Showing posts with label book covers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book covers. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Thursday, September 19, 2013
October Book Club Meeting - The Alchemist - 10/28 6 PM
For our October Book Club meeting, we will be reading Paulo Coelho’s wonderful “The Alchemist”. The meeting will be Wednesday, October 16th, at 6 PM. Copies are available at the desk for Goodwin Library card holders and anyone is willing to attend the meeting regardless of whether they are a Farmington resident or not.
“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.” Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams.”
The Alchemist is the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found. From his home in Spain he journeys to the markets of Tangiers and across the Egyptian desert to a fateful encounter with the alchemist.
The story of the treasures Santiago finds along the way teaches us, as only a few stories have done, about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path, and, above all, following our dreams.
Every few decades a book is published that changes the lives of its readers forever. The Alchemist is such a book. With over a million and a half copies sold around the world, The Alchemist has already established itself as a modern classic, universally admired. Paulo Coelho’s charming fable, now available in English for the first time, will enchant and inspire an even wider audience of readers for generations to come.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Thursday, July 25, 2013
John Green on the Success of The Fault in Our Stars
John Green discusses the widespread popularity of his novel "The Fault in Our Stars" (the August Book Club book). Why do you think the book has resonated with such a large, diverse audience?
Friday, July 5, 2013
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Monday, June 3, 2013
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon for July?
The Goodwin Library Book Club will be meeting June 19th to discuss F. Scott Fitzgerald's timeless classic The Great Gatsby. Copies are available at the library! At the meeting, we can discuss some of the books we'd like to read for the rest of the year. To have copies ready for the next meeting, however, I wanted to have the July book selected and then we can work from there. I was considering The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King. The novel is a short, breezy summer read that takes place in New Hampshire and offers a lot to talk about through it's unique writing structure, unreliable narrator, and exciting tale of human perseverance and survival in the New Hampshire wilderness. Here's a synopsis of the novel from Amazon.com. Please let me know what you think! The July meeting will be July 17th at 6PM.
On a six-mile hike on the Maine-New Hampshire branch of the Appalachian
Trail, nine-year-old Trisha McFarland quickly tires of the constant
bickering between her older brother, Pete, and her recently divorced
mother. But when she wanders off by herself, and then tries to catch up
by attempting a shortcut, she becomes lost in a wilderness maze full of
peril and terror. As night falls, Trisha has only her ingenuity as a
defense against the elements, and only her courage and faith to
withstand her mounting fears. For solace she tunes her Walkman to
broadcasts of Boston Red Sox baseball games and follows the gritty
performances of her hero, relief pitcher Tom Gordon. And when her
radio's reception begins to fade, Trisha imagines that Tom Gordon is
with her -- protecting her from an all-too-real enemy who has left a
trail of slaughtered animals and mangled trees in the dense, dark
woods....
USA Today A delightful read, a literary walk in the woods, and not just for baseball fans.
The Wall Street Journal Impressive...A wonderful story of courage, faith, and hope. It is eminently engaging and difficult to put down.
New York Daily News A fast, scary read...King blasts a homer...[He] expertly stirs the major ingredients of the American psyche -- our spirituality, fierce love of children, passion for baseball, and collective fear of the bad thing we know lurks on the periphery of life.
The Wall Street Journal Impressive...A wonderful story of courage, faith, and hope. It is eminently engaging and difficult to put down.
New York Daily News A fast, scary read...King blasts a homer...[He] expertly stirs the major ingredients of the American psyche -- our spirituality, fierce love of children, passion for baseball, and collective fear of the bad thing we know lurks on the periphery of life.
Friday, May 24, 2013
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Book Club Meeting Tonight-Wednesday May 15th, 6PM
It is rare in life to get a second chance. We didn't get to discuss Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter as planned last month, so we will do so tonight. Several regular members have also seen the film adaptation, so we will talk about the transfer of the novel to film, as well as talking about the author, mash-ups, the novel, and this polarizing historical period.
About the book:
Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness."
"My baby boy..." she whispers before dying.
Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire.
When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, "henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose..." Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.
While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.
Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.
http://bit.ly/11h6HwK
Book Trailer
Questions from Word of the Nerd
History Questions
Did you do any fact-checking while reading this book? If so, what for and what did you find?
Did you learn anything from Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter?
For the history buffs out there, do you think this book serves as a good “hook” to history for those who might have previously been uninterested?
Literature and Character Questions
What do you think of the idea of vampirism used as a metaphor for slavery, in general?
Do you think the “Abe” in Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter rang true of the 19th century Abraham Lincoln president and orator?
What are your opinions about the Henry Sturges character and his role throughout the novel?
What are your opinions about “mashup” books such as this? Have you read them before? Will you read them again?
General Questions
Did the novel turn out the way you expected it to?
Did you like the book and will you (or have you already) recommend it to others?
What scene/section of the novel stands out most to you?
What rating would you give the novel Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter from 1 to 5 nerd stars?
Did you also see the film adaptation? Let's talk about that.
Film Trailer
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Book Club Meeting Tonight-Wednesday April 17th, 6PM
About the book:
Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness."
"My baby boy..." she whispers before dying.
Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire.
When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, "henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose..." Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.
While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.
Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.
http://bit.ly/11h6HwK
Book Trailer
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