Movies Have the Power to Transport

I recently saw the film, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018). Since I enjoyed the original
Mamma Mia! (2008) as well as the stage play I knew I would enjoy continuing the saga. What took me by surprise was that it made me want to abandon my prior vacation plans and hop a plane to Greece! I absolutely adored the beautiful scenery! So this made me think how movies have the power to transport - to sweep one away to the magical or sometimes harsh reality of travel to various locations through well-told stories. So, I have compiled a list of movies through the decades that evoke a strong sense of place:



Call Me By Your Name (2018)
In 1980s Italy, a romance blossoms between a seventeen year-old student and the older man hired as his father's research assistant.

Carol (2015)
An aspiring photographer develops an intimate relationship with an older woman in 1950s New York.

Wild (2014)
A chronicle of one woman's one thousand one hundred mile Pacific Crest Trail solo hike undertaken as a way to recover from a recent personal tragedy.

Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
The adventures of a legendary concierge at a famous hotel between the first and second World Wars, and the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. It's a jaunt through old postcard Europe.

Midnight in Paris (2011)
While on a trip to Paris with his fiance's family, a nostalgic screenwriter finds himself mysteriously going back to the 1920s everyday at midnight.

Up (2009)
Seventy-eight year old Carl Fredricksen travels to Paradise Falls in his home equipped with balloons, inadvertently taking a young stowaway.

Into the Wild (2007)
A top student and athlete abandons his possessions, gives his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness.

Under the Tuscan Sun (2005)
A writer impulsively buys a villa in Tuscany in order to change her life.

Before Sunrise (1995)
A young man and woman meet on a train in Europe, and wind up spending one evening together in Vienna. Unfortunately, both know that this will probably be their only night together.

Out of Africa (1985)
In 20th-century colonial Kenya, a Danish baroness/plantation owner has a passionate love affair with a free-spirited big-game hunter.

Easy Rider (1969)
Through the open country and desert lands, two bikers head from L.A to New Orleans, and along the way, meet a man who bridges a counter-culture gap they are unaware of.

Doctor Zhivago (1965)
The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during the First World War and then the Russian October Revolution.

Vertigo (1958)
No movie captured the allure of the City by the Bay better than Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 masterpiece. Hitchcock filmed famous landmarks - the Golden Gate Bridge, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, Ernie's restaurant - in a subjective, lyrical style, to heighten the growing romantic love obsession that James Stewart feels toward Kim Novak, whom he tracks around the city.

Roman Holiday (1955)
A bored and sheltered princess escapes her guardians and falls in love with an American newsman in Rome.


Hope you enjoy a little arm chair traveling!

Glenview Reads Together: Book Discussion Schedule

Join the Glenview Public Library in its new community-wide reading program. During the next five weeks, engage with your friends, neighbors, co-workers, Library staff and others by reading the same novel The Book Of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez, then come together for special book discussions and programs.

Adult and Teen Book Discussions Just Drop in
Copies of the book are available for checkout at the Reader Services Desk

Saturday, September 22, 10-11 AM
Heinen's Grocery Store, 1020 Waukegan Road

Monday, September 24, 7-8 PM
Glenview Library, Multipurpose Room

Wednesday, September 26, 1-2 PM
The East Wing Glenview Senior Center,
2400 Chestnut Ave.

Friday, September 28, 5-6 PM
Glenview Public Library, Multipurpose Room
Teen Discussion

Saturday, September 29, 10-11:15 AM
Glenview Public Library, Youth Program Room
No Pressure New Parents Book Discussion Group

Wednesday, October 3, 1-2 PM
Glenview Public Library, Multipurpose Room

Monday, October 8, 7-8 PM
Glenview Library, Multipurpose Room
Discussion in Spanish

Thursday, October 18, 7-8 PM
Hackney's on Lake, 1514 E. Lake Ave.

Opera Lectures - 2018

It's that time of year when we celebrate operatic music performed at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.  Our lectures are led by the Opera Lovers Lecture Corps.  Lectures are in the Multipurpose Room on Thursdays from 7-8:30 pm.

