Category: Reference

Interstellar on DVD and Blu Ray

- Bianca Leave a comment

Interstellarinterstellar takes place in a future Earth where a plague called the Blight is eating up the food sources around the world. Another effect of the Blight is routine dust storms that cause a range of health problems. Scientists have concluded the Earth is dying.  As food dwindles and dust storms increase, a young girl begins to receive messages through her bedroom bookshelves. Her father (played by Matthew McConaughey), an ex engineer and pilot, is called upon to lead a hail Mary expedition through space to find a new home for Earth’s residents.  He is joined by three others (including the lovely Anne Hathaway) to travel through space and time where minutes lost in space mean years lost on Earth.

Watching Interstellar is a complete mind boggling experience. Be prepared going in to it that you will be stuck to your seat for the next three hours. I recommend going to the bathroom first and keeping liquid intake to a minimum. Whatever you do, do not start this moving an hour before bed time. You will be up two hours past your bedtime. I made all of these mistakes. Luckily  during my bathroom break, I stopped the movie long enough to knock some sense into myself and go to bed (only an hour late). However I spent the entire next day thinking about this movie and wondering how it was going to end. And one more thing, use the subtitle function. It may seem strange at first to have it on, but you will get used to it. Action movies tend to be really loud or really quiet and you can never get it just right. You might miss some good information if you don’t have the subtitles on.

Interstellar has all of the things we have come to expect from a space movie (including plenty of terminology and theory that you need a degree in astrophysics to understand), but it finishes way ahead of predecessors. Interstellar gives you raw human emotion and good, sometimes great acting. On more than one occasion I wanted to drop to my knees, snap my head to the sky and scream ‘nooooooo!’  Other times my face lost all expression and my body went limp as I tried to grasp what just happened. It is the kind of movie that will you keep you up at night, and make you hold on to the ones you love just a little bit tighter.

I’m sure after reading this you will all be determined to watch this movie. While you will love it, you will be confused. After you have watched the movie, come back to this blog and check out this site. Den of Geek gives a great explanation of what is really going on in this movie as the movie does wrap up pretty quick.

Verdict: Not only one of the best movies of 2014, but could possible break into my personal top ten hit list of all time.

Award Watch: Won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. To see a full list of awards visit Interstellar Awards.

Fun Fact: Matt Damon is actually in this movie! He pops up about halfway through the movie. Interstellar is full of big name actors that have little actual screen time. John Lithgow, Ellen Burstyn, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, and Topher Grace all appear in Interstellar in small roles.

Introverts in Love

- Stephanie Leave a comment

introverts in loveFinding love is difficult for anyone, especially for those of us who would rather stay home where it’s quiet than go out to bars and shows to meet up with people. Sophia Dembling has chosen to address this issue in her book, Introverts in Love: The Quiet Way to Happily Ever After.

Dembling says that she wrote this book as a way to provide introverts a list of things to think about as they try to find their happily after. The items she discusses in this book as meant to be a buffet of information: pick and choose what applies to you because not everything she writes is going to apply to every introvert. Dembling discusses the mistakes introverts can make in relationships, as well as providing some solutions for those mistakes. She also talks about why some introverts seek other introverts to spend their lives with, while others are instead drawn to extroverts. Dembling continuously reiterates that this is a book for introverts and that extroverts will most likely find themselves underrepresented here since extroverts are the ones that usually do not have trouble representing themselves in the dating scene.

The inclusion of interviews from introverts from a wide variety of backgrounds will provide other introverts, like myself, with the necessary confidence to discuss how we need solitude in relationships, to articulate how we handle conflict differently than our boisterous counterparts, and to hopefully help us describe our feelings on socializing versus staying home.

Interested in learning more about what makes introverts tick? Check out Dembling’s first book about introverts, The Introvert’s Way: Living a Quiet Life in a Noisy World, which maps as a general guide to life as an introvert.

