Space Sounds

Have you ever wondered what sounds are made by the planets, and the galaxy?

Through Space Sounds you can experience many different sounds from space, such as the Rings of Saturn, Jupiter's Magnetosphere, the Heartbeat of the Sun.

Explore images taken from the Hubble Telescope in the Picture Albums of galaxies, the solar system, nebulae, stars,
and the universe. or take an image tour which will explain terms and facts about specific planets, galaxies and nebulae.

Visit the Hubble Reference desk, see the Top 10 most frequently asked questions, a glossary, charts, and more.

For some fun reading try:
Breaking the time barrier: the race to build the first time machine

The physics of Star Trek

This new ocean: the story of the space age

Swashbucklers, Buccaneers, Pirates and Privateers

In Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini, Dr. Peter Blood is arrested and sentenced to hang for treating a wounded rebel. Instead of death, he is sent to Barbados as a slave. When the Spanish attack the port city of Bridgetown, he and his fellow slaves capture the Spanish ship and set out to sea, where he becomes the notorious pirate, Captain Blood. With its battles on sea and land, daring escapes, sword duels to the death, a touch of romance, this greatest pirate story of them all is a swashbuckling adventure on a grand scale. Also available as an audio CD, with fantastic performances by the Colonial Radio Theater on the Air, and on DVD with Errol Flynn.

Sabatini also wrote The Sea Hawk.


L. L. Chaikin's Buccaneer Trilogy focuses on romance in the Caribbean.

Another Caribbean tale is Johanna Lindsey's Captive of my desires , which follows Gabrielle, the daughter of a pirate, trying to find a suitable husband.

The Brethren of the Coast series by James Nelson, features Thomas Marlowe, a former pirate who has gone legit and now owns a Virginia plantation. He finds himself charged with defending the colony from the all too familiar pirate menace infesting the waterways.

In Dewey Lambdin's naval adventure series with Captain Alan Lewrie, he runs afoul of pirates off the waters of New Orleans in The Captain's Vengeance

Shipwrecked on the coast of North Carolina, his companions killed, Tatton Chantry is alone—and ready for action. In the old world he fought wars, skirmishes, duels. Now, in the wilderness of America, this swashbuckling hero takes up against pirates, Spanish fortune seekers, savage Indians. Aided by a beautiful Peruvian woman, he braves the fierce challenges of the New World—always, like a true Chantry, with his expert hand on the hilt on his faithful silver sword, in Louis L'amour's Fair blows the wind

See Under the black flag: the romance and reality of life among the pirates for some gruesome facts about life on the sea.

Also, The Pirate Hunter: the true story of Captain Kidd which traces the career of buccaneer William Kidd, a New York sea captain hired to chase pirates, from his early voyages through his death on the gallows, and discusses the role played by Robert Culliford, a rogue and mutineer, in Kidd's downfall.

For the musical pirate, there's always The Pirates of Penzance on DVD starring Kevin Kline in Gilbert and Sullivan's raucous and comedic operatic tale of Frederic, a 'slave to duty' pirate, and the lowly band of 'orphaned' pirates.

Fun Food Fiction

Deck dining, picnics, cook-outs, tailgate parties, vegetable gardens-

this time of year, fresh herbs, fruits and vegetables evoke the elemental memories of past summer repasts.

As Lewis Grizzard reminds us,

"It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato."

Here are some light summer reads to accompany your menu:


Cooking for Harry

Food of Love

Friendship Cake

Girl Cook

La Cucina

Last Bite

Last Chinese Chef

Recipes for a perfect marriage

Potluck Club series

Second Thyme around

Blue Bistro

By Bread alone

Pastries: a novel of desserts and discoveries

Pomegranate Soup

Whole World Over

Bread Alone and its sequel The Baker's Apprentice

Barbecue mystique (or is that mesquite?)

The big book of outdoor cooking and entertaining : spirited recipes and expert tips for barbecuing, charcoal and gas grilling, rotisserie roasting, smoking, deep-frying, and making merry / Cheryl and Bill Jamison
Presents the essentials of outdoor cookery, introducing more than eight hundred recipes, an array of appetizers, main courses, side dishes, drinks, and desserts, and practical advice on equipment and utensils, menu planning, and entertaining

Raichlen's indoor! grilling / by Steven Raichlen
In case it rains...
Features an array of recipes for appetizers, beef, pork, lamb, burgers, poultry, seafood, breads and sandwiches, vegetables and sides, and desserts to be cooked on grill pans, indoor smokers, built-ins, and the fireplace

