The Latest - Page 71 of 117

Seventeen years. SEVENTEEN YEARS. That's how long I've been waiting for The Book of Dust, Book One: La Belle Sauvage, the newest book by Philip Pullman. La Belle Sauvage is set in the same world as Pullman's acclaimed fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials. That series followed the adventures of Lyra Belaqua, a brave, impulsive girl from an alternate-world version of Oxford, England and her daemon Pantalaimon, a shapeshifting animal connected…

It's the most wonderful time of the year... when my guilty pleasure of watching my favorite Christmas movies over and over actually passes as normal behavior.  What is it about certain Christmas movies that creates such devotion among viewers?  I've lost count of how many times I've watched It's a Wonderful Life all the way through.…

Elizabeth Berg during her visit at Cook Memorial Public Library this summer. Heartfelt and beautiful, The Story of Arthur Truluv is novelist Elizabeth Berg at her best. Maddy Harris is a sad, isolated teenager who is ignored by her father at home and bullied by her classmates at school. Her mother died two weeks after Maddie…

This Thanksgiving, after everyone has caught up on the latest family doings, why not turn the conversation around to family history? If you will be dining with older family members, now is the time to ask them about their lives. Have a few open-ended questions ready to start the conversation and be ready to listen.…

Every month, the members of our Popular Services department get together for a “genre study” discussion. We go through book genres, like crime or historical fiction, pick representative authors, and then discuss their books. It’s not like a staff book club, though: we review the books with an eye toward recommending them to our patrons.…

The Winchester House, soon to be moved to Mundelein, might today be the place you go to visit your grandparents, but did you know that the nursing home is the descendant of the Lake County Poor Farm? For almost a century, through scandals, economic depressions, and a number of name changes, the poor farm stood…

Mark Russell is the author of DC Comics' re-imagined version of The Flintstones, one of our favorite comics here at the library. And yes, we are talking about the Yabba-Dabba-Doo Hanna-Barbera TV characters. Russell and illustrator Steve Pugh's version of Bedrock is a newly established Stone Age civilization just beginning to construct things like economics,…

Bluebird, Bluebird took me to a place that is completely unfamiliar to me: East Texas. Apparently it is its own little world; Wikipedia says "East Texas is a distinct cultural, geographic and ecological area in the state" and "is often considered the westernmost extension of the Deep South." Lark, Texas, the fictional heart of the…

At my house, family movie night is one of those ideas that seems SO GOOD in theory. Family bonding! Popcorn aplenty! Low-cost, thanks to the plethora of options at our friendly local library! But pretty quickly, this brilliant idea runs up against cold, hard reality: I have three children, ranging in age from almost-seventeen to…

If you consider yourself a book lover, bookworm, or bibliophile you will love this week's author interview. Annie Spence is the author of Dear Fahrenheit 451: A Librarian's Love Letters and Break-Up Notes to the Books in her Life. This collection of insightful and often hilarious letters to books will rekindle (no ebook device pun…