BBB's Top Online Scams

How well are you versed in the most frequent scams you might run into online? Sure, we all know about the Nigerian royalty who have suffered a devastating loss that may turn out to be your fortune, but this list certainly caught my attention because I see them daily while surfing the web. Click on the image at the left to check them out.



















MW

ARTS! ARTS! ARTS!

Wellesley College has an outstanding and varied calendar of events in the arts. There's dance, music, literary events, art exhibits, theater and film. And almost all events are free. This fall's schedule includes African dance, a jazz lecture and recital, Shakespeare, botanical imagery, Latino poet Martin Espada, a play about 9/11, lectures on Russia, poverty and practical invention. Find a printed calendar around campus or request one at 781-283-2373. Of course the arts calendar is also available online. See also featured events or exhibits at the Davis Museum.
--RL

I have written before about how many YA books are great for Adults. Now is your opportunity to check out what teens have nominated as some of the top books of the year. Teens now have the opportunity to vote through September 16th for their favorite title to narrow the list down to the Top Ten Best YA books in the past year. These will be announced during Teen Read Week October 16-22. If you know a teen, encourage him/her to take part in this voting opportunity!

Below is the list of titles in contention for a spot on the Top Ten list. Try some of them and you too may be hooked!

• Bachorz, Pam. Drought. Egmont USA. 2011. (978606840160).
• Beam, Cris. I Am J. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. 2011. (9780316053617).
• Beaudoin, Sean. You Killed Wesley Payne. 2011. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. (9780316077422).
• Black, Holly and Justine Larbalestier. Zombies vs. Unicorns. Simon & Schuster/Margaret K. McElderry Books. 2010. (9781416989530).
• Card, Orson Scott. The Lost Gate. Tor Books. 2011. (9780765326577).
• Clare, Cassandra. The Clockwork Angel. Simon & Schuster/Margaret K. McElderry. 2010. (9781416975861).
• Collins, Suzanne. Mockingjay. Scholastic. 2010. (9780439023511).
• Collins, Yvonne. Love, Inc. Disney/Hyperion. 2011. (9781423131151).
• Condie, Ally. Matched. 2010. Penguin/Dutton. (9780525423645).
• Cremer, Andrea. Nightshade. Penguin/Philomel. 2010. (9780399254826).
• Fitzpatrick, Becca. Crescendo. Simon & Schuster Children’s. 2010. (9781416989431).
• Grant, Michael. Lies. 2010. HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Books. (9780061449093).
• Hawkins, Rachel. Demonglass. Disney/Hyperion. 2011. (9781423121312).
• Hakwins, Rachel. Hex Hall. Disney/Hyperion. 2010. (9781423121305).
• Kagawa, Julie. The Iron King. 2010. Harlequin. (9780373210084).
• Lore, Pittacus. I Am Number Four. HarperCollins. 2010. (9780061969553).
• Moore, Peter. Red Moon Rising. Disney/Hyperion. 2011. (9781423116653).
• Nelson, Jandy. The Sky is Everywhere. 2010. Penguin/Dial Books for Young Readers. (9780142417805).
• Oliver, Lauren. Before I Fall. HarperCollins/HarperTeen. 2010. (9780061726804).
• O’Neal, Ellis. The False Princess. Egmont USA. 2011. (9781606840795).
• Patterson, James. Angel: A Maximum Ride Novel. Little, Brown & Company. 2011. (9780316036207).
• Pearce, Jackson. Sisters Red. Little, Brown and Company. 2010. (9780316068680).
• Smith, Cynthia Leitich. Blessed. Candlewick Press. 2011. (9780763643263).
• Westerfeld, Scott. Behemoth. Simon Pulse. 2010. (9781416971757).
• White, Kiersten. Paranormalcy. HarperCollins/HarperTeen. 2010. (9780061985843).

SH

Books into Movies for September

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre will have its movie premiere on September 16, 2011 . Tomas Alfredson will direct and Michael Fassbender, Ralph Fiennes, Gary Oldman and Colin Firth will star. Officlal movie site is Tinker-Tailor-Soldier-Spy.com. Moneyball by Michael Lewis, will debut on September 23. Direction is by Bennett Miller. The cast includes Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Robin Wright, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Stephen Bishop. Official Movie Site : MoneyBall-Movie.com

New Books for September

What are the new titles for September?

Vault by Ruth Rendell

Ruth Rendell's 22nd Inspector Wexford novel.

