "And the rest . . . Eclectic selections that defy categorization" (The Joy of Cooking, Alcoholics Anonymous). Brad's thoughtful commentary and selections from the Library of Congress's curators' comments accompany the books, some of which are coming up from the library's stacks for the first time in many years.

We invite you to visit the display, located in the General Collections department of the Main library, and complete our version of the Library of Congress survey. Tell us which books were most influential, which of the books most influenced you, and what books should be on the list but aren't. We will compare our patrons' choices with those compiled by the Library of Congress at the end of the exhibit, which will run through September 29th.

Theatre IV Does Storydrama Workshop @ the Library

Theatre IV came to the Main Library to do a storydrama workshop with a group of preschoolers in the Children's Department. In conjunction with the Theatre IV musical "Seussical", the teaching artist did an amazing interactive story time with "Horton Hatches and Egg". The children were engaged in helping Horton "hatch" the egg.

   

Cat in the Hat came by to help them as well. He suggested they READ A BOOK FOR IDEAS! They were able to solve the problem with inventive imagination. It was a great event for all.