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Cover of the book The monkey wrench gang
The monkey wrench gang
By Edward Abbey.
Ex-Green Beret George Hayduke returns from war to find his beloved southwestern desert threatened by industrial development. Joining with Bronx exile and feminist saboteur Bonnie Abzug, wilderness guide and outcast Mormon Seldom Seen Smith, and libertarian billboard torcher Doc Sarvis, M.D., Hayduke is ready to fight the power. They (the Monkey Wrench Gang) take on the strip miners, clear-cutters, and the highway, dam, and bridge builders who are threatening the natural habitat in this is a comedic novel of destructive mayhem and outrageous civil disobedience.
Cover of the book The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy
The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy
By Douglas Adams.
This is the story of Arthur Dent, who, seconds before Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, is plucked off the planet by his friend, Ford Prefect, who has been posing as an out-of-work actor for the last fifteen years but is really a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Together they begin a journey through the galaxy aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Cover of the book The clan of the Cave Bear : a novel
The clan of the Cave Bear : a novel
By Jean M. Auel.
An injured and orphaned infant carries within her the seed and hope of mankind in this epic of survival and destiny set at the dawn of prehistory.
Cover of the book Crash
Crash
By J.G. Ballard.
A classic work of cutting-edge fiction, Crash explores both the disturbing implications and horrific possibilities of contemporary society's increasing dependence on technology as intermediary in human relations.
Cover of the book The sheltering sky : with a preface by the author
The sheltering sky : with a preface by the author
By Paul Bowles.
The Sheltering Sky is a landmark of twentieth-century literature. In this intensely fascinating story, Paul Bowles examines the ways in which Americans' incomprehension of alien cultures leads to the ultimate destruction of those cultures. A story about three American travelers adrift in the cities and deserts of North Africa after World War II, The Sheltering Sky explores the limits of humanity when it touches the unfathomable emptiness and impassive cruelty of the desert.
Cover of the book The Da Vinci code : a novel
The Da Vinci code : a novel
By Dan Brown.
Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon and French cryptologist Sophie Neveu work to solve the murder of an elderly curator of the Louvre, a case which leads to clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci and a centuries-old secret society.
Cover of the book Richard Brautigan's Trout fishing in America ; The pill versus the Springhill mine disaster ; and, In watermelon sugar.
Richard Brautigan's Trout fishing in America ; The pill versus the Springhill mine disaster ; and, In watermelon sugar.
By
Required reading for the hip generation, this one-volume edition contains two novels and a collection of poetry. The comic genius and iconoclastic vision of American life will recapture today's reader.
Cover of the book The master and Margarita
The master and Margarita
By Mikhail Bulgakov ; translated from the Russian by Michael Glenny ; with an introduction by Simon Franklin.
Written during the darkest, most repressive period of Stalin's reign, this novel gives substance to the notion of artistic and religious freedom. Although Bulgakov completed his masterpiece in 1940, it was not published until 1966, twenty-six years after his death, when the first section appeared in the magazine Moskva, which sold out within hours. Despite its devastating satire of Soviet life and its audacious portrayals of Christ and Satan, the manuscript had somehow eluded Russian censors, and the enthusiasm of its readers assured the novel immediate and enduring success.
Cover of the book A clockwork orange
A clockwork orange
By Anthony Burgess.
Told through a central character, Alex, the disturbing novel creates an alarming futuristic vision of violence, high technology, and authoritarianism. A modern classic of youthful violence and social redemption set in a dismal dystopia whereby a juvenile deliquent undergoes state-sponsored psychological rehabilitation for his aberrant behavior.
Cover of the book Naked lunch : the restored text
Naked lunch : the restored text
By William S. Burroughs ; edited by James Grauerholz and Barry Miles.
Bill Lee, an addict and hustler, travels to Mexico and then Tangier in order to find easy access to drugs, and ends up in the Interzone, a bizarre fantasy world, in a commemorative edition that features restored text, archival material, Burroughs's own later introduction to the book, and his essay on psychoactive drugs.
Cover of the book Ender's game
Ender's game
By Orson Scott Card.
Child-hero Ender Wiggin must fight a desperate battle against a deadly alien race if mankind is to survive.
Cover of the book Shampoo planet
Shampoo planet
By Douglas Coupland.
Despite their differing values, Tyler Johnson, an ambitious hotel management student, tries to console his mother, a former hippie, when Dan, his land-developer stepfather, decides to get a divorce.
