AcheronFans of Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series will be delighted to know that Acheron has arrived at Brookfield Public Library and is shelv

You'll find out when browsing our new books.  Some tell us why we should care about literature.  Some are books of poetry and some will inspire you to write great literature yourself! 

We're here to help you with research papers for high school and college, especially with bibliographies. 

New in Non-Fiction Audio Books: The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom, by Simon Winchester.

 

Assisted Loving:  True Tales of Double-Dating with My Dad

This is an unusual book.  The author was recruited by his father, now in his eighties, to help him resume dating only a short time after the death of the author’s mother.  Meanwhile, the author was also looking for love in the personals. 

As unlikely as it seems, this is a very sweet book.  The author’s patient if perplexed assistance to his dad seems to pay off for him as he finds, at last, the right partner for him.  

My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor

Jill Bolte Taylor was a 37-year-old, Harvard-trained neuroanatomist when she suffered a stroke in 1996.  At the time, her training helped her to identify what was happening to her — and helped her to see how valuable it was to her work as a scientist to have this otherwise horrific and traumatic event happen to her.

She observed that as she lost the right side of her brain and with it, the ability to walk, to talk, to remember her past — all the things we take for granted and that give us identity — she also experienced a tremendous sense of calm and tranquillity.  She thinks that the cognitive work of our brains create sometimes painfully distracting "chatter."

As she struggled over the following eight years to regain her lost abilities, using her knowledge of the brain’s functions and capacities (and the devotion of her dedicated, spirited mother) she worked to retain that sense of peace her stroke gave her.  In this memoir, she uses her own hard-won experience to argue that feelings of peace and calm are accessible to all of us, at all times.

Chosen Forever:  A Memoir by Susan Richards

Richards writes about the love that little girls everywhere can identify with:  the love of a horse.  Richards adopted a "rescue" horse and, as shes write in Chosen Forever, that single act changed her life in so many ways.  Her horse, Lay Me Down, helped her heal old psychic wounds, and their relationship became the subject of this memoir.  Richards explains that publishing her own book had been a lifelong dream and, amazingly and coincidentally, at the second reading to promote her book, she met her now-husband — someone who now re-entered her life, this time to stay.

The Geography of Love:  A Memoir by Glenda Burgess

Glenda Burgess returned to the United States after working overseas for several years at the age of 30.  Ready to start a family, she fell in love with a wonderful man with a shocking past.  What she wasn’t prepared for was his baggage:  he was a widower twice over and the chief suspect in the death of his second wife.  Despite her fears and doubts, she made a wonderful new life with this man only to be shocked when, after 15 years of marriage and two kids,  he was diagnosed with cancer.  Burgess explains that she began this memoir as a diary in which she attempted to process this enormous trauma: their struggle with his cancer, and her loss of her mother, also to cancer, shortly thereafter.

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy

This well-known memoir, first published in 1994, documents Grealy’s difficult coming-of-age, as she faced adolescence permanently disfigured by surgery to remove a tumor.  Grealy wrote, "I spent five years of my life being treated for cancern, but since then I’ve spent fifteen years being treated for nothing other than looking different from everyone else.  It was the pain from that, from feeling ugly, that I always viewed as the great tragedy of my life.  The fact that I had cancer seemed minor in comparison."  Grealy, an award-winning poet, was born in Ireland in 1963 and died in New York in 2002.  This edition is accompanied by an afterwoord by Ann Patchett, her friend.

 

Accidentally on Purpose: A One-Night Stand, My Unplanned Parenthood, and Loving the Best Mistake I Ever Made by Mary Pols

In this memoir journalist Mary Pols tells her own story, one of unplanned pregnancy, at the age of 39, as a result of a liaison with a young man who was then unemployed and ten years her junior.  Pols, having always feared and rejected the prospect of raising a child alone, was surprised how happy she became with her decision to keep her baby.   As she wrote in her blog on Amazon.com, she decided to document her own experience because she discovered during her pregnancy that there weren’t many books about pregnancy written for single mothers.  

Humor

Yes, You’re Pregnant, but What About Me?

Winston Churchill

 New to the Library's DVD collection is Deadliest Catch - cable TV's #1 Non Fiction show.  Watch the adventures of  these daring crab fisherman as they battle the frigid Bering Sea and compete against each other in the battle for crab riches.   While the cameradie between the fishermen- especially the competitive captains- is humorous, this interesting TV show gives you an appreciation of the risks that are made to bring Alaskan crab to the masses.

 Walden Media, the producers of Bridge to Terabithia & The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe a few The Water Horse, present a wonderful new family film.  The Water Horse tells the story of young Angus McMurrow who discovers what he believes is an egg shaped rock in the shallow waters of Loch Ness.   When a mythical creature hatches from the egg the Angus strives to protect his new water horse at any cost.  This is not only a great family film, but it also captures the beauty of Scotland and offers an explanation for the legend of the Loch Ness Monster.