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New Books List & Support Your Library
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Plenty to do during March Break at the Library!
The library is offering a number of fun and educational March Break activities for families for free over the March Break.
A one week long “Let’s Blog!” camp will run Monday, March 12th to Friday March 16th, from 10am to 4p.m. each day.
march Break 2011
A blog, short for web log is a place to publish one’s writing on the Internet. Blogs are created as entries called posts, with writing usually accompanied by photos. They are usually the work of an individual but can also be the work of a small group, and generally are based on a topic or theme.
At this unique camp, young people will learn how to create their own blog for the world to read on the World Wide Web, and will also learn the importance of safety and privacy issues when online.
Research shows that children who have an opportunity to communicate through writing online gain crucial communication skills and that blogs provide an avenue for authentic expression and enhance reading and writing skills.
At “Let’s Blog!” these skills will be practised and honed as campers learn how blogs are created, how to design their own, and how to write interesting posts.
They will also learn how to incorporate photographs and art into their blog pages.
A collective blog for the library will be created as a group project and each participant will also have the opportunity to create a blog of his or her own on a topic of interest.
The Let’s Blog! camp is aimed at children aged 8 to 12 years of age. It will be held from Monday to Friday at the Picton branch from a.m. to p.m. There is no cost, but space is limited, so please reserve a space today by email at crenaud@peclibrary.org or by calling the library at 613–476–5962.
The library will also be offering special programs at each of its 6 branches.
On Tuesday, March 13, at the Wellington branch, join puppeteer Krista Dalby for a shadow puppet workshop 10 am – p.m. Registration is required at: crenaud@peclibrary.org
Also on Tuesday, March 13, drop in to the Milford Branch Library at 1p.m. or to the Bloomfield Branch at 3p.m. and create a special gift for feathered friends – a “Pizza for the Birds!”
On Wednesday, March 14, join in the fun with the Dinosaur Lady for The Great Dinosaur Extinction from 2p.m. to 3:30p.m. at the Consecon Branch Library. Learn all about dinosaurs, play the Extinction Game, create a dinosaur diorama complete with volcano, and read dinosaur stories.
On Thursday, March 15, join Bay Woodyard of Honey Pie Hives & Herbals at the Milford Branch Library to make your own lip balm using natural ingredients. You’ll also create your own blend of herbal tea to take home, along with your lip balm, following the tea party. Please register at: crenaud@peclibrary.org
Also on Thursday, March 15th, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Ameliasburgh Branch Library, it’s the Great Lego Building Contest. Come build something great! Ameliasburg Branch
On Friday, March 16, to wrap up March break Week, the library presents a very special Magic Show featuring The Art of Illusion with Brad Toulouse at the Regent Theatre.
To register for any of these free programs or for more information, please e-mail: crenaud@peclibrary.org or call the library at 613-476-5962
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Read the Book, see the movie!…start a new book club
A wide selection of book and DVD combinations is available at the library offering a 
unique way to enjoy an author’s work. It also proposes an interesting premise for a book club which the library would be pleased to organize.
Here we recommend a few titles to consider based on a theme of Academy Award winning films based on novels.
Forrest Gump is a 1994 award winning film starring Tom Hanks, Robin Wright and Gary Sinise. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, it follows the childlike Forrest Gump through decades of his life as he accomplishes remarkable feats, some of which help define major historical events of his time. With six Oscar wins, it has been hailed as a defining work of the ‘90’s though it does differ somewhat from the novel on which it is based. Winston Groom wrote Forrest Gump, and both the book and film do share an important and defining quality: a character that shines through on both page and film to deliver an account of life that is both hilarious and poignant.
Another story that deals with a unique indiidual is A Beautiful Mind. The film, directed by Ron Howard and staring Russell Crow, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris and Paul Bettany, won four Academy Awards in 2001. It is based on the life of the Nobel Laureate in Economics John Nash, and was inspired by the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book of the same name written by Sylvia Nasar. Nasar, a Columbia University professor of business journalism, first wrote about Nash in a series of articles for the New York Times before penning the biography as A Beautiful Mind in 1998.
