I read so many books in 2017 most of them seem to have run together in my head. But four absolutely stand out in my memory. The first one is a re-read. The other three were new discoveries.
Absalom! Absalom! by William Faulkner.
Every time I read this novel I am astounded and moved, often by passages I don’t recall from previous readings. For those who haven’t read Absalom, Absalom!, it’s a novel within a novel. For his entire life, young Quentin Compson has heard vague,... Read Post
This year we have compiled our top 10 fiction checkouts for adults, young adults (teens), and children's books.
Gail Honeyman took the number one adult fiction spot this year with Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. Paulette Jiles was a close second with News of the World. In third place, The Stars are Fire by Anita Shreve. Somerville adult readers also showed a penchant for a good mystery in 2017.
Not surprisingly, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale from our YA... Read Post
The Boston area's white Christmas has given way to bone-chilling cold. According to National Weather Service meteorologist Bill Simpson, local temperatures are and will be 20-25 degrees colder than normal into the next week. Frostbite is possible after as few as 30 minutes outside. Tomorrow the wind chill will be -13.
Here's what you need to do to stay warm and safe:
Make sure your heating system is working... Read PostIn This Book, Craftsmanship Is a Matter of Life or Death
In the underground city of Caverna, the setting of Frances Hardinge’s novel A Face Like Glass, a sip of wine can rewrite memories, a bite of cheese can spark visions, and certain perfumes make the wearer literally irresistible. Its citizens’ facial expressions, too, are carefully and expensively crafted and taught by experts, and the ability to display the perfect Face for any occasion is more than just a mark of status: it’s... Read Post
Have your overdue fines been keeping you away from the Library? Don't worry, even the best of us have overdue fines from time to time (yes, even librarians)!
This month, December 2017, we're inviting you back to the Library and helping you with those pesky overdue fines!
We're happy to announce Fine-Free December, a one-month “amnesty” period that will allow you to return overdue Somerville Public Library materials without paying overdue fees.
Simply bring your... Read Post
Recently the MBTA filed a Notice of Project Change for the Green Line Extension. You can find the document here. The original closing date for the comment period was Nov. 28, 2017. The comment period has been been extended to 5:00 pm on December 12.
Comments must be addressed to:
The Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs
Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs
MEPA Office
Attn: Erin Flaherty, MEPA Analyst.... Read Post
Today (Nov. 28) was Giving Tuesday, a day designated by the United Nations and New York City's 92nd Street Y as a universal day of giving, as a way to establish a contrast to the consumerism of the holiday season. But despite that rampant consumerism, the month of December is when Americans are most likely to donate to charities. According to some sources, a third of all charitable gifts in any given year are made in December: partly due to cultural pressures and partly due to deadlines for... Read Post
Yesterday the current occupant of the White House pardoned two turkeys. The annual ceremony during Thanksgiving week in which the President spares a turkey's life is one of the more bizarre moments in our national life. It's unclear why the act is even called a "pardon," since the definition of the word is "a release from punishment for an infraction of the law," and no one ever says what these turkeys are guilty of other than being ridiculous-looking.
The first president to spare a... Read Post
Tomorrow is Veterans Day, the federal holiday in honor of all veterans, living or dead, who have served this country. Veterans Day was first observed as Armistice Day, because Nov. 11 is the date of the cessation of hostilities in World War I. Congress passed a resolution in 1926 calling for an annual observance and Nov. 11 was declared a holiday in 1938. In 1954 President Eisenhower issued a proclamation renaming the observance Veterans Day to indicate the holiday was in honor of all... Read Post
This past weekend we set our clocks back one hour as we do every year. Ideally when we get up in the morning it will be a little lighter, and, not so ideally, after we work we'll all be stumbling home in the dark. But why do we do this? Supposedly Benjmain Franklin first proposed daylight saving time (DST) as a way to save candles, but he also suggested waking the public by firing cannons at sunrise, so it's difficult to say how serious he was. The idea in its modern systematized form was... Read Post
The state Department of Transportation has just issued a Notice of Project Change for the Green Line Extension. The extension from College Avenue in Medford to the Mystic Valley Parkway has been delayed for fiscal reasons. The Notice of Project Change is intended to initiate further Massachusetts EPA review of the Mystic Valley Parkway Extension and give the public opportunity to comment on proposed design changes for Mystic Valley Parkway Station. You can find the complete text of the... Read Post
On the evening of October 30, 1938, CBS radio broadcast an adaptation of H. G. Well's War of the Worlds, the 1898 novel about a Martian invasion of Earth, as part of the radio drama series Mercury Theatre on the Air. Written and directed by Orson Welles (left), the program was mostly in the form of simulated news bulletins. For decades stories have been told about the panic that ensued when many listeners jumped to the conclusion they were listening to an actual news broadcast.
The... Read Post
It's the time of year when many readers indulge in books about the supernatural, so here's a review/recommendation of the Pamela Dean novel Tam Lin, courtesy of our excellent substitute librarian, Annie Schapira:
October is a time of cool nights, warm sweaters, and scary stories, and I am a fan of all of the above. However, my favorite book to revisit this season, Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin (1991), is not what I would consider a horror story, although its final reckoning takes place on... Read Post
Welcome to our latest installment of Meet the Staff on the Library blog! This October, we would like to introduce you to two of our newest staff members, Julie and Lilly.
These two women bring a lot of great ideas, previous library work experience, and enthusiasm to their jobs at the SPL. Though Julie and Lilly work on a large variety of projects, they often find themselves working together to bring you great library programs. They’ve worked together on this year’s Somerville Reads... Read Post
In a recent blog post I advised people to go to the website www.equifaxsecurity2017.com and input their name and part of their Social Security number to find out if their personal information was compromised. The current consensus is that the site itself is dysfunctional, returning conflicting reports to the same people at different times. In other words, Equifax itself is currently incapable of telling you if you've been put at risk.
So what can you do? First place a fraud alert... Read Post
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