Cover of the book Geek love
Geek love
By Katherine Dunn.
Aloysious and Lillian Binewski, proprietors of a traveling carnival, attempt to reduce overhead by breeding their own freak show, with tragic results.
Cover of the book American psycho : a novel
American psycho : a novel
By by Bret Easton Ellis.
In a black satire of the eighties, a decade of naked greed and unparalleled callousness, a successful Wall Street yuppie cannot get enough of anything, including murder. Now a major motion picture from Lion's Gate Films, released Spring 2000, starring Christian Bale (Metroland), Chloe Sevigny (The Last Days of Disco), Jared Leto (My So Called Life), and Reese Witherspoon (Cruel Intentions), and directed by Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol). In American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis imaginatively explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other. Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day, while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.
Cover of the book Been down so long it looks like up to me
Been down so long it looks like up to me
By by Richard Fariña ; new introd. by Thomas Pynchon.
First published in the United States in 1966, the novel, based largely on Fariña's college experiences and travels, is a comic picaresque story of Gnossos Pappadopoulis that takes place in the American West, in Cuba during the Cuban Revolution, and at an upstate New York university.
Cover of the book One hundred years of solitude
One hundred years of solitude
By Gabriel García Márquez ; translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabassa.
Tells the story of the Buendia family, set against the background of the evolution and eventual decadence of a small South American town.
Cover of the book Neuromancer
Neuromancer
By William Gibson ; with an afterword by Jack Womack.
Case, a nerve-damaged data thief, is recruited by a new employer for a last-chance run against a powerful artificial intelligence.
Cover of the book Lord of the flies
Lord of the flies
By William Golding.
Few works in literature have received as much popular and critical attention as Nobel Laureate William Golding's Lord of the Flies. Since its publication in 1954, it has amassed a cult following, and has significantly contributed to our dystopian vision of the post-war era. When responding to the novel's dazzling power of intellectual insight, scholars and critics often invoke the works of Shakespeare, Freud, Rousseau, Sartre, Orwell, and Conrad. Golding's aim to "trace the defect of society back to the defect of human nature" is elegantly pursued in this gripping adventure tale about a group of British schoolboys marooned on a tropical island. Alone in a world of uncharted possibilities, devoid of adult supervision or rules, the boys attempt to forge their own society, failing, however, in the face of terror, sin, and evil. Part parable, allegory, myth, parody, political treatise, and apocalyptic vision, Lord of the Flies is perhaps the most memorable tale about "the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart". When they are marooned on a deserted island, a group of English schoolboys soon lose their civilized ways.
Cover of the book Stranger in a strange land
Stranger in a strange land
By Robert A. Heinlein.
The epic saga of an earthling, born and educated on Mars, who arrives on our planet with superhuman powers and a total ignorance of the mores of man.
Cover of the book Dune
Dune
By Frank Herbert.
This Hugo and Nebula Award winner tells the sweeping tale of a desert planet called Arrakis, the focus of an intricate power struggle in a byzantine interstellar empire. Arrakis is the sole source of Melange, the "spice of spices." Melange is necessary for interstellar travel and grants psychic powers and longevity, so whoever controls it wields great influence. The troubles begin when stewardship of Arrakis is transferred by the Emperor from the Harkonnen Noble House to House Atreides. The Harkonnens don't want to give up their privilege, though, and through sabotage and treachery they cast young Duke Paul Atreides out into the planet's harsh environment to die. There he falls in with the Fremen, a tribe of desert dwellers who become the basis of the army with which he will reclaim what's rightfully his. Paul Atreides, though, is far more than just a usurped duke. He might be the end product of a very long-term genetic experiment designed to breed a super human; he might be a messiah. His struggle is at the center of a nexus of powerful people and events, and the repercussions will be felt throughout the Imperium. Dune is one of the most famous science fiction novels ever written, and deservedly so. The setting is elaborate and ornate, the plot labyrinthine, the adventures exciting.
Cover of the book Siddhartha : an Indian tale
Siddhartha : an Indian tale
By Hermann Hesse ; translated from the German by Joachim Neugroschel ; with an introduction by Ralph Freedman.
In the novel, "Siddhartha, a young man, leaves his family for a contemplative life, then, restless, discards it for one of the flesh. He conceives a son, but bored and sickened by lust and greed, moves on again. Near despair, Siddhartha comes to a river where he hears a unique sound. This sound signals the true beginning of his life -- the beginning of suffering, rejection, peace, and, finally, wisdom.