Nash was a genius who developed paranoid schizophrenia and while he suffered the same debilitating hallucinations, delusions and paranoia as others with this form of mental illness, his high level intelligence added a dimension that gained him much public attention. This was especially so when, in 1994, he shared the Nobel Prize with John C. Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten for the 1950 doctoral dissertation he wrote at Princeton on game theory.
The masterful depiction of Nash in both book and film helped educate many about schizophrenia.
Our third recommendation is the 2007 film, No Country for Old Men, directed by the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan. The movie stars Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem and won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director. Set in West Texas, this crime thriller was hailed, “as good a film as the Coen brothers…have ever made,” by the Chicago Sun Times’s Roger Ebert.
The movie is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Cormac McCarthy, an author of note who also wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning The Road, which the London Times ranked first on its 2010 list of the 100 best fiction and non-fiction books of the past 10 years.
No Country for Old Men was published in 2005 and is the story of a drug deal gone that goes horribly wrong. It is set in 1980 and follows the adventures of three central characters, Anton Chigurh, Llewelyn Moss, and Ed Tom as their lives intertwine in a mix of circumstances fueled by chance and judgments. Both book and film are achievements by masters in their respective crafts.
Lastly, we recommend Slumdog Millionaire, the hit 2008 British romantic drama written by Simon Beaufroy directed by Danny Boyle with co-director by Loveleen Tandan that won ten Academy Awards. Adapted from the novel originally titled Q & A and written in 2005 by Vikas Swarup, both film and book take place in India and follow the rags to riches story of Jamal Malik, a young man from the slums of Mumbai. Wealth comes via his winnings on the Indian equivalent of the Who Wants to be a Millionaire? television show, but not without questions surrounding Malik’s meteoritic rise.
Many other movie and book combinations are available and anyone interested in becoming part of a book club based on this idea is asked to contact the library at 476-5962 or e-mail: crenaud@peclibrary.org
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Learn bridge at your library!
Learn to play beginner bridge starting Thursday, February 23rd.
Classes will run for 4 weeks on Thursdays and each class is from 1p.m. to 4p.m. at the Consecon Branch.
The instructor is Walter McGee.
There is no cost but registration is necessary as space is limited.
If you are interested in signing up please e-mail crenaud@peclibrary.org or call 613-392-1106.
Consecon Branch
The Consecon Branch of the Library has been re-arranged and redesigned to create two new spaces – a quiet reading area and a vibrant children’s area.
The reading area, which also doubles as a meeting space available to local groups, is close to the small kitchenette in the branch. Bruce Hennessy donated the coffee table.
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The children’s area, with an Early Literacy Computer purchased by the Friends of the Consecon & Ameliasburgh branches, also has toys borrowed from the Toy Lending Library.
Drop in and see it in person!
New Books List – January 28
You can receive a weekly e-mail listing of new books & DVDs at the library.
Filed under new books
Three Good Reads
With thousands of titles available and new books added weekly, including bestsellers, there are always great choices to both read and recommend on the shelves at the library.
A World Elsewhere, published last August and a 2011 Giller nominee, is the latest from Canadian writer Wayne Johnston, author of the acclaimed Colony of Unrequited Dreams.
In this new novel, we meet the flawed protagonist Landish Druken and his rich schoolmate, Padgett ‘Van’ Vanderlyden, an American railroad heir. The eccentric pair become friends at Princeton University, but their relationship sours intensely following an academic scandal that sends Druken back home to St. John’s, Newfoundland. Here he is thrown in to a life of abject poverty when his wealthy father disowns him. Matters are complicated when Druken feels compelled to adopt a young boy named Deacon following the death of the boy’s father.
Two years later, a desperate, moneyless Druken, with Deacon in tow, seeks reconciliation and employment with his old school mate now living at the lavish Vanderland estate in North Carolina. The re-union, however, is far from conciliatory and fraught with tension as truths are revealed and a villainous past is exposed.
One of this book’s remarkable qualities is the writing and how Johnston effortlessly employs wit and wordplay in contrast to uncovering the malicious motivations of life.
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain is an evocative love story wrapped in 1920’s period tourism. The central character is Hadley Richardson, the first wife of Ernest Hemingway. It is through her eyes that we witness her marriage to the iconic American writer.