A man, a can, a grill : 50 no-sweat meals you can fire up fast / by David Joachim and the editors of Men'shealth
Offers fifty simple recipes that use no more than five main ingredients and includes tips on everything from shopping and preparation to grilling and presentation

How to grill / by Steven Raichlen
A full-color, photograph-by-photograph, step-by-step technique book, "How to Grill" gets to the core of the grilling experience by showing and telling exactly how it's done. From how to set up a three-tiered fire to how to grill a prime rib, a porterhouse, a pork tenderloin, or a chicken breast. There are techniques for smoking ribs, cooking the perfect burger, rotisserieing a whole chicken, barbecuing a fish; for grilling pizza, shellfish, vegetables, tofu, fruit, and s'mores. Bringing the techniques to life are over 100 all-new recipes

Barbecue bible : sauces, rubs, and marinades, bastes, butters & glazes / by Steven Raichlen

Shellfish on the grill : more than 80 easy and delectable recipes for lobster, shrimp, scampi, scallops, oysters, clams, mussels, crab, and more

Book Club Reads

Is your group taking a summer hiatus?
Thinking about joining or forming one?
Here are some "inspirational" titles and some practical ones.

And Ladies of the Club
Before there were "book clubs" there were Women's Literary Societies. This chronicles several generations of the Waynesboro Ohio Women's Club, from just a few years after the Civil War to 1932.
At over 1000 pages, it can keep you reading all summer.The book caused a great stir when it was published 25 years ago, written by an octogenarian. The grandmother of today's book club books, it was on the 1984 bestseller for a long time.

The story behind the book is that Helen Santmyer began the novel at the age of 38, to counter the image of small town life given in Sinclair Lewis's Main Street. She completed it decades later.

The Book Class
Louis Auchincloss' novel is told through the eyes of Christopher Gates, the male narrator, who reveals the secrets and stories of the 12 women of his mother's "book class", begun by them as debutantes in 1908, and meeting every month for over 60 years.

The Jane Austen Book Club
As six Californians get together to form a book club to discuss the novels of Jane Austen, their lives are turned upside down by troubled marriages, illicit affairs, changing relationships, and love, in a comedy of contemporary manners.

Angry Housewives Eating Bonbons
From the initial formation of The Freesia Court Book Club and over the course of the next thirty years, five women in small-town Minnesota share the events, triumphs, tragedies, hardships, joys, and sorrows of their lives.

Dinner with Anna Karenina
Six Manhattan women gather for a year to discuss great literature with great meals. But they find that the novels open up paths for discussion about the deepest and most difficult aspects of their own lives.

The Year of reading Proust: a memoir in real time A non-fiction work by Phyllis Rose describes how Proust's novels led her to understand the art of writing an autobiography, and recounts her experiences as an author, a woman, and a person in midlife.

A year of reading classics: a month by month guide to classics and crowd pleasers is a reading guide, organized around the calendar year, offers descriptions of each book, discussion questions, information about the authors, and lists of video, Internet, and bibliographical resources.

Vintage Reading: From Plato to Bradbury a personal tour of some of the world's best books Discusses eighty essential books, including literary classics, controversial books, influential works, best sellers, and writings on art, science, politics, and psychology

Recovering your story: Proust, Joyce, Woolf, Faulkner, MorrisonAn illuminating study explores the ways in which the works of some of the twentieth century's seminal writers helps readers understand the texture, shape, and evolution of human consciousness and the nature of our inner lives, offering critical analyses of outstanding works by Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, and Toni Morrison.

Reading to heal: how to use bibliotherapy to improve your life


Thirteen Ways of looking at the novel by Jane SmileyThe author celebrates the art of fiction as she looks at one hundred very different examples of the novel, ranging from the classics to little-known gems, and discusses the evolution of the novel and the practice of novel-writing

Readers' Choice:200 book club favorites

Read it and eat from irresistible beach reads to timeless classics a month-by-month guide to scintillating book club selections and mouthwatering menus.

"Biography is the only true history"...

according to Thomas Carlyle.

Similarly, Ralph Waldo Emerson stated "There is properly no history; only biography."

More recently, writer Mark Feeney stated, "Once the implicit aim of biography was to uplift now it is to unveil."

If reading about people's lives is one of your passions, and you are looking for something else to read while waiting for a copy of the Diana Chronicles, there is a new resource that will keep you posted about all aspects of biography, through a monthly e-newsletter.

The Biographer's Craft provides news about upcoming biographies, both subjects and their authors, reviews of biographical books, and articles related to the fine art of biography.
You can view their newsletters, starting from March 2007, in the archives on the website to decide if you want to subscribe.