September 20 - La Boheme by Giacomo Puccini
Puccini's tale introduces us to young artists struggling to make ends meet in Paris's Latin Quarter.  Musetta drives her painter beau Marcello crazy with jealousy.  Frail Mimi and her poet Rodolf finally find love, but she dies tragically in the end.

October 4 - Idomeneo by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Shipwrecked, he gets safely to shore only after promising Neptune to sacrifice the first person he sees - but it's his son, Idamante.  As Idomeneo agonizes over the catastrophe facing him, Idamante woos one princess, the lovely Ilia, and is madly pursued by another, the jealous Elettra.

October 18 - Siegfried by Richard Wagner

The hero of the first part of the Nibelungenlied.  A prince of the Netherlands, Siegfried obtains a hoard of treasure by killing the dragon Fafner.  He marries Kriemhild, and helps Gunther to win Brunhilde before being killed by Hagen.




November 1 - Il Trovatore by Giuseppe Verdi

The troubadour Manrico and Count di Luna are bitter enemies who are both in love with Leonora: however, they do not know that they are brothers.  The story includes babies switched at birth, kidnapping, mistaken identity, poisoning, civil strife, witches burned at the stake, and a noblewoman who offers herself to a man she hates, to save the man she loves.

November 15 - Cendrillon by Jules Massenet
The story broadly follows the familiar version from pantomime.  The only significant change is a vision scene under the magic of the Fairy Godmother in which Cinderella runs away after the ball and meets Prince Charming in a magic forest.

Fairy Tales Re-imagined

One of my favorite fantasy reads in fairy written again with a new spin to the tales that I read when I was younger.  I remember pouring over a large volume of classic fairy tales that I had gotten from my parents.  The love of tales such as these has carried over into my adult reading choices.  It's interesting to see what take a different author takes on a tale, sometimes even writing from the perspective of a character who might not have been a sympathetic or prominent character in the original.  Here are a few books that have taken a new spin on some classic tales that you might recognize from your youth.

All the Ever Afters: The Untold Story of Cinderella's Stepmother - Danielle Teller

We all know the story of Cinderella... or do we? Her stepmother, Agnes, has privately recorded the true story. A peasant born into serfdom, forced into servitude as a laundress's apprentice when she is only ten years old, Agnes was seduced by an older man while a teenager and became pregnant. She had no choice but to return to servitude at the manor she thought she had left behind, where her new position is nursemaid to Ella. The story of their relationship reveals that nothing is what it seems, that beauty is not always desirable, and that love can take on many guises.


Spinning Silver - Naomi Novik
"A fresh and imaginative retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale...Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father is not a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has left his family on the edge of poverty--until Miryem intercedes. Hardening her heart, she sets out to retrieve what is owed, and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold. But when an ill-advised boast brings her to the attention of the cold creatures who haunt the wood, nothing will be the same again. For words have power, and the fate of a kingdom will be forever altered by the challenge she is issued. Channeling the heart of the classic fairy tale, Novik deftly interweaves six distinct narrative voices--each learning valuable lessons about sacrifice, power and love--into a rich, multilayered fantasy that readers will want to return to again and again."

The Bear and the Nightingale: A Novel - Katherine Arden 

A beautiful re-imaging of a Russian fairy tale.  "In a village at the edge of the wilderness of northern Russia, where the winds blow cold and the snow falls many months of the year, a stranger with piercing blue eyes presents a new father with a gift - a precious jewel on a delicate chain, intended for his young daughter. Uncertain of its meaning, Pytor hides the gift away and Vasya grows up a wild, willful girl, to the chagrin of her family. But when mysterious forces threaten the happiness of their village, Vasya discovers that, armed only with the necklace, she may be the only one who can keep the darkness at bay"




The Marry Spinster: Tale of Everyday Horrors - Mallory Ortberg

A collection of darkly playful stories based on classic folk and fairy tales (but with a feminist spin) that find the sinister in the familiar and the familiar in the alien.

To All the Boys I've Ever Loved Before...Some books to Soothe

Looking for something similar to read to Jenny Han's To All the Boys I've Loved Before? Looking to quench your thirst after watching the movie? Check these titles out, all in our Teen Scene!


