If you are anything like me, you were addicted to Downton Abbey after the first episode. Having just watched the last episode of the 2nd season I don’t know if I can wait until season 3 airs! Here are some other titles to tied you over until the next season of Downton or to prepare you if you are on the holds list!

The Forsyte Saga DVD Drama
In Victorian England, Soames Forsyte, a man from a wealthy and arrogant family, meets a falls in love with Irene Herron, a poor woman. After taking her step-mother’s advice, Irene marries Soames. After four years of marriage, Irene is not happy because she does not love him. Soames tries to win her affections by giving her the things he believes every woman wants, dresses and jewels. He can not give her the one thing her heart desires, freedom. This series chronicles three generations of the Forsyte family from the 1870s to the 1920s.

Howard’s End DVD Drama
Encounter of three social classes of the England at the beginning of the century : the victorian capitalists (the Wilcoxes) considering themselves as aristocrats, whose only god is money ; the enlightened bourgeois (the Schlegels), humanistic and philanthropist ; and the workers (the Basts), fighting to survive. The Schlegel sisters’ humanism will be torn apart as they try both to softly knock down the Wilcox’s prejudices and to help the Basts.

The Remains of the Day DVD Drama
A rule bound head butler’s world of manners and decorum in the household he maintains is tested by the arrival of a housekeeper who falls in love with him in post-WWI Britain. The possibility of romance and his master’s cultivation of ties with the Nazi cause challenge his carefully maintained veneer of servitude.

Upstairs, Downstairs DVD Drama
In 1936, Sir Hallam Holland and his pretty young wife Lady Agnes return from a diplomatic posting abroad and take up residence at 165 Eaton Place, formerly the home of the Bellamy family but vacant for several years. By chance, they ask Rose Buck, herself a long-time servant in the Bellamy household, to find them a suitable staff. In the end, Rose herself joins them as the Housekeeper. The 1930s are a difficult time in England. The Depression has taken its toll with high levels of unemployment. Fascism, which has become popular on the Continent in Italy and Germany, is also finding followers in the UK with Oswald Mosely’s British Union of Fascists. As the new staff begin their daily work, the downstairs family begins to take shape.

And here are some books to check out:

Fall of Giants by Ken Follet FIC Follet
Follows the fates of five interrelated families–American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh–as they move through the dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women’s suffrage.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear FIC Winspear
Private detective Maisie Dobbs must investigate the reappearance of a dead man who turns up at a cooperative farm called the Retreat that caters to men who are recovering their health after World War I.

The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt FIC Byatt
A tale spanning the end of the Victorian era through World War I finds famous children’s book author Olive Wellwood taking in a runaway and exposing the boy to dark truths about her family’s summer bacchanals at their rambling country house.

The Vermont Cheese Book, by Ellen Ecker Ogden
Call number: 641.3 OGD

Using the Vermont Cheese Council’s “Cheese Trail” as a guide, this book gives profiles of 33 different specialty cheesemakers in the state. Though it is admittedly a cheese marketing book, drawing heavily upon the cheesemakers’ own words to describe their products, the producer information is representative of how robust and diverse the artisan cheese sector is in Vermont. For someone looking for recipes, this is not your book, but if you want to know what you’re looking for when you taste Vermont cheeses or when you go to the cheese shop, this is a wonderful primer.

Cheesemonger: a life on the wedge, by Gordon Edgar
Call Number: 641.373 EDG

I was reluctant to pick this up because it is a food memoir, not a cookbook nor a book about food, but about the author’s relationship to food. Once I started reading it though, I found it lacking the snobbishness that books about wine and cheese sometimes have, like being a personal confidant of the cheese guy at the deli counter. The author is the cheese buyer for a worker-owned food cooperative, and he devotes equal time in the book to talking about the particulars of cheesemaking, talking about worker owned cooperatives, and food politics. Very informative reading about cheese!