Cover of the book The talented Mr. Ripley
The talented Mr. Ripley
By Patricia Highsmith.
Since his debut in 1955, Tom Ripley has evolved into the ultimate bad boy sociopath, influencing countless novelists and filmmakers. In this first novel, we are introduced to suave, handsome Tom Ripley: a young striver, newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan in the 1950s. A product of a broken home, branded a "sissy" by his dismissive Aunt Dottie, Ripley becomes enamored of the moneyed world of his new friend, Dickie Greenleaf. This fondness turns obsessive when Ripley is sent to Italy to bring back his libertine pal but grows enraged by Dickie's ambivalent feelings for Marge, a charming American dilettante.
Cover of the book High fidelity
High fidelity
By Nick Hornby.
The romantic trials of the owner of a London record shop, after his girlfriend leaves him for another man.
Cover of the book Jesus' son : stories
Jesus' son : stories
By by Denis Johnson.
Jesus' Son is a visionary chronicle of dreamers, addicts, and lost souls. These stories tell of spiraling grief and trancendence, of rock bottom and redemption, of getting lost an dfound and lost again. The raw beauty and careening energy of Denis Johnson's prose has earned this book a place among the classics of twentieth-century American literature.
Cover of the book Fear of flying
Fear of flying
By Erica Jong ; with a new afterword by the author.
Originally published in 1973, the ground-breaking, uninhibited story of Isadora Wing and her desire to fly free caused a national sensation-and sold more than twelve million copies. Now, after thirty years, the iconic novel still stands as a timeless tale of self-discovery, liberation, and womanhood.
Cover of the book On the road
On the road
By Jack Kerouac ; introduction by Ann Charters.
Follows the counterculture escapades of members of the Beat generation as they seek pleasure and meaning while traveling coast to coast. As he travels across 1950s America, aspiring writer Sal Paradise chronicles his escapades with the charismatic Dean Moriarty. Sal admires Dean's passion for experiencing as much as possible of life and his wild flights of poetic fancy.
Cover of the book One flew over the cuckoo's nest
One flew over the cuckoo's nest
By Ken Kesey ; with illustrations and a new introduction by the author ; text introduction by Robert Faggen.
Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Kesey's work is the seminal novel of the 1960s that has left an indelible mark on literature. Here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her.
Cover of the book The stand : the complete & uncut edition
The stand : the complete & uncut edition
By Stephen King ; [illustrated by Bernie Wrightson].
Horrific disaster as a plague virus sweeps the U.S., leaving only a handful of survivors.
Cover of the book A separate peace
A separate peace
By by John Knowles.
Gene Forrester looks back fifteen years to a World War II year in which he and his best friend were roommates in a New hampshire boarding school.
Cover of the book The unbearable lightness of being
The unbearable lightness of being
By Milan Kundera ; translated from the Czech by Michael Henry Heim.
Interweaves story and dream, past and present, and philosophy and poetry in a sardonic and erotic tale of two couples--Tomas and Teresa, and Sabina and her Swiss lover, Gerhart.
Cover of the book To kill a mockingbird
To kill a mockingbird
By Harper Lee.
A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, Scout, as her father, Atticus Finch -- a crusading local lawyer-- risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
Cover of the book Boy's life
Boy's life
By Robert R. McCammon.
"Zephyr, Alabama, has been an idyllic home for eleven-year-old Cory Mackenson...a place where monsters swim in the belly of the river, and friends are forever. Then, on a cold spring morning in 1964, as Cory accompanies his father on his milk route, they see a car plunge into a lake some say is bottomless." -- Back cover.
Cover of the book Blood meridian, or, The evening redness in the West
Blood meridian, or, The evening redness in the West
By Cormac McCarthy.
Based on incidents that took place in the southwestern United States and Mexico around 1850, this novel chronicles the crimes of a band of desperados, with a particular focus on one, "the kid," a boy of fourteen.
Cover of the book Lolita
Lolita
By Vladimir Nabokov ; with an introduction by Martin Amis.
With an Introduction by Martin Amis. When it was published in 1955, Lolita immediately became a cause celebre because of the freedom and sophistication with which it handled the unusual erotic predilections of its protagonist. But Vladimir Nabokov's wise, ironic, elegant masterpiece owes its stature as one of the twentieth century's novels of record not to the controversy its material aroused but to its author's use of that material to tell a love story almost shocking in its beauty and tenderness. Awe and exhilaration--along with heartbreak and mordant wit--abound in this account of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America, but most of all, it is a meditation on love--love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.
