New and Noteworthy titles in Spanish

So I am pretty excited about some of our new titles in Spanish. Did you know that we welcome suggestions for Spanish titles to add to the collection? And we can search and solicit Spanish books from other libraries. Stop by the readers desk to make a request. Come browse the collection and take one or two home.

*Una novela criminal
by Jorge Volpi Escalante

Becoming: mi historia 
by Michelle Obama

Mis documentos 
by Alejandro Zambra

El objetivo
by David Baldacci

Casa de espías
by Daniel Silva

Pecho frío
by Jaime Bayly

La fruta del borrachero 
by Ingrid Rojas Contreras

Orgullo y prejuicio 
by Jane Austen

Los siete principios del camino de Santiago 
by Victor Prince

*2018 winner of the prestigious Alfaguara Prize for literature

Kennedy Center Honors - 2018

On December 2, 2018, the Kennedy Center will host its 41st annual national celebration of the arts.  Artists include, Cher, Philip Glass, Reba McEntire, Wayne Shorter. Also the creators of Hamilton - Lin-Manuel Miranda, Thomas Kail, Andy Blankenbuehler, and Alex Lacamoire, will be presented with a special Kennedy Center Honors as trailblazing creators of a transformative work that defies category.  The Honors Gala will be broadcasted on CBS Network on Wednesday, December 26 at 8 p.m. ET.

Cher was born Cherilyn Sarkisian, May 20, 1946 in El Centro, California. (Singer, actress, author, businesswoman, comedian, dancer, fashion designer, model, philanthropist, record producer,
songwriter, television host) (Genres - Pop, dance, disco, folk, rock)
She has been awarded an Academy Award for "Moonstruck", a Grammy for "Believe", an Emmy, three Golden Globes, a Cannes Film Festival Award and a People's Choice Award.
In 1965, Cher, along with her husband Sonny, gained popularity.  Her first solo in 1966, "Band Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)", was her first million-seller song.  She is currently starring in the current movie "Mamma Mia2 - Here We go Again".

Philip Glass was born on January 31, 1937 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Composer) (Genres - Minimalism, contemporary classical, film score)  Glass is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Julliard School.  In 1974 he wrote Music in Twelve Parts and his opera Einstein on the Beach.  He has receive an Academy Award nomination for Kundun, The Hours, Notes on a Scandal and a Golden Globe for The Truman Show.  He was presented with the U.S. National Medal of the Arts by Barack Obama in 2015.  He also was named the 11th recipient of the Glenn Gould Prize, a lifetime achievement award.
His Symphony No. 11 was premiered on his 80th birthday on January 31, 2017.  The Los Angeles Philharmonic will present the word premiere of glass' Symphony No 12, based on David Bowie's album Lodger, on January 10, 2019.

Reba McEntire was born on March 28, 1955 in McAlester, Oklahoma. (Singer, songwriter, actress, record producer( (Genre - Country)
Reba began her music career singing in the Kowa High School Band.  Her first solo album was release in 1977 plus an additional five albums.  She has released 29 studio albums, 42 number one singles, 16 number one albums, and 28 albums are gold, platinum or multi-platinum sales.  She is referred to as "The Queen of Country".  She has sold more than 95 million record worldwide.
McEntire also starred in  the film Tremors and in the Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun, TV sitcom Reba, which she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series-Musical or Comedy.

Wayne Shorter was born on August 25, 1933 in Newark, New Jersey. (Musician, composer) (Genres - Modal jazz, crossover jazz, post-bop, hard bop, jazz fusion, third stream)
In the late 1950s Shorter became a member, saxophone, composer and music director of Art Blakey's Jazz Messenger. In the 1960s he joined Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet and late cofounded the jazz fusion band Weather Report.  He has won 10 Grammy Awards, NEA Jazz Masters Award (1998), the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2015), and the Polar Music Prize (2017).

Lin-Manuel Miranda was born January 16, 1980 and is known for creating and starring in the Broadway musicals In the Heights and Hamilton.  He has won a Pulitzer Prize, three Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and three Tony Awards.

Thomas Kail was born on January 20, 1978 in Alexandria, Virginia and is an American film and theatre director, known for directing In the Heights and Hamilton.  He received the Drama Desk Award and Tony Award for Best Director of a Musical.

Andy Blankenbuehler was born on March 7, 1970 in Cincinnati, Ohio.  he is an American dancer, choreogrpaher and director.  He has been nominated 5 times for the Tony Award for Best Choreography and has won 3 times for Bandstand, Hamilton, and In the Heights.  He has also choreographed 9 to 5, Bring it On: The Music, and the 2016 Cats revival.

