• Books (53)
• Childrens (10)
• Column (15)
• Computer (5)
• Current News (36)
• Events (42)
• Friends of the Library (15)
• Library Information (42)
• mackay (2)
• music (3)
• One Book (19)
• Overdrive (8)
• Programs (23)
• Reading Room (33)
• Reference (17)
• Resources (40)
• Teens (4)
• Town of Chelmsford (24)
• Web Tools (4)

Nominate Your Choice For One Book Chelmsford 2011

The Library had a great time with Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island for 2010′s One Book Chelmsford, and we hope you did, too!

Now, once again we’re asking for your help in choosing the next One Book Chelmsford, for 2011. Think about all the books you’ve read, or the books you’d like to read, and let us know which titles you’d like selected for the Town to read in 2011.

The next time you’re in the library, give your nomination suggestion to any staff member. Or, you can submit your nomination online by clicking the “Submit Your Nomination” link on our homepage or using the One Book Nomination Form.

The One Book Committee will review all the suggestions and narrow them down to three final choices. Then on Election Day in November, the entire Town will vote for which of those three they’d like to be One Book Chelmsford 2011.

Recommended Under-The-Radar Reads

Seattle Librarian Nancy Pearl recently appeared on National Public Radio to highlight a few great books she that felt might not get noticed by readers this summer.

The titles of each book are listed below, with links so you can request the book from the library’s catalog (or request that we purchase it if we haven’t already). If you’d like to read Nancy Pearl’s description of the books, check out the story on NPR.

Finding George Orwell in Burma By Emma Larkin Check our Catalog	The Good Son By Michael Gruber Check our Catalog
Blood Harvest By S. J. Bolton Check our Catalog	Miss Hargreaves By Frank Baker Check our Catalog
Under Heaven By Guy Gavriel Kay Check our Catalog	Last Night in Montreal By Emily St. John Mandel Check our Catalog
The Lotus Eaters By Tatjana Soli Check our Catalog	Instead of a Letter By Diana Athill Check our Catalog Purchase Request Form
Words for Empty and Words for Full By Bob Hicok Check our Catalog Purchase Request Form

For help requesting one of these books from our catalog, or with placing a purchase request, please contact the Reference Desk. For more reading suggestions, check out our Reading Room page, and other book recommendations by Nancy Pearl.

Dennis Lehane Visits Chelmsford

Dennis Lehane, author of the 2010 One Book Chelmsford Shutter Island, will be speaking in Chelmsford on Sunday, June 13th!

This event will take place at 1:00 PM at the Chelmsford High School Performing Arts Center (directions and map). There is no admission fee, but we are asking people to register on our website so we know what size crowd to expect. Shutter Island will be discussed, but attendees are also encouraged to ask questions about any of Dennis Lehane’s books – including the upcoming Moonlight Mile.

For more details, visit the One Book Chelmsford webpage or our calendar’s Event Information page.

Ebooks Now Available

The Library’s Overdrive subscription has been expanded to offer ebooks in addition to audiobooks.

These ebooks are in the Adobe EPUB format, and work with many ereader devices, including the Barnes and Noble Nook and Sony eReader – they are not compatible with the Amazon Kindle or Apple iPad.

Anyone with a valid MVLC library card can visit http://mvlc.lib.overdrive.com to start browsing. We’re starting with a small ebook collection, but will continue to add titles.

Searching for ebooks works the same as searching for audiobooks, but you will need to download and install the free Adobe Digital Editions software. Overdrive provides instructions for getting started, and offers a great video guided tour of using our Overdrive library. We also have an introductory brochure [pdf] that gives tips on using Overdrive.

In addition to Overdrive, our Reading Room page lists other places from which Chelmsford residents can download free ebooks (including some Kindle resources).

If you’re still considering purchasing an ebook reader, here are resources to help you evaluate which device would work best for you:

• News and Advice from Consumer Reports
• Reviews from c|net
• Reviews from PC Magazine
• Reviews from Wired Magazine
• Privacy information from the Electronic Frontier Foundation: E-Book Buyer’s Guide to Privacy and privacy comparison charts of the top models

Food and Music are the Keys to Memory

Do I need help? I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking and talking about food.