Essays After Eighty by Donald Hall

- Stephanie Leave a comment

essays after eightyLet me first admit that the way I discovered this book was not when I placed it on my “to-be-ordered” list or when I stumbled upon it by happenstance in the library. Instead, I was talking about BookFace Friday. This event happens every Friday when librarians and other bookish people find books with people’s faces as the cover, pose with them as their actual face, and post pictures on their social media accounts. (Still confused? Check out the Instagram page for BookFace Friday.) As I was looking up examples to show, I found someone using this book as their face. I was instantly intrigued by the title and immediately wrote it down to order/read.

Donald Hall, former U.S. poet laureate, constructed Essays After Eighty as a way to describe for others the vantage point of life at very old age. The essays Hall has written for this collection intricately weave subjects like death, aging, being limited when you reach old age, traveling in foreign countries, honorary degrees, his love of garlic, and just what is actually important to you when you reach his age. Describing for readers his deep love for his home, the deceased love of his life, and how to deal with growing older are just some of the topics Hall broaches in this enduring collection. Hall extends back to his past in some essays describing scenes that stand out in his mind to the present where he spends his time at Eagle Pond Farm.

Be sure to check out this book to read more about Hall’s life as a biographer, children’s author, and as a human being trying to figure out how to deal with everything old age has thrown at him.

100 Places You Will Never Visit by Daniel Smith

- Allison Leave a comment

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Psst, hey there, would you like to see something cool? Down by the arboretum in Dubuque, if you hike to the very back, climb over the old barbed wire fence and head west (watch your step for sink holes) you’ll find what remains of an old park, destroyed 100 years ago by a flash flood that killed five people. Here’s the old limestone bandstand and pavilion, and, if you look hard enough, the decaying remains of the roller-coaster. Be careful, though, since no one is sure if anyone’s allowed here.

Intrigued? So was I, way back when my curiosity easily overruled my common sense. It led me and my friends to the old Union Park, abandoned houses and zinc mines, caves and the subterranean network of cisterns and cellars underneath my neighborhood (don’t tell my mom, though.) It’s the same curiosity that drives the book “100 Places You Will Never Visit: The World’s Most Secret Locations,” by Daniel Smith. The places photographed and described in Smith’s book tend to fall more into the “you’ll never visit because it’s illegal/top-secret/destroyed/radioactive” and not “you’ll never visit because you’ve never heard of it” category, but the locations described are interesting, especially if you’re a fan of government conspiracies.

The book is heavy on speculation when describing places such as The Skunk Works, Mount Weather and – of course – Area 51. Smith also takes a turn at the politics of some off-limits areas, like Bohemian Grove (a California camp where the world’s most powerful meet, away from the public eye), the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The more interesting places described are those not located in North America (or, at least, are outside of the U.S.’s collective imagination) like La Basse Cour (“The Farmyard”) in Belgium, the unidentified structures in China’s Gobi Desert or the temple vaults of Sree Padmanabhaswamy in India. Again, most of these places are known, just off-limits to the public. But, the photographs, maps, and illustrations give the reader enough to at least pique curiosity.

If you looking for more lost cities and urban exploration, check out “Hidden Cities: Travels to the Secret Corners of the World’s Great Metropolises” by Moses Gates or “Explore Everything: Place-Hacking the City” by Bradley Garrett. Or, if abandoned places are more your style, try the TV series “Life After People,” “Abandoned America” by  Matthew Christopher or my personal favorite “The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman.

Michael Jackson: The Experience

- Stephanie Leave a comment

michael jackson the experienceNow that it’s finally spring, it is time for “the wiggles” to come out. This happens every year when the weather gets nice outside and kids are fit to bursting to do anything outside. But what about those rainy spring days when they’re stuck inside? I turn to video games, but ones that people of all ages can enjoy playing (and ones that *hopefully* won’t lead to fighting matches between the players).

My favorite go-to games like this are any of the singing and dancing ones. I just discovered Michael Jackson: The Experience and was pleasantly surprised with the game as a whole. This Wii game allows four players to play with the only requirement being that each has a Wii remote.

If you want to practice your moves before you compete against your friends, the game offers a practice space in Video Training mode. This game also allows you to battle your friends in a Challenge Mode, have the other players be your back-up dancers, or even make your own dance crew. Dance along with Michael to 26 of his iconic hits that range from “Beat It” to “Billie Jean” to “Smooth Criminal”.