The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography this year is:
The Most Famous man in America: the biography of Henry Ward Beecher by Debby Applegate

To see a complete list of Pulitzer Prize-winning biographies:
Pulizter Prize for Biography or Autobiography

To find out about new biographies available at the library, check out the
New to the Collection List on the catalog's home page. List # 5 is for recently added biographies.

If you prefer to browse the biographies at the library, the latest additions can be found in the "New Book" section at each branch, or the full collection in the separate "Biography" collection in the adult non-fiction area.

Biographies are indicated with a "B" as the call number, and shelved according to the
person the book is about, so, for example, all the biographies about Franklin Roosevelt would be shelved together under B ROO.

Garden Reads

If gardening and nursery catalogs are some of your favority reading materials,

consider branching out to some tales of fiction, mystery, and real life, about other people and their gardens:


Consider the Lily by Elizabeth Buchan
Wild Designs by Katie Fforde
Night Gardening by E. L. Swann

Garden Club Mystery by Graham Landrum
Garden Club by Muriel Resnick Jackson
Gardening Mystery series by Ann Ripley
English Garden Mysteries by Anthony Eglin
Bretta Solomon mysteries by Janis Harrison

Onward and Upward in the Garden by Katherine White
Around the house and in the garden by Dominique Browning
Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul

Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air

Some of you may be familiar with the "Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air" broadcast on XM satellite radio, now newly joining up with i-tunes, and Imagination Theater.

Many of their quality productions are also becoming available for purchase on audio CD format.
Some are classics like

Captain Blood ,

some are original productions, such as Powder River.

Powder River is a western adventure series, set in the Wyoming frontier.

Join former lawman turned rancher Britt MacMasters and his son Chad as they begin a new life for themselves in Clearmont, Wyoming, but Britt's past returns to haunt him, as one of the toughest outlaw gangs in the west is headed towards Clearmont for revenge. A rousing 15 episode western adventure series that keeps true to its roots. Currently the library has Season 1 and Season 2. from this series.

For a list of Fauquier library holdings, see Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air as an author entry.
The library will continue to add titles from their productions as
they are made available.

For more information about the Colonial Theatre on the Air, and their schedule,
see http://www.colonialradio.com/

Literary Thrillers-Dante, Bronte, Byron, Poe, Rossetti et cetera

For those who like a more cerebral chase,

some of these are more literary, some are more thriller:

Rossetti Letter by Christi Phillips
Fearing that her research will be rendered useless if a Cambridge professor proves his theory about seventeenth-century Venetian courtesan Alessandra Rossetti, Ph.D. candidate Claire Donovan agrees to chaperone a troubled teen in order to gain passage to the professor's presentation in Venice.

Possession by A.S. Byatt
This tale of a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets became a huge bookseller favorite, and then on to national bestellerdom. Winner of England's Booker Prize, a coast-to-coast bestseller, and the literary sensation of the year, Possession is a novel of wit and romance, at once an intellectual mystery and a triumphant love story.

Harvard Yard by William Martin
Harvard historian Peter Fallon investigates a university legend about an original Shakespeare manuscript that may have survived the Harvard Hall fire of 1764
In the Hand of Dante by Nick Tosches
The discovery of an original manuscript of Dante's "Inferno" in the Vatican archives finds writer Nick Tosches heading for Rome to authenticate the find.
Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
When her health begins failing, the mysterious author Vida Winter decides to let Margaret Lea, a biographer, write the truth about her life, but Margaret needs to verify the facts since Vida has a history of telling outlandish tales
Lord Byron's Novel: the Evening Land by John Crowley
A work spanning three centuries follows the stories of a lost Lord Byron novel, the writer's daughter's efforts to save the manuscript, and a woman who discovers the daughter's secret.
Bronte Project: by Jennifer Vandever
Abandoned by her fiance, Sara Frost finds herself beginning to question everything from her love life to her life's work, as she stumbles into a world populated by an amoral Frenchman, two New York eccentrics, and a Hollywood producer.
Rule of Four
Trying to decipher an ancient text that weaves a mathematical labyrinth within a love story, two researchers obtain a diary that may contain the key to the code, but when a fellow researcher is killed, they realize that the book contains a dangerous secret.
Dante Club by Matthew Pearl
In 1865, the preparations of the Dante Club--led by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes--to release the first translation of Dante's "The Divine Comedy" are threatened by a series of murders that re-create episodes from "Inferno."
Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl
In 1849 Baltimore, following the death of Edgar Allan Poe, Quentin Clark discovers that Poe's final days had been marked by a series of bizarre, unanswered questions and launches his own investigation to resolve the mystery of Poe's death.