Cover of the book Animal farm : a fairy story
Animal farm : a fairy story
By by George Orwell ; preface by Russell Baker ; introduction by C.M. Woodhouse.
A satire on totalitarianism in which farm animals overthrow their human owner and set up their own government.
Cover of the book Fight Club
Fight Club
By by Chuck Palahniuk.
The rise of a terrorist organization, led by a waiter who enjoys spitting in people's soup. He starts a fighting club, where men bash each other, and the club quickly gains in popularity. It becomes the springboard for a movement devoted to destruction for destruction's sake.
Cover of the book The bell jar
The bell jar
By Sylvia Plath ; foreword by Frances McCullough ; biographical note by Lois Ames ; drawings by Sylvia Plath.
Chronicles one young woman's emotional breakdown as she journeys from the glamorous world of Manhattan publishing to the isolation of the asylum.
Cover of the book The crying of lot 49
The crying of lot 49
By Thomas Pynchon.
When Oedipa Maas is named as the executor of her late lover's will, she discovers that his estate is mysteriously connected with an underground organization.
Cover of the book Atlas shrugged
Atlas shrugged
By Ayn Rand.
This is the story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world, and did. Is he a destroyer or a liberator? Why does he have to fight his battle not against his enemies but against those who need him most? Why does he fight his hardest battle against the woman he loves? The answers to these questions become clear when the reason behind the baffling events that play havoc with the lives of the amazing men and women in this remarkable book is uncovered . Tremendous in scope, breathtaking in its suspense, "Atlas shrugged" is Ayn Rand's magnum opus, and a premier moral apologia for Capitalism.
Cover of the book Another roadside attraction
Another roadside attraction
By Tom Robbins.
A clairvoyant girl enthralled by the mysterious beauty of butterflies marries the son of Congo missionaries, and the newlyweds set up a roadside zoo.
Cover of the book Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone
Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone
By by J.K. Rowling ; illustrations by Mary GrandPré.
Rescued from the outrageous neglect of his aunt and uncle, a young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Cover of the book The catcher in the rye
The catcher in the rye
By J.D. Salinger.
Holden Caulfield, knowing he is to be expelled from school, decides to leave early. He spends three days in New York City and tells the story of what he did and suffered there.
Cover of the book The secret history
The secret history
By Donna Tartt.
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and forever, and they discover how hard it can be to truly live and how easy it is to kill.
Cover of the book Fear and loathing in Las Vegas : a savage journey to the heart of the American dream
Fear and loathing in Las Vegas : a savage journey to the heart of the American dream
By by Hunter S. Thompson ; illustrated by Ralph Steadman.
Records the experiences of a free-lance writer who embarked on a zany journey into the drug culture.
Cover of the book The killer inside me
The killer inside me
By Jim Thompson.
Lou Ford is the deputy sheriff of a small town in Texas. The worst thing most people can say against him is that he's a little slow and a little boring. But, then, most people don't know about the sickness--the sickness that almost got Lou put away when he was younger. The sickness that is about to surface again. An underground classic since its publication in 1952, The Killer Inside Me is the book that made Jim Thompson's name synonymous with the roman noir.
Cover of the book The fellowship of the ring : being the first part of The lord of the rings
The fellowship of the ring : being the first part of The lord of the rings
By by J.R.R. Tolkien.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkeness bind them. In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, The Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in The Hobbit. In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.
Cover of the book A confederacy of dunces
A confederacy of dunces
By John Kennedy Toole ; foreword by Walker Percy.
Ignatius J. Reilly of New Orleans, --selfish, domineering, deluded, tragic and larger than life-- is a noble crusader against a world of dunces. He is a modern-day Quixote beset by giants of the modern age. In magnificent revolt against the twentieth century, Ignatius propels his monstrous bulk among the flesh posts of the fallen city, documenting life on his Big Chief tablets as he goes, until his maroon-haired mother decrees that Ignatius must work.
Cover of the book Divine secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood : a novel
Divine secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood : a novel
By Rebecca Wells.
The antics of a group of women in a small town where they were expected to raise babies, not Cain. The story is recounted by a mother to a daughter, the daughter thinking she is so much better because she got out of that town and is now a theater producer. The moral: mothers too were once rebels.