So next time it’s rainy outside or you need a new distraction, head to the library and check out our collection of musical video games.

Last Plane to Heaven: The Final Collection by Jay Lake

- Allison 1 Comment

jacketShort story collections can be a hard sell. Unless you’re a reader who already enjoys them, lovers of a longer story often dismiss their briefer cousins and  I admit that I am one of those readers. Even with an intriguing title, I’ll stay on the fence until the end of the first few stories. Science fiction author Gene Wolfe, in his introduction to this collection, acknowledges such readers, and begs us to stay for at least the eponymous story “The Last Plane to Heaven,” if only because this collection truly is the last from Jay Lake, who passed away from cancer in 2014 and because, as the author says in the dedication, “In the end, words are all that survive us.”

This bittersweet acknowledgement of the author’s own mortality (and ours) sets the tone of the wide-ranging collected stories. From a wayward android lost on Earth, to a futile mission against the agents of a Lovecraftian horror,  these stories express both a love of discovering what is over the next horizon and the liberating act of giving one’s life for such adventure. These are not stories that necessarily have happy endings. As with many short stories, they leave you wanting to know what happens next. There is a yearning that suffuses this collection, an admission that we will never know what happens next, at least in this life.

But while we don’t leave with all the answers, Lakes’ stories tell fantastic tales of the past and future. Lewis and Clark’s famous westward expedition uncovers a place that the human race is not yet ready to know of in “Jefferson’s West.” In “The Women Who Ate Stone Squid,” set in the far future, evidence of an ancient, long-dead intelligent species is uncovered, but in this discovery, humankind might invite the same destruction. “Testaments” tells the stories of the Six Sleeping Kings, each who have ushered in seismic changes in human society at the direction of a higher power, and the Seventh, who has yet to wake. The firing of a boson gun in the 1960s sets off the unraveling of the universe centuries later – but who could have imagined?

Lake gives brief introductions to his stories – the hows and whys and wheres of story writing, as well as a rueful admission that the chemotherapy that granted him a few more years of life also destroyed his “writing brain” in a truly Faustian bargain . His voice is strongest in the “Angels” stories that begin and end each section. His final words (for us at least) are written  in “The Cancer Catechism” at the end.

This not just a collection of science fiction, fantasy, steampunk and spirituality, nor is it a joyless recounting of an author’s past glory. Each story piques the imagination, and stays with you long after the tale is over. And what more could an author ask for?

Mystery Series Debut! Toured to Death by Hy Conrad

- Katie Leave a comment

Toured to Death

In Toured to Death, mystery writer Hy Conrad launches the exploits of Amy and Fanny Abel, a mother-and-daughter team of New York City travel agents unexpectedly turned sleuths.  Join this promising start to the Amy’s Travel Mystery series on the Monte Carlo to Rome Mystery Road Rally, the first European tour offered by our heroines’ fledgling niche-travel business.

With her mother Fanny’s support from across the Atlantic, Amy leads a group of twenty-four tourists through stylish French and Italian destinations as they hunt for clues to solve a fictional murder mystery.  Amy’s ambitious idea to combine a game of Clue with an Amazing Race-like competition unfolds smoothly…until actual murders begin to take place!  When one of of the tourists and the man hired to write the plot line for the mystery excursion are found dead, Amy and Fanny must put their heads together to keep the killer from striking again.  They soon learn that the writer’s story was based on a real-life murder case involving two of their current tour customers.  Working in tandem to solve the crimes, mother and daughter begin to overcome the loss of their partners, strengthen their relationship, save their agency’s reputation, and prepare for their next adventure!

If, like author Hy Conrad, you enjoy both mysteries and travel writing, pack your bags (including a magnifying glass) for Toured to Death and the Amy’s Travel Mystery series. Readers of “cozy” mysteries will be interested in this book’s unique take on the genre, and fans of TV’s Monk can compare how Conrad (a writer and producer for the series, as well as the author of novels based upon it) develops his detectives and other key characters for different formats.