Feast Day of Fools by James Lee Burke

Violence along the Texas-Mexico border.

The Affair by Lee Child

The Jack Reacher prequel, if you will. Go back to small-town Mississippi in 1997 and learn the backstory of what drove Jack Reacher out of the army.

maf

NPR Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books

National Public Radio's top 100 SF & Fantasy books based on their reader's survey. Click HERE to see the full list of 100 books.

The top 10:

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien

2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card

4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert

5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin

6. 1984, by George Orwell

7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov

9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

TB

Investing 101: Saving, Investing & Planning

Join us on Wednesday, August 31st from 7-8pm for the third presentation in our Summer Investor's Series as Chris Gaffney and Jeff Smith of the Wellesley Investment Partners help you understand the fundamentals of investing.

All good investment plans have three main components: saving, investing, and planning. A good savings plan provides fuel for investing; constructing a portfolio allows you to decide what investments are best for you; and last, but not least, you need a proper plan to achieve the goal which is driving your need for investing. Jeff and Chris will not only provide you with the information to help understand the fundamentals of investing, such as the difference between mutual funds, stocks, and bonds, but will also provide you with the motivation to take charge of your financial future.

To sign up, click here.

(photo courtesy of Images_of_Money)

Where is the wisdom?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
--T.S. Eliot (Choruses from the Rock)
----R.L.

Online Resource for August--Massachusetts Newstand

Looking for a newspaper article from the Boston Globe but you already recycled your newspaper? Did you go on vacation and miss an editorial or maybe a column by Adrian Walker?

Massachusetts Newstand offers every article found in the Globe from 1980 to today as well as articles from other Massachusetts newspapers.

Browse it by date or use the search feature. Share the articles through e-mail or by printing them. Start using it today. SH

Kindle and Overdrive

As Kindle users look forward to the day when they can download from Overdrive, we librarians view the future with a mix of excitement and anxiety. We look forward to serving Kindle users and hope we can buy enough copies to meet the increased demand. Overdrive CEO Steve Potash, when asked this week when this history making event will occur, would not offer any details other than 'soon'. But Potash did deliver a favorable report for public libraries when he recommended the library website as the first place to go to find in-copyright ebooks. For titles that the library does not own, users may suggest that their local library buy the title or buy it themselves from an ebook retailer. As a result, he predicted that the "value of owning a library card will grow exponentially and traffic will make last year's increases look like small fry". We await the future.

-DB





-DB

New Fiction for August

Here are a few titles coming out in August:

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

The citizens of Mapleton have lost many of their loved ones to an event called The Sudden Departure. How do they go on? Tom Perrotta's latest is a thought-provoking portrayal of relationships, connections, and loss.

Bad Intentions by Karin Fossum

The latest installment in the Inspector Sejer series. Konrad Sejer must figure out why the bodies of troubled young men keep turning up in local lakes.

The Cut by George Pelecanos

Spero Lucas is George Pelecanos' latest creation. Since returning home from Iraq, Spero has carved out a niche for himself finding doing finding stolen property for a local defense attorney. Then Spero comes into contact with a local crime boss.

maf

If Borders Dies, Does Book Culture Follow?

I don't typically read the weekday Boston Globe, so thanks to my colleague Peggy for pointing out James Carroll's Op Ed piece on Borders Books closing. Take a moment to read it, and come back . . . .

Finished? Okay, here's my two cents:

Do we need to own books in order to have a book culture? I myself used to be a book hoarder; I loved going to my hometown Borders store as well as the many used book sellers and amassed a library that spilled over the five book cases I owned. Then I became a librarian. Did I need to own a copy of Dan Simmon's Drood because I enjoyed it so much? Heck no, I could borrow it from the library saving myself the money, clutter, and the hassle of lugging the books with me the next time I moved.

Do we need book stores in order to browse books? I don't know about you guys, but when I buy a book I head on over to Amazon.com. Can you browse books there? Hardly! And when everything moves digital, how easy does that become to browse? Libraries, on the other hand, are a browser's paradise and you can bet that we'll have browsing better figured out than any online retailer when the big switch to digital comes.

Are for-profit institutions really what we need protecting our book culture? No way! What happens to all of those niche titles and genres that don't get picked up by the mainstream culture--and don't even get me started on privacy or equal access concerns.

