Broadway Lights in Chicago 2013

 

Music display can be found in the Audiovisual Room in May. Check out some of these soundtracks at the library!

Bank of America Theatre, Chicago
          The Book of Mormon - Now through September 8

Cadillac Palace, Chicago
          Anything Goes - April 23 - May 5
          Flashdance - August 6-18
          We Will Rock You - October 22-27
          Elk the Musical - November 26 - December 15

Drury Lane, Oakbrook
          Oliver  - April 4
          Next to Normal - Autust 15 - October 6
          Hello, Dolly - October 17 - December 22
         
Light Opera Works, Evanston
          H.M.S. Pinafore - June 8-16
          Cabaret August 10-25
          Annie Get Your Gun - December 21-31

Marriott Theatre, Lincolnshire
          South Pacific - May 3 - June 2
          I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change - June 5 - August 11
          9 to 5 - August 14 - October 13
          Mary Poppins - October 23 - December 29

Oriental Theatre, Chicago
          Big Fish - April 2 - May 5
          West Side Story - June 11-17
          Evita - September 17 - October 6
          Once - October 9-27
          Wicked - October 30 - December 21

The Big Flood

It's 8:30 AM on Thursday, April 18th and traffic is at a standstill. I am desperately trying to get to work, but the might Des Plaines River is swollen and angry. As I wait to cross the river I consider my options for my next blog post, maybe a book review, an author piece, an upcoming library program. The rain keeps falling and my brain seems as water logged as the streets. An hour later Mother Nature has won, I turn around and head back home. Back at work, my blog post looms over me, dare I say, like a storm cloud. It finally occurs to me, are there any fiction novels about floods? You bet, try one of these.


Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
Flood by Stephen Baxter
In Sunlight, in a Beautiful Garden by Kathleen Cambor
Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie
The Staggerford Flood by Jon Hassler
The Knowledge of Water by Sarah Smith
Skeletons in Purple Sage by Barbara Burnett Smith

Ecological Fiction--Barbara Kingsolver's "Flight Behavior"

Barbara Kingsolver's lyrical writing is always a pleasure to read. In Flight Behavior she uses her lovely prose to address climate change head-on. A scientist herself, Kingsolver has a strong message for the reader, and she delivers it sharply.

The author sets this story in the Tennessee mountains of Appalachia, where millions of confused monarch butterflies have converged, struggling to overwinter way too far north. It is a species in desperate search for survival and it may not succeed. The butterflies’ normal winter home in the mountains of Michoacán, Mexico has been destroyed by flood. The milkweed plant, so important to their survival of their offspring, has burned up in the extreme heat of the plains. There are plenty of biblical references and apocalyptic metaphors throughout this book. We are, after all, in the Bible Belt of the South.

Dellarobia Turnbow, the main character of this novel, is a rural Tennessee woman. Now 28-years-old, she lives with her husband and two children on a sheep farm owned by her in-laws. She loves her children and feels affection for her husband, but Dellarobia is itching for change. She should have headed off to college after high school, but now feels trapped by the hurried-up marriage that was the result of a teenage pregnancy more than ten years ago.

Dellarobia is the first to discover the butterflies on her in-laws' land. When news of the monarch phenomenon spreads, nature-lovers, environmental activists, the press, and scientists descend on the Turnbow's rural Tennessee community, each group representing a different point-of-view in the climate change debate. The doubters are largely the local residents, but Dellarobia does not comfortably align with them. The influx of the outside world intrigues her. She is smitten by the charming, handsome head scientist who has devoted his entire career to the monarchs, and she is smart enough to understand the environmental calamity that she might be witnessing. Forces of nature (or God's will) have probably changed the lives of the monarchs forever; perhaps they will change Dellarobia's life as well.  

Flight Behavior could be a great choice for book discussion groups.

Pulitzer Prize Nominees and Winners

Newspaper publisher, Joseph Pulitzer endowed this annual prize to recognize distinguished contributions made in the fields of American journalism, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, music and photography. Here is a list of the fiction and non-fiction winners and finalists. All of these titles are owned by the Glenview Public Library.
Fiction Winner
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

Fiction Finalists
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

History Winner
Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall

History Finalists
The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675 by Bernard Bailyn

Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History by John Fabian Witt

Biography or Autobiography Winner
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss

Biography or Autobiography Finalists
Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece by Michael Gorra

The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy by David Nasaw

General Non-fiction Winner
Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King

General Non-fiction Finalists
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo

The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature by David George Haskell


Click here for information about finalists in other categories.

Click here for information about winners in other categories.

Nuclear Thrillers

So we're all still here?  Phew! With North Korea threatening the world with nuclear disaster, what could set our minds at ease better than reading fictional scenarios of what this could bring!  OK, so maybe it won't exactly be comforting but it will keep your attention.  Here are a few titles to get you started.







The Devil's Light by Richard North Patterson 

Sidelined after a colleague's blunder, CIA agent Brooke Chandler envisions a way to halt an Al Qaeda plot to set off a massive nuclear explosion and begins a race against time that returns him to Lebanon, where nothing is quite as it seems.

Trader_of_secrets by Steve Martini
While in Paris to find a former NASA employee whose name has been found on papers left in his nemesis's apartment, Paul Madriani stumbles upon a plot to harness the destructive forces of nature using stolen technology.

The Second Horseman by Kyle Mills
Imprisoned for a robbery he did not commit, Brandon Vale is broken out of prison by Richard Scanlon, the former FBI agent who framed Vale and wants his help in preventing a Ukranian crime organization from auctioning off nuclear warheads.