As I ponder the benefits of using Meyer lemons over your basic supermarket brand, I wonder at times what matters of consequence I could be contemplating instead – the pros and cons of health care, the meaning of life or perhaps why the sky is blue. But no, I would prefer to think about food. It is part of my genetic make-up – when planning family get-togethers, the first question any of my sisters asks is, “What can I bring?” (meaning food, of course…).

I think I have been obsessed with meal planning since I made my first dinner from the Betty Crocker Boys and Girls Cookbook – homemade “Shake and Bake-style chicken, a bunny salad (pears with cottage cheese tails) and molasses crinkles for dessert.

Food stimulates my sense memories – it is how I navigate my history. I even recollect visits from friends by what I served them for dinner – “Ah yes, I remember it well, that was the night of the roasted tomato and goat cheese appetizer.” “No, I think you are wrong – I distinctly recall we had the porcini mushroom risotto.”

Food is my memory trigger. It starts with the recollection of the meal, leads to remembered conversations – a shared laugh and a visual journey down memory lane. Food memories are how I orient myself. I even give directions in the Boston area using restaurants as my compass points – they are just around the corner from Redbones; they live half a block from Dali; you won’t miss their place, they are right next to Rosie’s Bakery.

Music is the other trigger for me – a familiar provocation for most. Rickie Lee Jones’ “Chuck E.’s in Love” sends me to a spring day, hanging out on a dorm roof in my first shorts of the season. “Truckin” by the Grateful Dead brings me to Harvard square on a summer evening, listening to the street musicians. Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of your life)” has me back in an auditorium seat watching the Senior class video as my daughter graduated from high school. And it is not always your favorite songs that elicit the memories – “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas was my senior high class song. I am sure that is what made it pour that day.

There is nothing I like better than to invite friends over, try out a few new recipes and put on some of my favorite music. Here are two cookbooks I have recently admired and a few CD’s that are worth checking out.

Cookbooks:

The Conscious Cook -Delicious Meatless Recipes That Will Change Your Life by Tal Ronnen – A vegan cookbook that puts protein at the center of the plate and creates satisfying meals for both meat-lover and vegetarian palates. 75 creative and diverse recipes accompanied by beautiful full-color photographs (and they taste good too!).

Stir: Mixing It Up in the Italian Tradition by Barbara Lynch – A local girl, self-taught chef Barbara Lynch was raised in the projects of South Boston, where she ate mostly processed foods. She was introduced to cooking by her high school home economics teacher and fell in love with the craft. Since then, she’s opened a cooking school, a cookbook store, a deli, a butcher shop and several award-winning restaurants including No. 9 Park. She has also given us this gorgeous cookbook filled with mouth-watering recipes including a few of her restaurants’ signature dishes.

Music:

Theresa Andersson, Hummingbird, Go! – Raised in Sweden and based in New Orleans, Andersson got her start recording quirky harmonies in her kitchen. Influenced by both folk music and Motown, her voice is reminiscent of a contemporary Dusty Springfield.

Big Star, #1 Record and Radio City – With the untimely passing of Alex Chilton, it is time to look back at the pop band, Big Star – a cult-level band that followed Chilton’s stint as the lead singer of the Box Tops. Big Star was said to combine elements of the Beatles, the Who, the Kinks and the Byrds. Bands like R.E.M., the Replacements and Wilco have helped Big Star to gain its mythic stature, citing the band as influential on their music (watch for these two CDs, soon to be in our collection).

XX, The XX – This young Indie quartet from London sings candidly about relationships and makes music that’s simple and raw, but very captivating. I suspect that this is a band to watch.

Neil Young, Sugar Mountain Live at Canterbury House, 1968 – Neil Young was just 22 when he took the stage at the Canterbury House in Ann Arbor, Mich. He was nervous and had to be coaxed from his hotel room. The concert was an intimate performance combining new material and familiar Buffalo Springfield tunes. Forty years had to pass before we could hear this concert in its entirety – but it was worth the wait.