Affairs of the Heart

In February, it’s seems fitting to tend to affairs of the heart – both physical and emotional. That’s why the Harmony Library has two displays in the Adult Reading Room dedicated to heart fitness during American Heart Month.

Our first display focuses on the heart’s physical health. In 2012, The Heart Truth – a National Awareness Campaign for Women about heart disease, sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, marks the 10th anniversary of American Heart Month. One of the campaign’s goals  is to help women reduce the risk of developing heart disease. The Harmony Library display offers books with tips of prevention, symptoms, and treatment.

Our second display focuses on affairs of the heart – love – its triumphs and tragedies. Bill Cosby offers his views in his book, Love and Marriage, the editors at The Old Farmer’s Almanac reconsider romance, sex, and marriage in The Book of Love, and five centuries of romantic poetry can be perused in Come Live with Me. These books and others can be borrowed so that you can fully appreciate Valentine’s Day and its meaning.

Attention Stieg Larsson Lovers

If you enjoyed the trio of Stieg Larsson books, stop by the Adult Room display for books that you might enjoy. A diverse range of authors have been chosen such as Muriel Barber’s bestseller, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Denise Mina’s Field of Blood, and Stuart Neville’s Collusion. These possible heirs to the Stieg Larsson throne are great options for your international mystery collection.

Anne Rice – February 2012 Author of the Month

Author Anne Rice, famous for her vampire stories, will now focus on werewolves in her latest novel, Wolf Gift, to be released February 14. Rice, writer of over 28 novels, was born in Louisiana and now lives in California near her son, Christopher, also a writer. Rice’s books have sold almost 100 million copies, and she is best known for her Vampire Chronicles series. Her 1976 book, Interview with a Vampire, was made into a movie, directed by Neil Jordan and starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and a young Kirsten Dunst.

If you are interested in something a little different, visit the Anne Rice display in the Adult Community Room.

Explore the Reflections of Middle Age in Fiction

Middle age has been defined as what happens when a person’s broad mind and narrow waist change places.”
― A.C. Grayling, The Heart of Things: Applying Philosophy to the 21st Century

At the Harmony Library, our latest “genre” focuses on middle-aged adults and the challenges they face in their everyday lives. The novels that have been selected for the display include: Around the Next Corner by Elizabeth Wrenn about a mother of three suffering from middle age invisibility, Twelve Times Blessed by Jacquelyn Mitchard, about a widow feeling her youth slipping away but an accident alters her life, and Saturday by Ian McEwan as Henry Perowne, a successful neurosurgeon, contemplates the impending war with Iraq and a fear that his family is under threat. These and other novels about middle age challenges can be found on display in the Adult Reading Room.

Geraldine Brooks – January 2012 Author of the Month

Geraldine Brooks is the Harmony Library’s January 2012 – Author of the Month. Her book, Caleb’s Crossing, recently was chosen as the 2012 Reading Across Rhode Island book, and the Harmony Library’s Second Thursday Book Discussion Group plans to talk about Caleb’s Crossing at its February 9^th meeting. If you want to be part of that discussion, ask for the novel at the Circulation Desk.

Brooks, born in Australia, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 2006 for her novel, March. Her first novel, Year of Wonders, is an international bestseller, and People of the Book is a New York Times bestseller translated into 20 languages. She is also the author of the nonfiction works Nine Parts of Desire and Foreign Correspondence.

Brooks’ novels are so popular that it might be best to chose one of her earlier works such as March as an introduction to her writing.

Richard Paul Evans – Harmony Library Author of the Month

Richard Paul Evans, the bestselling author of The Christmas Box, is December’s Harmony Library Author of the Month. Evans’ most recent Christmas-themed novel, Lost December, has been on the New York Times Bestseller’s list for two weeks in a row. That isn’t unusual. Each of Evans’ 18 novels has been on the New York Times bestseller list. Four of Evans’ books have been produced as television movies, and his books have been translated into more than 25 languages with 14 million of his books in print worldwide.

In this season of giving and remembrance, we might recall Evans’ words, “Small kindnesses often, unintentionally, produce the biggest payoffs.”  ― Richard Paul Evans, The Gift

Thanksgiving – A Time for Family

The Harmony Library features a display in November with books and DVDs that focus on family celebrations. The books offer both traditional and vegetarian options for families entertaining in the 21st Century but remembering family parties from the past.

Many families, strapped by reduced incomes and mounting bills, are opting to make it a shared family event with guests bringing a dessert, a vegetable dish, drinks, or even decorations. One display book, What Can I Bring? Cookbook by Ann Byrn, provides more than 200 easy-to-tote recipes for a get-together.

Browse our display of new cookbooks, donated by Lydia Walshin, who teaches cooking classes at her home in northwest Rhode Island. You might want to visit her blog, The Perfect Pantry at http://www.theperfectpantry.com for some recipe ideas.

November – National Diabetes Month

During National Diabetes Month, it might be a good idea to learn about the risks factors and warning signs of this disease that affects almost 24 million Americans. This disease can lead to other severe health problems such as heart disease, vision loss, stroke, kidney disease, nerve damage, and amputation.

There are two types of diabetes – Type 1 – which can occur at any age but mostly affects young people – and Type 2 – a more common type that usually affects adults over 45 years of age but increasingly is being diagnosed in children. Obesity is the most significant risk factor, so you can reduce your risk if you eat properly, exercise, and maintain your weight.

A display in the Adult Reading Room at the Harmony Library features several books about the symptoms of the disease, recipes and menus for those with diabetes, and tips on living with the disease.

Jennifer Chiaverini – Harmony Library Author of the Month

In November, the Harmony Library celebrates the work of Jennifer Chiaverini, as the Harmony Library Author of the Month. Chiaverini, a New York Times’ bestselling author, is a prolific author. Her latest book, The Wedding Quilt, will be released on November 1, and it will be the 18th in the Elm Creek Quilts series,  a series of historical novels that evoke the stories of small towns and the lives of the quilting groups and their members. Chiaverini has also recently signed a three-book contract with Dutton Publishers. The Wedding Quilt is the second book of that contract.

Enjoy some of Chiaverini’s earlier works, The Aloha Quilt (2010), Circle of Quilters (2006), The New Year’s Quilt (2007), Circle of Quilters (2006), as well as many others. You will find them on display in the Adult Reading Room.

Scare Yourself with Horror Fiction

October is a great time to select one of the Harmony Library’s horror novels. The display in the Adult Reading Room includes traditional favorites like Robert Louis Stevenson’s  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Bram Stoker’s Dracula along with newer selections such as Peter Straub’s Dr. X and Stephen King’s Full Dark No Stars.

The Horror Writers Association, www.horror.org, has a list of its Bram Stoker Award winners listed by year. The award, named in honor of Stoker, presents an annual award for superior achievement in a variety of categories including novel, fiction and non-fiction, as well as many other areas.

Novels for the past five years include: Peter Straub’s A Dark Matter (2010), Sarah Langan’s Audrey’s Door (2009), Stephen King’s Duma Key (2008), Sarah Langan’s The Missing (2007), and Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story (2006).

If you are interested in learning more from the master of horror fiction, Stephen King, read his non-fiction book, Secret Windows, in which he devotes a chapter to his selection of ten books, which he describes as the “representative of everything in the genre that is fine: the horror story as both literature and entertainment, a living part of twentieth-century literature, and worthy successors to such books as Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula, and Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow.”