Virginia is for music, hiking, history, weekend walks...

A guide to the Crooked Road: Virginia's heritage music trail
follows 250 miles through southwestern Virginia, introducing the various sources of its rich musical traditions in bluegrass, old-timey music, African influences, the fiddle and the banjo, "luthiers" (stringed instrument makers), and where to find the best music along the trail.


Highlights include the Blue Ridge Music Center, the Birthplace of Country Music Alliance Museum and the Ralph Stanley Museum, and the Carter Family homestead. The trail crosses along 10 counties. Chapters feature annual festivals, concerts, live radio shows and informal jam sessions. Accompanied by CD with sample sounds.

For more information and upcoming music events, visit also: www.thecrookedroad.org

Blue Ridge Roadways: a Virginia field guide to cultural sites follows five self-guided auto loop tours along the Blue Ridge region of Virginia.

Historic buildings, parks, museums, and natural features are highlighted along the way.

Leonard Adkins has written a number of regional travel guides. Two of his most recent focus on hikes in Virginia.
50 Hikes in Northern Virgina covers from the Allegheny Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay.

50 Hikes in Southern Virginiacovers from the Cumberland Gap to the Atlantic Ocean.



Going over to the Eastern Shore, you can take along Weekend walks on the Delmarva Peninsula



Closer to home is
Weekend walks in the historic Washington DC region:38 self-guided walking tours in the capital and five surrounding states, also features Williamsburg, Gettysburg, Harper's Ferry, Baltimore and Annapolis.

I suspect Agatha Christie in the library, with a compact disc

Although they've always been mystery fan favorites,
for a time it was difficult to find Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot stories.

Now, the BBC radio collection full-cast dramatizations of
The Complete Miss Marple Collection and Hercule Poirot's Greatest Cases are available on compact disc at the library.

The Miss Marple collection features June Whitfield as the village sleuth in all 12 of her intriguing cases, based on the novels.

The Hercule Poirot collection stars John Moffatt, with a full cast radio dramatization of 14 novels.

In addition to the audio versions, and of course, the actual books themselves,
these books are available at the library:

The Agatha Christie Companion: the complete guide to Agatha Christie's life and work

In the Footsteps of Agatha Christie

Come, tell me how you live an early autobiographical work by Agatha Christie, on her adventures with one of her husbands, while on an archaelogical excavation in the Middle East.

A Talent to deceive: an appreciation of Agatha Christie by Robert Barnard, another mystery master.

The Bedside, bathtub and armchair companion to Agatha Christie

The Life and Times of Hercule Poirot

Factoid: The actor Michael Caine purchased and renovated one of Agatha Christie's houses.

For additional information about Agatha Christie, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, check out these websites:
http://www.poirot.us/

http://us.agathachristie.com/site/home/

Miss Marple

Hercule Poirot

Queen Elizabeth to Visit Virginia this Week

Fifty years ago, Queen Elizabeth visited Virginia, and she's coming back this week.
In association with this historic event, scheduled to co-incide with the 400th Anniversary of Jamestown, Williamsburg has two exhibits recalling her previous visit.

Jamestown Memories includes accounts of those who were there in 1957 for the Queen's first visit, with a web version from the Williamsburg Regional Library.

The Queen's Visit 1957 is an online photographic version of the exhibit at Swem Library at the College of William and Mary.

For more information, see
Newsletter of the Collection of William and Mary

The Fauquier County library has numerous biographies about the Queen and the Royal Family.

Here are a few titles: Queen Elizabeth II

Reading Rainbow on DVD

The library has recently added new DVDs in the Reading Rainbow Series at all three branches.

Click here for a list of titles:
Reading Rainbow DVDs

Bible Experience

Some of you may have seen Denzel Washington on CBS Sunday Morning discussing his participation in recording the Bible Experience, with over 80 other African-American actors, such as Angela Bassett, and Cuba Gooding Jr.

Winner of an AudioFile Earphones award in 2007, this dramatic recreation , with music and sound effects, tells the story of the New Testament, in Today's New International Version, on
19 CD's.