Alex Lacamoire was born on May 24, 1975 in Los Angeles, California.  He is of Cuban descent and is a composer, conductor, musical director, music copyist, and orchestrator.  He has won many Tony and Grammy Awards, including In the Heights, Hamilton, and Dear Evan Hansen.

Get Cooking with these New Cookbooks!

'Tis the season for cooking...and we have some great new cookbooks just waiting to provide you with a bit of inspiration. Here is a sampling of some the best:

Ottolenghi Simple by Yotam Ottolenghi
Ottolenghi, an acclaimed London chef and New York Times food columnist, is not known for his simple recipes. Recipes in his previous cookbooks, Jerusalem, Sweet, and Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's Ottolenghi to name a few, will send you off in search of little known ingredients and often involve many steps to complete. If you persevere, you will be justly rewarded, but no one would call these recipes simple. That is why his new book, Simple, has been embraced with such enthusiasm. Many of the recipes have fewer than 10 ingredients and can be prepared in under 30 minutes.

Everyday Dorie: The Way I Cook by Dorie Greenspan
Dorie Greenspan is another well-known and award-winning cookbook author. Her just-published Everyday Dorie contains casual, easily-made recipes that Greenspan cooks for friends and family. "I don't do fussy - I do inviting and comforting". If you get hooked on Greenspan's recipes, check out her 2016 title, Dorie's Cookies.

Now and Again by Julia Turshen
Julie Turshen wrote a great cookbook in 2016 called Small Victories that celebrates home-cooking. In her new title, Turshen embraces easy, inexpensive, wholesome cooking, gets creative with leftovers and inspires readers to gather people around a table. 

Cook Like a Pro: Recipes and Tips for the Home Cook by Ina Garten
Most home cooks are friends with Ina Garten (The Barefoot Contessa) and her cookbooks. Cook Like a Pro is her 11th cookbook. There is a reason she has so many fans. Her recipes are accessible yet produce impressive results. You may find a new batch of go-to recipes in her latest offering.

Movies to Salute the Military and Honor the Fallen

Veteran's Day was established in 1918 by President Woodrow Wilson and commemorates the date when the WWI armistice was signed. It's an American holiday created in honor of military veterans. Hollywood has always loved the military and saluted them with films depicting our veterans at home and abroad, and especially American veterans returning home after tours of duty.

In the following documentaries, the lives of various veterans are skillfully displayed with humanity and honesty and show some of the best work in documentary filmmaking.

Restrepo (2010)
Chronicles the 2nd Platoon of Battle Co. as they travel to the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, considered then as "one of the deadliest places on Earth."

Stray Dog (2014)
A portrait of Ron "Stray Dog" Hall, a Vietnam vet, who spends his day contemplating the hazy past while trying to help others cope with their own experiences of war.

Lioness (2008)
Tells the story of the first program in American history to send women into direct combat. They were sent to high risk zones without the proper training that their male counterparts had, yet served with ingenuity and courage as the fewer and the prouder.

Most Honorable Son (2007)
Ben Kuroki, 23 years old, joined the U.S. Army Air Force in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
This film reveals his courage and commitment to serve his country despite anti-Japanese sentiment. He flew 58 combat missions and spoke out against the internment of Japanese Americans.

The Great Escape (2005)
The feature film The great escape was based on this true event. Over six hundred Allied prisoners dug three highly sophisticated tunnels in a plan to escape from Stalag Luft III. On the night of March 24, 1944 two hundred prisoners began their escape. The German guards spotted the seventy-seventh man coming out of the tunnel, but seventy-six prisoners made their escape.

Nanking (2008)
Tells the story of the Japanese invasion of Nanking, China in the early days of World War II and focuses on the efforts of a small group of unarmed Westerners who established a Safety Zone where over 200,000 Chinese found refuge.

Return to Tarawa (2017) 
A World War II veteran returns to the site of a battle in which he took part sixty five years earlier. He learns many disturbing things about that site. The remains of several hundred Americans still lie neglected and forgotten on that island. Also, there is live ammunition scattered everywhere on the densely populated island. Finally, huge piles of garbage lie on Red Beach, hallowed ground, where hundreds of Americans were killed and wounded by Japanese gunfire. Available to download through Hoopla. 

Battle for Midway (2001)
National Geographic follows underwater explorer Bob Ballard as he searches for the aircraft carrier sunk during the Battle of Midway. Available to download through Hoopla. 

Arlington: Field of Honor (2004)
Field of Honor is a documentary which examines the history of one of the world's largest cemeteries, the people who care for the grounds and maintain the facilities, and some of the brave Americans who are memorialized there.