The Only Thing Worse Than Me is You
by Lily Anderson

After years of competing against each other, Trixie and Ben form a fandom-based tentative friendship when their best friends start dating each other, but after Trixie's friend gets expelled for cheating they have to choose which side they are on.


When Dimple Met Rishi
by Sandyha Menon

When Dimple Shah and Rishi Patel meet at a Stanford University summer program, Dimple is avoiding her parents' obsession with "marriage prospects" but Rishi hopes to woo her into accepting arranged marriage with him.

Everything Leads to You
by Nina LaCour

While working as a film production designer in Los Angeles, Emi finds a mysterious letter from a silver screen legend which leads Emi to Ava who is about to expand Emi's understanding of family, acceptance, and true romance.

Emergency Contact
by Mary H.K. Choi

After a chance encounter, Penny and Sam become each other's emergency contacts and find themselves falling in love digitally, without the humiliating weirdness of having to see each other.

Leonard Bernstein - 1918-1990

This year marks the centenary celebration of Leonard Bernstein's birth.  He was born Louis Bernstein in Lawrence, Massachusetts on August 25, 2918 and died October 14, 1990 in New York City, New York at the age of 72.  He was a composer, conductor author, lecturer, and pianist.  According to music critic Donal Henahan, he was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history."


Bernstein was influenced by the composer Marc Blitzstein, conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos, composer Aaron Copland and conductor Fritz Reiner at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, who is said to have given Bernstein the only "A" grade he ever awarded.


In 1958, he began his tenure as conductor with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, after stepping in at the last moment for conductor Guido Cantelli, who died in an airplane crash.  At this time, he also began his series of fifty-three televised Young People's concerts for CBS.


Bernstein has been awarded Grammy Awards for Best Album for children, Best Orchestral Performance, Best Choral Performance, Best Opera Recording, Best Classical Vocal Performance, Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance, Best Classical Contemporary Composition, Best Classical Album, and Lifetime Achievement.  He also won a Tony Award for Best Musical.  He is a Gramophone Hall of Fame entrant, and a member of both the American Theater Hall of Fame, and the Television Hall of Fame.  In 2015 he was inducted into the Legacy Walk.  In 1990 he won the Japan Arts Association award for lifetime achievement.


His works include ballets, operas, musicals, incidental music and other theatre, film scores, orchestral, choral, chamber music, vocal music, and pianos music. Among his noteworthy are
On the Town (1944), Trouble in Tahiti (1952),
On the Waterfront (1954) Candide (1956), West Side Story (1957), MASS (1971) and A Quiet Place (1983). 

Scientists Are 'Spying On Whales' To Learn How They Eat, Talk And ... Walked?

Nick Pyenson's research has given us the answers to some of our biggest questions about whales. Nick's rich storytelling takes us to the cool halls deep inside the Smithsonian's priceless fossil collection, to the frigid fishing decks on Antarctic whaling stations, and to the blazing hot desert of Chile where scientists race against time to document the largest fossil whalebone site on earth. Spying on Whales is science writing at its best: an author who is an incredible, passionate writer, at the forefront of his field, on a topic that invokes deep fascination.

Whales are among the largest, most intelligent, deepest diving species to have ever lived on our planet. They evolved from land-roaming, dog-like creatures into animals that move like fish, breathe like us, can grow to 300,000 pounds, live 200 years and roam entire ocean basins. Whales fill us with terror, awe, and affection--yet we know hardly anything about them, and they only enter our awareness when they die, struck by a ship or stranded in the surf.

Why did it take whales over 50 million years to evolve to such big sizes, and how do they eat enough to stay that big? 

How did their ancestors return from land to the sea? 

Why do they beach themselves? 

What do their lives tell us about our oceans, and evolution as a whole? 

Importantly, in the sweepstakes of human-driven habitat and climate change, will whales survive?

The Smithsonian's star paleontologist Nick Pyenson's takes us to the ends of the earth and to the cutting edge of whale research in Spying on Whales to answer these questions and share intriguing facts about these amazing creatures.