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Saturday, May 18
Two Hundred Years of Mr. Darcy!
by: debbie.schneekloth

Many of you may know that this year is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice.  Austen wrote the novel in 1797-98, originally calling it First Impressions.  Her father attempted to have it published, but the manuscript was rejected.  It was not until her first novel, Sense and Sensibility was published in 1812 that Pride and Prejudice was accepted.  By that time, another author had published their novel called First Impressions.  Austen found another title for her book from a quote in fellow female author Fanny Burney’s novel, Cecila.  Thus Pride and Prejudice was born.   The novel was an instant success and has proved to be her most popular novel.

While we know much about her life from records and her own letters, there are aspects of her life of which we know nothing because her sister destroyed letters after the author’s death in 1817 in order to protect family privacy.  Scholars and authors can only speculate what the subjects of those letters were and what dimensions they could have added to our understanding of Jane Austen.  

By Jane Austen:

Jane Austen's Letters by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice (DVD) Miniseries starring Colin Firth

Based on Jane Austen:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance -- Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! by Seth Grahame-Smith

The Pemberley Chronicles: A Companion Volume to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice by Rebecca Ann Collins

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange

Lost in Austen (DVD) Miniseries starring Jemima Rooper

Pride and Prescience, Or, A Truth Universally Acknowledged: A Mr. and Mrs. Darcy Mystery by Carrie Bebris

 

 

 

Friday, May 17
The Best Thing About Books You Hate
by: betsey.blanche

The Twitter feed “Fake Library Stats” recently tweeted “After complaining the pituitary glands of 63% of librarians secrete a hormone that is necessary to keep them alive.” Sure, there’s a stereotype that we librarians like to complain but we can also be overwhelmingly positive when it comes to resources we offer. And I’m about to be super positive about the fact that I just read a library book and did not enjoy it at all.

The library’s Graphic Novel Book Club just finished reading and discussing Yuichi Yokoyama’s Garden. In Garden, a large group of people with strange masks and costumes on explore a strange garden and describe what they see in terse sentences. That goes on for 300 pages in which none of the characters are developed and nothing really happens in a conventional plot kind of way. As a result, I was feeling nervous before the meeting. I couldn’t think of a single productive thing to say about it. Worse, I was reminded of a frustrating, non-library book club meeting I’d attended to discuss Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore in which most participants could only comment on the weirdness of the novel. Was that going to be me?! After finishing the reading all I could think was, “Huh. Well. I just don’t . . . What?! I don’t get it. It’s weird.” Neither articulate nor a good way to start a conversation.  I felt like I was missing something. But this is one of the best things to happen to a book club because it this case everyone felt the same way and was more than willing to talk about how much they disliked the reading experience and why. It turns out this makes for a much more fruitful conversations than when everyone unanimously enjoys a book. In those cases all you can do is say, “yeah, it was good. I liked the art and the characters and the story. Yup.”

I’m willing to consider the possibility that I really just didn’t get it. So give it a try for yourself and see! Maybe ask some friends to read it too. It might result in a heated debate if one of you loves it. Or, you might just have a pleasant time complaining about how annoying it was. Either way is pretty fun. 

Side note: Graphic Novel Book Club is free and open to the public. We meet on the third Wednesday of every month at Jo's Coffee Downtown and you can find our reading list on the Events page of the Library's website. 

Thursday, May 16
Longleaf, Far as the Eye Can See
by: carolyn.rogers

The 2010 novel Anthill is a fictional account of an Alabama backwoods boy who grows up to be a Harvard lawyer fighting to save the woodlands of his childhood, the West Nokobee Tract at the edge of William Ziebach National Forest. It is a privately owned tract of longleaf pine savanna. It becomes his secret place and he bicycles into it every chance he gets to escape his parent's troubled marriage. The woodlands and the national forest are fictional but the ecology is not. Longleaf pine forests are the most diverse ecosystem in North America, with 500 species per square kilometer. In the novel, the eminent Harvard biologist  E.O. Wilson tells a southern coming-of-age story while persuading Americans, and especially Southerners, to protect our vanishing natural environment and wildlife.

E.O Wilson also wrote the forward to Longleaf, Far as the Eye Can See: A New Vision of North America's Richest Forest which offers 11 essays on these forests, including numerous photographs that cultivate appreciation for the beauty of the tree itself; of the unique species it supports; and of the breathtaking landscape it creates.

