Bedford Public Library System Blog

With too many people wanting her dead for thinking of airing her family’s dirty laundry, Rachel Abbott is finding out just how far they’ll go, and it looks like her death is the ultimate finale. FBI Special Agent Jackson Crowne is willing to put his life on the line to save Rachel, ever since the day she helps him and his passenger survive a horrible plane crash. Coulter’s latest FBI thriller, Tailspin, delivers non-stop action with professional killers hiding around every corner.

The Final Warning is the 4^th in James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series. Max, aka Maximum Ride, and her gang of “bird kids” are asked to help out the environment by being spokespeople. They quickly find themselves in the Antarctic of all places, with plenty of penguin friends, and danger, around every corner. With new abilities showing up almost every day, life is never dull for Max and her friends!

The Adult Summer Reading Program is almost half gone! Please make sure to come into your branch of the Bedford County Library System on or before Thursday, July 3^rd to fill out your Midway drawing slip. Remember, you have to have accumulated at least 50 JAVA points in order to be able to fill out a slip. If you have any questions, please call 540-586-8911 x2102.

Janet Evanovich, that Laugh-Out-Loud storyteller, does it again with the 14^th in the Stephanie Plum series, Fearless Fourteen. All the things you love about Stephanie are back with a vengeance, her wonderfully crazy grandmother, her wacky friends and her hotter than ever men! Join Stephanie as she tries to stop a killer without getting killed in the process.

DON’T LET THE KIDS HAVE ALL OF THE FUN!

The BPLS Adult Summer Reading Program (ASRP) starts Friday, June 6th, 2008 with a game board that highlights our new coffee bar, A Novel Place. The game board menu selections offer new taste sensations in reading, viewing and listening choices. My personal favorite is “Read a cookbook or view a cooking web site”. You only get 5 JAVA points for doing either of those, BUT preparing a dish from a new recipe that you found, AND sharing it with your library staff earns you 10 extra points!  In order to qualify for the Midway drawing on July 3rd, you need 50 JAVA points, and for the Final drawing on July 31st, you need 100 JAVA points.

As always, the grand prize will be a beautiful piece of Emerson Creek Pottery.

You may sign up for the ASRP at any BPLS Library beginning June 6^th.

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things was published in Great Britain, nominated for The Booker Prize and short listed for the 2003 Times Young writer award and won the Betty Trask Award and the Somerset Maugham Award.

Written as a prose poem the story tells of a city neighborhood… people in each home reacting to each other – or not reacting - of every day happenings until one event brings everyone to their windows or outside of their homes. Jon McGregor notices the extraordinary in the hopes, terrors and dreams of ordinary people.

As the man with the scarred hands remarks, “there are many things you could miss if you are not paying careful attention. There are remarkable things all the time.” This is the guiding principle of McGregor’s novel, which with patience yields ample rewards.

In the fast paced world we live in, McGregor’s deep and sensitive work helps the reader to stop and ‘smell the roses’.

Clancy Sigal was born in 1926 to a single 31 year old Jewish mother in a rough Chicago neighborhood, and his father was seldom around. When he was nine, officers from the states attorney’s office picked up his mother, Jennie Persily, for questioning (she dressed for the occasion and brought Clancy with her.) On the way home she explained to her son that they wanted to arrest her for bribery so that they could force her to help break the sweater makers’ strike. By this time Persily, a pacifist, was also a seasoned union organizer (she called her first strike at 13) who traveled the country promoting her cause.

Jennie Persily was strong, independent, interesting, wise cracking, and thoroughly alive in a time when these attributes were not always appreciated in a woman. She, herself, dreamed of an idyllic home life with the perfect husband and the perfect son. -Nicole Sheppard, Stewartsville Librarian

Cassie Shaw feels at home with the animals of Topanga Canyon as she keeps journals of their behavior. Away from the canyon, life is more difficult. 30 year, Cassie, a dyslexic, high school drop out finds herself a widow. Left broke by an abusive husband she desperately needs a paying job. The animal sciences department at the local university has an opening and Cassie is a great candidate – except for the college-degree requirement. She fakes her application, is hired, and seems to have gotten away with her educational deception. One lie leads to another and the plot thickens with gentle humor and philosophical reflections on nature.

In A Version of the Truth, offbeat characters add jest to the novel: Cassie’s mother believes in Bigfoot; her best friend likes to steal cheese from the chain warehouse store; and the passages about the extremely elusive ivory-billed woodpeckers are fascinating. -Melissa Davis Moneta/Smith Mountain Lake Library

Lady Gruadh inghean Bodhe is married, orphaned, widowed, forcibly remarried to her husband’s killer and becomes a mother all in one year before she turns 17.

King, inspired by “the most accurate historical evidence available” portrays Lady Gruadh Macbeth as a strong, complicated character who is anything but mad. Although raised as a royal, Celtic warrior woman, her desire to revenge the murders of her father, brother and nephew are tempered by her love for her newborn son, and growing respect for her new husband, Macbeth. -Melissa Davis, Moneta/Smith Mountain Lake Library

Relax in A Novel Place with a cup of tea or coffee while reading the newest bestseller or the Bedford Bulletin, or surf the Web on your laptop using the libraries Wifi. The Central Library’s new, self service coffee bar offers basic beverages and snacks, including regular and decaf coffee, hot tea, hot chocolate, biscotti, muffins, danishes, cookies and trail mix. Monies collected go to the Bedford Public Library Foundation and will in turn be used to support the library!

You might want to take your cup of coffee into the new Sara Overstreet Memorial Reading Alcove and relax in the incredibly comfy leather chairs donated by Sam Moore.

In response to patron demand we have separated out all of the Biographies and Autobiographies into this special area of the library. They are now easy to locate and browse. Please let us know if there is a biography that you would like to see included in this collection!