War of the Wives

- Stephanie Leave a comment

war of the wivesA phone call wakes you up in the middle of the night: “This is Detective Inspector Bowles from the Metropolitan police, Mrs. Busfield. We’re outside your house. Can you please let us in?” You scramble out of bed in shock, your first thoughts running to your two grown children and the one sleeping down the hall. Are they okay? You open the front door to find two policemen telling you your husband of twenty-eight years has been found dead, floating in a river. Not possible. He’s supposed to be in Dubai on business. You are in denial.

Fast forward to the funeral. As you walk to the crematorium flanked by your children, everyone stares. Standing outside, you hear wailing coming from the parking lot and see a grown woman on her knees keening. As she staggers to the door, you’re infuriated that she dare intrude on your grief. She reaches the vicar standing on the steps, grips his arms, and demands to know what happened to your husband and wants to know who organized the funeral without telling her. He politely tries to disengage, while asking who the woman is. She grips his arm and says, “I’m his wife.” You are shocked. She can’t be.

Two women. One husband. Deception, betrayal, and death. If this description has caught your interest, check out Tamar Cohen’s War of the Wives for more information about Selina, Lottie, their families, and the dead patriarch of the family, Simon Busfield. Just remember: Not everything is as it seems.

If You Find this Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers

- Stephanie Leave a comment

if you find this letterIn today’s world, it’s not uncommon to see many people concentrating more and more on their screens and less and less on the people in front of them. This sad fact hit Hannah Brencher when she moved to New York right after she graduated from college. As she was exploring her new home, she discovered that instead of the warm and welcoming place she expected it to be, she was surrounded by people who knew exactly what they wanted to do, who knew exactly where they needed to be, and who were not the least bit concerned about a young girl who was just trying to figure things out and looking for help.

Feeling somewhat defeated one day at the subway station, she saw an old woman who seemed to be in a similar lonely situation. Brencher was drawn to the woman and could not look away. Staring at her, she remembered how her mother used to write her love letters and how that simple piece of paper always made her feel better because that meant someone else understood and cared about you. She decided then and there to write the woman a love letter. Sitting curled up on the train, Brencher hurriedly scrawled a note to this woman, wrote “If you find this letter, it’s for you…” on the front, and dropped it. Feeling better, she began leaving love notes all over the city and eventually created the blog The World Needs More Love Letters.

Seeking help when her inbox reached over 400 requests for love letters, she created a campaign that you can subscribe to join to write love letters to perfect strangers. If You Find this Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers is a memoir Brencher wrote describing her love-letter writing journey in her new home, how she began to feel more connected to the people around her, and how this simple letter writing campaign has helped her restore her belief in the goodness of people.

Library Memories? #YesPlease

- Ann Leave a comment

Amber meeting Harry Potter of Harry and the Potters during the Eastern Ave Branch Library Opening DaySit back, curl up with a blanket, and hug a book–It’s time to reminisce about the library:

Five years ago, did you take a selfie with your favorite band, Harry and the Potters, at the Eastern Ave. Branch Library Opening Day celebration? Yup, that’s me!

Twenty years ago, did the children’s librarian know you by name and always have the newest Garfield book ready for you? I loved those books. Hmmm maybe I should check one out again…

Fifty years ago, how did you feel when you learned Davenport’s Carnegie Library would be torn down? I imagine that the Carnegie’s Reading Room was both glam and cozy.

We absolutely love when people share their favorite memories of the Davenport Public Library with us, and this week we hope you will share your favorite memory with everyone! This week is National Library Week and Davenport Public Library asks you to help us celebrate by sharing your favorite moment, photo, quote, feeling, book that reminds you of the awesomeness of your local library.

Hands holding up copies of aYes Please by Amy Poehler book and audiobookWe will be choosing two of our favorite memories posted between April 12-18, 2015 to win an autographed audiobook or book of Amy Poehler’s Yes, Please (provided by @harperaudio) and one kid’s memory to win a Jelly Belly Bean Machine. Post your memory and use the hashtags #DavenportReads #YesPlease so we can collect it (If you notice that we have not liked or favorited your post, it may not have appeared in our feed. You can always message us or email us directly at marketing@davenportlibrary.com)

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