What do you say? Can Borders or Barnes and Noble do book culture better than libraries? Would the world really be worse off without big box book stores? Who will fill the void left by Borders? I can certainly say that libraries are happy to have the opportunity.

MW

image courtesy of freidmanlynn via Creative Commons

Next to Greatness

As a librarian I have daily access to hundreds of thousands of Books, DVDs, Audiobooks, CD's, Playaways, and Ebooks. So what book series could be compelling enough to make me drive on 128 at rush hour to stand in a line of 1500 people and purchase a book? George R. R. Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire did.

The latest book in the series is "A Dance with Dragons", and has been greeted with rave reviews. Lev Grossman ("the Magicians") in his review for Time magazine calls George R. R. Martin the American Tolkien. However, Martin does not just rehash Tolkien. Published in 1954, many ideas and values in "Lord of the Rings" have been over done or changed. According to Grossman: Martin has produced — is producing, since the series isn't over — the great fantasy epic of our era. It's an epic for a more profane, more jaded, more ambivalent age than the one Tolkien lived in. For those who have difficulty suspending belief let me say that magic is kept to a minimum. This series is built on characterization and Machiavellian intrigue. Start with A Game of Thrones.

Photo by Mike Wick.

TB

Excitement Mounts for The Help--The Movie

The Help by Kathryn Stockett is to adults what Harry Potter is to the younger set. Although it was originally published on February 10, 2011, it still maintains a place on the Bestseller lists. It's theme involving black maids and an aspiring journalist in 1960s Mississippi have lead individuals and book clubs alike into great discussions. Everyone who read it spread the word on to others that it was a must read.

If you haven't had a chance to enjoy it yet, borrow it from the library today before The Help--the movie arrives on August 10. On that date you will be able to watch well-known actresses bring the characters to life: Emma Stone as Skeeter (the young journalist) Viola Davis as Abilene (Maid #1) Octavia Spenser as Minnie Academy award winning actresses are Sissy Spacek, Cicely Tyson, and Mary Steenburgen also play a part.

You have been warned. Get ready for The Help--The Movie mania! SH

July Online Resource of the Month--Books and Authors

With summer in full swing, reading a good book rises to the top of the to-do list. While you're on vacation, zoom in on that perfect title with the aid of Books & Authors, our July Online Resource of the Month.

Search or browse authors, titles, read-alike lists, recommended reading lists, bestseller and forthcoming titles. Then make your own list and save it to your Personal Reading Room.

A highly informative resource that's easy to use-- try it today! SH

Audiobooks in MP3 format

Our audiobook collection in MP3 format is growing quickly. Many popular titles, both fiction and nonfiction, are available for your listening pleasure without the hassle of changing discs. Unabridged titles are usually recorded on 1 or 2 discs. Most newer cars (2008 and beyond) have the players built in. The collection is currently shelved on your left as you enter the Media Room on the first floor of the library. If you don't see the title you are looking for, feel free to see a Reference Librarian who may be able to reserve it for you. Some of our newest titles in this format include : Bloodmoney by David Ignatius, Children and Fire by Ursula Hegi, and To End all Wars by Adam Hochschild.

-DB

Strategizing at the Hills Branch

Are you interested in games of strategy rather than luck? Tired of enduring boredom when you lose a game early and are forced to sit there, watching everyone else have fun? Want to try a new flavor of gaming? Then stop by the Hills Branch after work for a fun night of cards, games, and new friends on Thursday, July Thirteenth from 6.30-9pm. We'll have a couple European-style board games (Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan), a card game (Fluxx), and other games of skill & collaboration (Blokus and Forbidden Island). Feel welcome to bring along a game of your own that you want to share, as well as whatever food and/or drink you'll need to get through the intense gameplay. We've joined up with Mass Fun & Games, a meetup.com group, so feel free to register at their site or just drop in!

MW

Phil Bradley on Google vs. The Librarians

Librarians are there:

To help, aid, assist. To teach, collate, enthuse. To catalogue, index, arrange, organise. To find, discover, promote, display. To interest, intrigue, amuse and amaze. To instill wonder. To help children, adults, old people, the underprivileged, the rich, the poor, those with voices and those without. To protect resources, to archive them, to store them, to save them for the future. To provide differing viewpoints, to engender thought, conversation, research, fun. To provide the best answer possible, to match the answer to the enquirer, to provide just enough information without overwhelming the user, but enough to always help. To better a local community, a company, a college, an organisation, a country, the world.