Just to round out the list, here are a couple of the best fictional films about veterans returning home and facing myriad challenges:

Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Truly moving drama about 3 U.S. servicemen readjusting to life back home after returning from the battlefields.

The Messenger (2009)
An army staff sergeant returns home from Iraq as a hero, only to find a strange reward.

What are your recommendations for great documentaries or dramas about veterans coming back home?

See the movies, read the books: Hallmark Christmas Movies Based on Books

If you are like me, even before Halloween you are counting down to the holidays by starting with the Hallmark Channel's line up of fun heartwarming Christmas movies. A lot of these inspirational (and sometimes quirky!) movies are based on novels. Check out some of these novels that were made into your favorite holiday movies.

Christmas Joy by Nancy Naigle
Joy Holbrook might be all work and no play, but that changes when her Aunt Ruby takes a fall that lands her in a rehabilitation center before the holidays. Joy takes a leave of absence from her job as a market researcher to run the family farm, even though the timing may hinder her chance at garnering the promotion of her dreams. Ben Andrews isn't your average accountant. He also happens to be the handiest man in Crystal Lake. He's helped his elderly neighbor, Ruby Johnson, decorate for the annual Christmas Home Tour--and win--the last several years. He's not about to let some drop-in granddaughter break their winning streak.
Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe by Melissa De La Cruz
Darcy Fitzwilliam is 29, beautiful, successful, and brilliant. Darcy's never fallen in love, never has time for anyone else's drama, and never goes home for Christmas if she can help it. But when her mother falls ill, she comes home to Pemberley, Ohio, to spend the season with her family. Her parents throw their annual Christmas bash, where she meets one Luke Bennet, the smart, sardonic slacker son of their neighbor. What is it about him? And can she fall in love, or will her pride and his prejudice against big-city girls stand in their way?

The Nine Lives of Christmas  by Sheila Roberts
After firefighter Zach Stone saves Ambrose from a vicious dog, the cat tries to repay him by moving (uninvited) into his house and fixing his lonely bachelor life. While Zach is buying cat food, he meets Merilee White, a winsome pet store clerk with a fondness for stray cats and big strong men who take them in. Her competition is Zach's no-strings-attached lover, Blair, a haughty cat-hater who insists Zach evict the cat before Christmas.

Maggie's Miracle by Karen Kingsbury

Megan Wright spent one unforgettable summer week with a boy when they were both teens. And despite a lifetime of heartache and bad choices, she has never let go of his magical definition of love, even if she has trouble believing in it. After college Megan settled for a relationship of convenience. Now she's a high powered attorney and, after the death of her husband two years ago, has been looking for help with her lonely young son. Life suddenly takes a series of unusual twists, and soon Megan will learn that the teenage boy from all those years ago actually kept his promise, and the miracle she prayed for as a girl is only a breath away.

Dashing Through the Snow by Debbie Macomber

Ashley Davison, a graduate student in California, desperately wants to spend the holidays with her family in Seattle. Dashiell Tyler, a former army intelligence officer, receives a job in Seattle and must arrive by December 23. Though frantic to book a last-minute flight out of San Francisco, both are out of luck: Every flight is full, and there's only one rental car available. Ashley and Dash reluctantly decide to share the car, but neither anticipates the wild ride ahead.

World War 1: Novels

This week marks the 100-year anniversary of the Armistice with Germany and the Allies that ended the fighting on land, air and sea during World War 1. The formal end of the war wouldn't occur for seven more months when the Treat of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919. World War 1 hasn't been written about as extensively as World War 2 however, there are wonderful novels written by noted authors. I've chosen five classic novels and I hope you enjoy one or all them.



Regeneration by Pat Barker
Stressed by the war, poet, pacifist, and protester Siegfried Sassoon is sent to Craiglockhart Hospital, where his views challenge the patriotic vision of Dr. William Rives, a neurologist assigned to repair the stability of shell-shocked soldiers. Part 1, Regeneration trilogy

The Girl at the Lion D'or by Sebastian Faulks
The appearance of a pretty but troubled girl at a dingy hotel in 1930's France spells troubgle for a married veteran of the Great War.  Part 1, French trilogy

The Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
This novel follows five families through the earth shattering dramas of  World War 1, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for votes for women. Part 1, Century trilogy

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
The epic love story of American ambulance driver Frederic Henry and British nurse Catherine Barkley, drawn together yet torn apart by the tides of war in Italy during World War 1.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
The testament of Paul Baumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army of World War 1, illuminates the viciousness and senselessness of war.