The best-selling audiobook is now available at the library:

The Bible Experience

Wired for Books

Ohio University has created a fantastic online resource for author interviews, plus other literature audio resources, through its radio, television and web accessible station WOUB http://www.wiredforbooks.org/

Recent additions to the site include Don Swaim's CBS Radio Book Beat interviews with authors of the 20th century. Although the original radio program only broadcast about 2 minutes of the interviews, the full interviews, typically 30-45 minutes in length, are now available online.
Edward Abbey, Russell Baker, Janet Daily, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Rice, John Updike, Amy Tan are just a few of the wide range of authors interviewed over 10 years of the show.

Kids Corner features the tales of Beatrix Potter in both text and audio, and other children's classics such as Alice in Wonderland, Rudyard Kipling's Just So stories, interviews about Beatrix Potter, Mr. Fred Rogers, and more.

Poetry readings, with contemporary poets Robert Pinsky and Sharon Olds reading their own works, and now classic poetry such as Walt Whitmans' Leaves of Grass and the poems of Emily Dickinson read by others are found here.

Hear the Iliad, Book 1 read aloud in ancient Greek, and the Aeneid, Book IV, declaimed in Latin.

These various audio resources use either RealPlayer or RealAudio, available for downloading on the site. Some of the interviews are available for MP3 format.

Spring Cleaning

Looking for inspiration to jump start the cleaning/organization/simplification of your home and life?

Here are some great resources available at the library:


Clutter

Simplicity

House Cleaning

Home Economics


Some useful websites:

Simple Living Network

Organized Home

Cheap Cooking

Life Organizers

New Magazines for Teens and Children

Recently added titles to the teen collection include:

Justine
While featuring clothes and makeup tips, this is geared beyond celebrity gossip,
to focus on profiles of real teens and young adults who are making a difference in the world. Also, a DIY monthly feature for crafts and activities.
http://www.justinemagazine.com/

Teen Ink
Written by teens for teens.
http://teenink.com

New to the children's collection:
Boy's Quest
for boys ages 6-12.
Focuses on activities, adventure, projects, and humor.

Virginia Festival of the Book

Five Days,
Hundreds of mostly free author events
Wednesday, March 21-Sunday, March 25
Charlottesville, VA
For more information, visit
www.vabook.org

Recommended Reading

Common questions overheard in the library:
Can you recommend a good book?

I just finished the latest book by this author, and I'd like to read more like that

I want to read all the titles in this series in order. How can I find out what the next one is?

The library has several resources to provide "good reads" and answers to those questions.

The first, of course, is the reference staff.
If you have a particular author, and have read everything by them, and are looking for something similar, try asking at the reference desk for new authors to sample.

There are several great website links for mystery, science fiction, romance and reading group guides now listed under "Links" down the right side column of this blog.

Browse the stacks in these (probably unfamiliar to you) Dewey numbers: 011-016, and you will find a wealth of books about books: Reading Resource Guides

Bookmarks Magazine, for everyone who hasn't read everything is published every two months, and is available at the Warrenton branch. It has great articles on authors, what's coming up in the next few months, and explores various genres each issue.

Through the library's website, you can access, with your library card, a great new resource called "What do I Read Next?" This is an online database that you can look at in the wee hours of the night. Click on FindITVA Select Fauquier County Public Library, enter your library card, and then scroll the list for "What do I read next?"

Once you start playing around with it, you can search, naturally for authors, titles, and then also, series, genres, favorite characters, age levels,
both adult and children's authors.
If you like historical fiction, you can search by time period.
If you like certain exotic locales, or just want to read books that take place in Virginia,
you can search by location.
You can enter your favorite authors, and find recommendations for similar titles also.

If this seems a little complicated, just stop by the reference desk, and staff can provide you with an overview on searching strategies. This resource can search for fiction, non-fiction, adult, young adult, and children's literature.

Virginia Wildflower of the Year

The Jamestown (Atamasco) Lily has just been named by the Virginia Native Plant Society as the 2007 Virginia Wildflower of the Year. This was among the early native plants noticed by Jamestown colonists in the Tidewater region.
It is found in southern Virginia, most commonly in the southeastern coastal plain and blooms in April/May.
For more information about this plant and many other native Virginia plants, visit the
Virginia Native Plant Society

Related resources available at the library include:
Virginia Naturalist by John Trott, which was co-published by the Virginia Native Plant Society and the Middleburg Garden Club. It contains essays originally written for John Trott's column in the Fauquier Times-Democrat. He was a naturalist and worked with the Mediera School. The essays cover plants, wildlife and seasonal ruminations.

Spring Wildflowers of the Mid-Atlantic Region is a DVD produced for the Foundation for the Flora of Virginia Project, with Marion Lobstein, John DeMary and Suzanne Lohr. More than 100 common spring wildflowers, shrubs and vines are identified.