Google is there:

To make money.

[Phil Bradley, never one to mince words.Take that, Google!]

--RL

Historical Fiction and Horror Genre Award Winners

Summer is here and the following are two you may want to add to your reading list.

If you like Historical Fiction, the Walter Scott prize winner, The Long Song, should be on your list. Andrea Levy creates the memoir of a 19th century Jamaican woman who has the opportunity to taste freedom after the end of slavery.



Horror fans must add the Bram Stoker award winner, A Dark Matter, by Peter Straub, a well-known name in the Horror genre. Straub pens the tale of a man who tries to help traumatized family and friends come to terms with a horrific night in the 1960s that has haunted all of them since. By revisiting this event the group the evil confronted on that night in the sixties is reawakened and unpredictable events occur. Be prepared to sleep with the lights on. SH

Movie Tie-In : Moneyball

Opening September 13, 2011, Moneyball is the story of the Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt). Reinventing his team on a budget, he needs to outsmart the richer teams. Joining with Ivy Leaguer Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), they recruit bargain players whom the scouts consider flawed but who have a knack for getting on base, scoring runs, and winning games. They'll either be the laughing stock of baseball or its vindicated underdogs.

Moneyball is a Columbia Pictures release directed by Bennett Miller (Capote), from the screenplay written by Steven Zaillian (Gangs of New York) and Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network), and produced by Michael De Luca (The Social Network), and Scott Rudin (The Social Network).

-DB

What's New for July

What's coming out in fiction and mystery?

Quinn by Iris Johansen
Iris Johansen explores the darkest corners of the human heart as forensic sculptor Eve Duncan closes in on the killer who stole her daughter so many years ago.

Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner
With startling tenderness and laugh-out-loud humor, Jennifer Weiner takes readers into the heart of women's lives in an unforgettable, timely tale that interweaves themes of class and entitlement, surrogacy and donorship, the rights of a parent and the measure of motherhood.

A Death in Summer by Benjamin Black
One of Dublin’s most powerful men meets a violent end- and an acknowledged master of crime fiction delivers his most gripping novel yet.

Burnt Mountain by Anne Rivers Siddons
A dramatic tale of a well-born Southern woman whose life is forever changed by the betrayal of her mother and by the man she loves .
maf

The Summer Investor's Series

Please join us for

THE SUMMER INVESTOR’S SERIES

Whatever investment cycle you find yourself in—from beginner to post-retirement—you won’t want to miss these monthly classes that explore topics in personal investment such as planning for retirement, constructing a portfolio, and more.

Unlocking Wealth in the Library

Tuesday, June 21^st 10-11am

Jackie’s Room

Join us for the inaugural session of our Summer Investor's Series where we discover how the library can help you become a more informed investor. The library offers a wealth of materials to help you stay informed about your investments and the economy, many of which can be used from the comfort of your home. In this class, we'll examine these resources, such as newsletters and ratings guides, and the impact they can have on your financial well-being. SIGN UP HERE

Blueprint for a Successful Retirement

Wednesday, July 13^th 7-9pm

Arnold Room

Planning for retirement is likely the most pressing financial issue facing most Americans today; however, few have actually taken the steps necessary to reach this goal. Join John Spoto, founder and principal of Sentry Financial Planning, as he presents some of the most important elements of a sound retirement plan, including:

• How much will you need to retire
• How to build and manage a retirement portfolio
• How to comply with IRS rules for required minimum withdrawals

SIGN UP HERE

TO SIGN UP CLICK THE LINKS ABOVE OR CONTACT THE LIBRARY AT 781-235-1610 x 1105
OR IN PERSON AT THE INFORMATION DESK

Favorite Childhood Books Program

Looking for a fun afternoon, being nostalgic over great children's books from your childhood?

Join us at the Hills Branch on Saturday, June 18 from 2-3:30, as adults and kids share their favorite children's book, play book trivia games, and enjoy snacks and Hoodies! SH

Sue Recommends Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

With Geraldine Brooks' Pulitzer Prize winning March and highly acclaimed People of the Book, she doesn't need much promotion for a lot of readers to try her new historical novel, Caleb's Crossing. The connection with Boston, Martha's Vineyard, the Wampanoag people, and Harvard College ensures it to be a local bestseller.