Longleaf pine savanna is one of the only ecosystems that is both forest and meadow. The book reveals this dynamic system in panoramic images of golden light filtering through trees and illuminating long grasses beneath. And there's no shortage of close-ups.  Longleaf was once so common that it was hardly remarked upon, and ecologists are only now beginning to understand the forest that once covered 90 million acres of North America and now covers only 3 million acres, some of it in Texas. The final sections of the book detail potential restoration solutions for the longleaf that remains. Longleaf is not a story of loss, but one of deep reverence for the grandeur and mystery of these regions.

Using your Austin Public Library card you can read both books together.

Wednesday, May 15
Book Your Summer
by: christina.chiarchiaro

Summer time in Austin, Texas cannot be defined by the temperature outside. If it were, then we wouldn't have a Fall or Spring. Instead, universities, teachers, parents, and especially students define it by the months-long reprieve from the daily obligations of school.  Retailers and restauranteurs mark Summer as when the tourists come to town. For festival goers it is the time between SXSW and ACL. For myself, I like to honor its arrival by joining the Summer Reading Program at my neighborhood branch of the library. Because I continue to work full time during that period of the calendar I can't necessarily devote more time to reading. Therefore, I have adopted my own personal challenge. Each year I have a goal to use the summer months to try a genre I don't normally read. Last year it was graphic novels and the year prior was nonfiction. In doing so, I discovered that I rather enjoy graphic novels and that they include so much more than superheroes. I also learned that I mentally focus much better on nonfiction material when I listen to it rather than read it, especially when it's read by an enthusiastic and passionate author or actor. So far my favorite of these is Michael Pollan, most notably known for Omnivore’s Dilemma, and who has a new one out soon I look forward to trying. I haven't decided yet on this year's genre, but it will undoubtedly be a mind opening experience. The pretty great thing about APL is that no matter which subject matter or material type I choose, I will have tons of titles from which to pick. The other awesome thing about summer reading in Austin is being part of the Summer Reading Program. It is a great way to inspire kids to join the youth summer reading program and encourage people all over town to read by showing off your progress. I have seen whole families come in to pick out items they planned to read together. Now that makes me excited about summer!

Wednesday, May 15
Stream Independent Films with IndieFlix
by: amy.mullin

IndieFlix logoIf you're a fan of film festivals and out-of-the-ordinary movies, you'll love IndieFlix. It offers over 4,500 features, shorts, and documentaries from independent filmmakers hailing from all corners of the globe. Entries from film festivals such as Sundance, Cannes, Tribeca, SxSW, and the Austin Film Festival are highlighted. All you need to watch is an Austin Public Library card and a broadband Internet-connected device.

You can watch a film’s trailer, add a film to your queue for later viewing, view it immediately on a device, or watch it on your TV with a Roku or XBox. You can search for films by title or browse films by channel. You can limit films according to length, country of origin, festival, genre, or age range. These films are not rated by the MPAA, so viewer discretion is advised.

The IndieFlix registration process is pretty easy. If you’ve already signed up for Zinio, you can use the same email and password to login to the IndieFlix landing page. You will be directed to the IndieFlix page where you need to register with them directly (You can use the same email address and password that you used on the landing page). But that’s it! Then you're ready to browse the movies and start watching. No checkouts, returns, or deletions from your device. Multiple users can watch the same film on different devices at the same time.

Steps to sign up:

1. You will need to create a login at the landing page (aka RB Digital Gateway) first.

2. You will receive a confirmation email for this login. Please verify your account by clinking the link in the email. You can return to the landing page and login again. A pop-up Notice will appear. You will need to check the box and click "Continue" to get to the IndieFlix page.

3. On the IndieFlix page, you need to create another login. You can use the same email and password that you did on the landing page.

4. On the IndieFlix page, you can search for films, or browse by genre, mood, length, and rating. Click on the movie to watch the trailer or full feature. You can also click on the + sign to add to your queue for later viewing.

 

There are links to a Help page and an FAQ at the bottom of the IndieFlix site that can help you with most issues. Also, Customer Support is available via email: indieflix@recordedbooks.com

Grab some popcorn, and stream some films that you won't see anywhere else.

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Classics - American
Cover of the book The adventures of Augie March
The adventures of Augie March
By Saul Bellow ; introduction by Christopher Hitchens.
Augie March is a Jewish-American boy growing up fatherless and poor in Depression-era Chicago. He seeks a "special destiny," although his circumstances seem to position him for a uniquely disappointing life: his family consists of a simple-minded mother, a brother and "grandmother" who prove to be Machiavellian in their intentions, and an "idiot" youngest brother, Georgie.
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