The story is set during the Jazz Age and takes place, as the book’s title states, mostly in Paris, making this familiar terrain for anyone who has read Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast.
Though this is a fictionalized account imagined through the central character, the author has obviously researched the subject meticulously with much based on factual detail. The result is a convincing story resting on the palpable atmosphere of sparsely furnished artists’ garrets, smoky cafés, and friendships within the literary world of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound and Dorothy Shakespear, and James Joyce.
As an aside, a film to see that complements this book is “Midnight in Paris”, the recent movie by Woody Allen.
In addition to new books, the library holds countless classics and overlooked older titles that make worthwhile reading. 
The Way of a Boy – a memoir of Java by Ernest Hillien is one such book. Published in 1993, it was Maclean’s #1 non-fiction choice that year as well as the Editor’s Choice Selection of The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star and The Financial Post.
It is the beautifully written and poignant recollection by the son of a Dutch father and a Canadian mother whose life is transformed by war when Japanese troops arrive at the tea plantation that is his home in the mountains of Java.
Hillien’s vivid account of what follows in prison camps is delivered through the innocent eyes of youth, detailing everyday life in a manner that exposes not only the ravages of deprivation but the strength and beauty of human relationships in horrific times.
The epilogue sees a middle aged Hillien, now in Canada, providing a glimpse of modern day Java and the recovery of the island, the people and himself.
Watch for more recommendations here soon.
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Wellington Branch Movie Night
Wellington Branch Library
Movie Night
Wednesday, February 1 7 p.m.
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
based on the best-selling book by Lisa See
All adults welcome! Free admittance, snacks for sale.
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Vicki Delany to visit Bloomfield Book Club
Acclaimed Canadian mystery author Vicki Delany will visit the Bloomfield book club tomorrow at 2:00 for a discussion of her work.
The book club always accepts new members, so if you are interested please drop in.
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Ready for something completely different?
Performance poet Ryan Bradshaw and Andrew Binks at Poetry Live! 
The County of Prince Edward Public Library & Archives presents an evening of poetry with two special guests on Friday, January 20 at 7 p.m. at the Picton branch library.
Ryan Bradshaw is a published writer of short fiction, non-fiction and poetry currently based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. As a performance poet, he is most commonly known as Conrad Fusion, a boylesque personality for Saskatoon’s Rosebud Burlesque Club. He has also appeared at the Comedy Club in Toronto and the Vancouver International Burlesque Festival where he performed his unique blend of comedic and thoughtful rhyming poetry. Other works include speculative fiction and erotica published in various queer anthologies by publishers Cleis Press, STARbooks Press, and QueeredFiction. An early self-published booklet of local interest, titled “The Monster of Quinte’s Bay”, incorporates non-fiction and poetry. Bradshaw also writes, designs and distributes a line of romantic greeting cards called Corby Cards www.corbycards.com. Currently, he is working on his first novella and developing a one-man stage production.
Published author and poet Andrew Binks will also be reading his poetry at the library event. Binks is a graduate of the University of British Columbia’s Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing. In 2007, he returned to Ontario after fifteen years on Canada’s west coast because he “missed the heat, the snow and the tempests.” He currently lives in Prince Edward County.
Binks’s work has been published in Joyland.ca, Galleon, Fugue, Prism International, Harrington Gay Men’s Literary Quarterly (U.S.), Bent-magazine, The Globe and Mail, Xtra and Xtra West, among others. He received an honourable mention in the Writer’s Union of Canada’s short prose contest, and was a finalist in both the Queen’s Alumni Review poetry contest and This Magazine’s Great Canadian Literary Hunt. Additionally, his poetry has appeared in Quill’s ‘Lust’ issue and Velvet Avalanche Anthology. Two of his plays received public workshops in Vancouver and Toronto in 2010.
Nightwood Editions published Binks’s first novel, The Summer Between, in May 2009. The second chapter from his as-yet-unpublished novel, The Catalytic Seduction of Brian White, was published in the Harvard Square Editions anthology, Voice From The Planet. This past summer, he was a contributing writer to The Festival Players “Sounding Ground” audio plays.
David Sweet, of Books & Company, is the guest host for the evening at the library.
Please note that this event will present adult material.
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