There are other elements, especially social issues, of this must read selection that will fascinate anyone who chances to begin this story based upon intensive historical research by Ms. Brooks:

• first Native American graduate from Harvard

• consequences of the relationship between the Wampanoag tribes and Englishmen

• clashing of cultures

• discrimination of and attitudes toward Native Americans

• religion's influence in Massachusetts settlements

• attitudes toward women

• value and love of education

• maturing love and friendship of a young woman (Bethia) and young Native American chief's son (Caleb) and the barriers to their relationship.

Brooks continues her magic with words as she weaves a wonderful story told through the memories of Bethia beginning in 1660 as she relates the crossing of Caleb, not just across Massachusetts Bay, but from the world of the Wampanoags to that of the English.

This book will be on my list of titles to give to family and close friends.

SH

Finding Foreign Language Books

Do you ever read books in foreign languages? If so, you may know that Wellesley Free Library has a growing collection of items in a variety of languages. They are shelved on the second floor, to the right of the Reference Desk as you stand facing it. We have books in Chinese, Danish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Spanish and audio books in Spanish. In some cases, we have a few books that were donated to the library. In other cases, we are actively buying items to meet a perceived demand.

But, what if you want something in a language other than these? The Children’s Department has items in some other languages…Cambodian, Catalan or Farsi, anyone? They also have access to a digital collection of children’s picture books in a variety of languages. Click here to have a look. The library also has foreign language films. But, what if you were hoping to find adult level material in another language, perhaps even on a particular topic?

Your next option might be to check whether any other Minuteman Library has items in your desired language. There are many materials in many different languages among the member libraries. But what if you don’t see the language you would like to read in any Minuteman library?

All is not lost. The Wellesley Free Library Interlibrary Loan Department may be able to help. We borrow from libraries beyond Minuteman and often beyond Massachusetts We use WorldCat, a database of items owned by 72,000 libraries around the world. If you go to the WorldCat Language Cloud and hold your mouse over a language, you can see how many items in WorldCat are in that language. We don’t want to overpromise, because many of these items might be owned by libraries that do not lend their items, but we have had some surprising success stories. We have borrowed a Sidamo-English dictionary. Sidamo is a language from Ethiopia, with a very elegant script. We have borrowed a Chinese-English dictionary of accounting terms. We have borrowed material in Serbian, Farsi, Japanese, Doric (a Scottish language,) Tagalog, Telugu (a language from India,) Tibetan and Turkic, to name a few. We have also had our failures. We have tried for a Gujarati audio set several times, without success. You’ll never know whether we could find something in your preferred language unless you try us. To make your request, consult with the Reference Staff at 781-235-1610 x1117 or welmail3@minlib.net. The Interlibrary Loan staff sometimes feels like one of the best hidden secrets in the library, so feel free to give us a try!

SK

One Point Seven Zillion* Users

OK, maybe it's not quite a zillion. (And OK, maybe a zillion is not actually a real number.) But anyway, if you step back a moment and look at the statistics relating to almost anything on the Web, the magnitude is truly staggering. For example, over 10 billion apps have been downloaded from Apple App store. Or imagine a world resounding with 1600 tweets per second. For these and more staggering stats (with citations!) check out the Technology Liberation Front blog for May 18.
--RL

The Audies--Best Audiobooks for 2011

On May 23, Keith Richard's Life won Best Audiobook and Best Spoken Biography/Memoir for 2011. The book was read by Keith Richards, Johnny Depp and Joe Hurley.



If you love audiobooks, listen to some of the winners and the nominees for the 2011 award!

Other Audie winners include:

Best Fiction
Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell; read by Emma Galvin.


Best Mystery and Suspense
The Reversal by Michael Connelly; read by Peter Giles.

Best Thriller/Suspense
The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson; read by Simon Vance.

Best Science Fiction/Fantasy
The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison; read by Phil Gigante

Best Romance
The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte by Syrie James; read by Bianca Amato.

Best Non-Fiction
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot; read by Cassandra Campbell and Bahni Turpin.


SH

The Hunger Games Latest Cast Member

Lionsgate has been spinning marketing gold out of each new casting announcement for the adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. Yesterday, the studio announced that the role of tyrannical President Snow, the ruler of the dystopian universe Panem, will be played by veteran actor Donald Sutherland.

If you need a quick review, the online version of E! offers a handy scorecard of the cast.

The film is scheduled for release on March 23, 2012. Directed by Gary Ross, it has begun shooting in North Carolina.

-DB