The Ezekiel Option by Joel Rosenberg
With the historic peace accord between the Israelis and Palestinians, the Middle East seems to be on a path to peace, until an increasingly powerful Russian dictator and a growing nuclear threat from Iran threaten a global apocalypse.

Assured Response by Joe Weber
Confronted by deadly terrorists who will stop at nothing in their quest to annihilate the United States, President Cord Macklin sends two top-secret operatives on a mission to stop a nuclear holocaust.

Forthcoming Fiction for May

Here are some titles coming out this May. You can reserve these by going to our Online Catalog, or by calling the Reader Services Desk at 847-729-7500 x7600.

Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland by Ace Atkins

The Broken Places by Ace Atkins

Inferno by Dan Brown

Storm Front by Richard Castle

Pirate Alley by Stephen Coonts

Zero Hour by Clive Cussler

Triumph by Janet Dailey

The Barbed Crown: an Ethan Gage Adventure by William Dietrich

A Step of Faith by Richard Paul Evans

Flora by Gail Godwin

Smarty Bones by Carolyn Haines

Good Man Friday by Barbara Hambly

Dead Ever After: a Sookie Stackhouse novel by Charlaine Harris

Dead, White and Blue by Carolyn G. Hart

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

Deeply Odd by Dean Koontz

A Delicate Truth by John Le Carre

The Ophelia Cut by John Lescroart

Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell

Little Green: an Easy Rawlins Novel by Walter Mosley

Sometimes a Rogue by Mary Jo Putney

Silken Prey by John Sandford

A Chain of Thunder: a novel of the Siege of Vicksburg by Jeff Shaara

Murder in Chelsea by Victoria Thompson

Long Live the King by Fay Weldon

Take Me Out to the Ball Game And Other Spring Sports Fiction

Get into the Spring spirit by choosing one of these great crossover titles about baseball and basketball, appropriate for both teens and adults.  All titles mentioned in the Teen Scene.

Squared Circle by Bennett, James
Sonny, a university freshman and star basketball player, finds that the pressures of college life, NCAA competition, and an unsettling relationship with his feminist cousin bring up painful memories that he must face before he can decide what is important in his life.

Out of Order by Jenkins, A.M. (Amanda McRaney)                      
Sophomore Colt Trammel loves baseball and his girlfriend Grace, but he hates the rest of high school and maintains a tough facade to hide his feelings of inferiority.

Center Field by Lipsyte, Robert
Mike lives for baseball and hopes to follow his idol into the major leagues one day, but he is distracted by a new player who might take his place in center field, an ankle injury, problems at home, and a growing awareness that something sinister is happening at school.

Full Court Press by Lupica, Mike
When the owner of the worst pro basketball team signs Dee Gerard, the first woman ever to play in the NBA, chaos ensues as Dee tries to play her best game while spoiled young millionaires, personal relationships, and the press wreak havoc on her life.


Mexican Whiteboy by Pena, Matt de la
Sixteen-year-old Danny searches for his identity amidst the confusion of being half-Mexican and half-white while spending a summer with his cousin and new friends on the baseball fields and back alleys of San Diego County, California.

Baseball in April and other stories by Soto, Gary
Eleven short stories focusing on the everyday adventures of young Chicanos growing up in Fresno, California.

Don't be an April Fool!

April Fools' Day leaves everyone open for practical jokes (hopefully all in fun!). But here are some stories about practical jokes, deception, pranks and devious plots that sometimes take a wrong turn.

Leaven of Malice by Robertson Davies
A false engagement announcement, printed in the Salterton Evening Bellman and heralding the impending marriage of a university instructor and a professor's daughter, sets off a chain of misadventures and misunderstandings.

The Keep by Jennifer Egan
Two decades after taking part in a childhood prank whose devastating repercussions changed their lives forever, two cousins are reunited to work on the renovation of a medieval castle in Eastern Europe, a remote, eerie site profoundly influenced by its bloody past, where the two are cut off from the outside world and doomed to reenact the horrific event from their past.

Kill Two Birds and Get Stoned by Kinky Friedman
Walter Snow, an author with writer's block, meets Clyde Potts, a feisty and unhinged woman, and her partner in crime, Fox Harris, whose love for a good prank inspires him to write, but their ultimate prank of corporate sabotage gets out of hand.

Where you Once Belonged by Kent Haruf
Former high-school football hero Jack Burdette returns to his hometown eight years after he had left, but his one-time pranks and high-spirited high jinks have turned into crimes--with terrifying consequences for the people of Holt County.

Dictation: a quartet by Cynthia Ozick
Four stories of comedy, deception, and revenge showcases heroes who suffer from willful self-deceit. These not-so-innocents proceed from self-deception to deceiving others, who do not take it lightly. The novella "Dictation" imagines a fateful meeting between the secretaries to Henry James and Joseph Conrad at the peak of their fame. Timid Miss Hallowes, who types for Conrad, comes under the influence of James's Miss Bosanquet, high-spirited, flirtatious, and scheming. In a masterstroke of genius, Ozick hatches a plot between them to insert themselves into posterity.

A Hole in Juan: an Amanda Pepper Mystery by Gillian Roberts
Philadelphia English teacher Amanda Pepper joins forces with her husband, C.K. Mackenzie, to investigate when a yearly tradition in which children play harmless pranks throughout the city on the night before Halloween turns deadly.

The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout
Catalyzed by a nephew's thoughtless prank, a pair of brothers confront painful psychological issues surrounding the freak accident that killed their father when they were boys, a loss linked to a heartbreaking deception that shaped their personal and professional lives.