Reviewed by Ed Graves

With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful by Glenn Greenwald Call # 364.973 GRE

This excellent book is a discussion about how the Founding Fathers of our new country tried to create equality for all citizens in a situation that was inherently unequal: personal intelligence, natural talents and skills, wealth of family lines, education, etc. They knew that these conditions in themselves would always exist (and were even desirable), so they decided that LAWS would be the equalizers. Laws had to apply to EVERYONE — unlike in England at the time, where the king was above the law.

From this starting point, Mr. Greenwald then proceeds to show how this guiding principle has gradually been abandoned, giving us what we have today: a situation in which those with money and influence can act outside the law with no fear of retributions. He shows the revolving door between those wealthy corporations (such as Goldman-Sachs, Bechtel, General Electric, etc.) and the highly influential departments of our government.

I think With Liberty and Justice for Some is one of the most important books one can read as a reminder of our rights and duties as citizens, and to get an understanding of our current economic crisis and the inequality of justice.
Reviewed by Susan Beard

Here is a list of the library’s favorite holiday movies. Please add your own in the comments.

Elf

After inadvertently wreaking havoc on the elf community due to his ungainly size, a man raised as an elf at the North Pole is sent to the U.S. in search of his true identity. (Find in the Comedy DVDs)

It’s a Wonderful Life

When Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey contemplates suicide on Christmas Eve, his guardian angel, Clarence, appears to show him what his town of Bedford Falls would have been if he’d never been born—a sinful slum full of angry, depressed residents. After catching a glimpse of just how wonderful a life it really has been, George begs Clarence to let him live and return to his family. In the end, everybody wins—George returns to the love of his family and Clarence, an Angel Second Class, gets his wings. Director Frank Capra’s 1946 film was deemed a box office flop in its day, but has emerged as a Christmas staple of the stocking and ham variety. (Find in the Drama DVDs)

A Christmas Story

Ralphie, a young boy growing up in the ’40′s, dreams of owning a Red Rider BB gun. He sets out to convince the world this is the perfect gift. But along the way, he runs into opposition from his parents, his teacher, and even good ‘ol Santa Claus himself. (Find in JDVD)

Love Actually

The characters are falling in love, falling out of love, some are with right people, some are with the wrong people, some are looking to have an affair, some are in the period of mourning; a capsule summary of reality. Love begins and love ends. They flirt a lot. They are all flirting with love. At all ages and social levels, love is the theme. The touching new classic is a mosaic of love stories in every form—familial, forbidden, brotherly and true—and is the perfect seasonal reminder that, “Love actually is all around.” (Find in Drama DVDs)

The Nightmare Before Christmas

For a more creepy holiday, this anti-Christmas movie is just for you. Jack Skellington is the king of Halloween Town. When he happens upon a portal to Christmas, he introduces the holiday to the ghosts and goblins in his residence. But Jack’s take on the holiday spirit is a bit twisted, and after convincing some children to abduct the real Santa, he takes to the sky in his coffin-sleigh and delivers the likes of shrunken heads to the world’s little boys and girls. Everything turns out okay—it’s Christmas, after all— (Find in JVid)

Home Alone

The McAllister family is preparing for a holiday vacation in Paris, France. But, the youngest in the family named Kevin got into a scuffle with his older brother Buzz and was sent to his room which is on the third floor of his house. Then, the next morning, while the rest of the family were in a rush to make it to the airport on time, they completely forgot about Kevin who now has the house all to himself. Being alone was fun for Kevin until discovers about 2 burglars, Harry and Marv about to rob his house on Christmas eve. Now it is up to this 10-year-old to bring the burglars to justice.

The Muppet Christmas Carol

The Muppets star in this retelling of the classic Dickens tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, miser extraordinaire. He is held accountable for his dastardly ways during night-time visitations by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and future.

Reader’s Blog is choosing to honor National American Indian Heritage Month by featuring novels written by American Indian authors. For information about this important heritage month visit the National American Indian Heritage Month website. Also check out the display of items at the front of the library!


The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Winner of the National Book Award, this young adult novel will appeal to readers of all ages. Alexie bases this incredibly funny and heartbreaking story of Junior on his own upbringing on the Spokane Reservation in Washington State. “Fourteen-year-old Junior is a cartoonist and bookworm with a violent but protective best friend Rowdy. Soon after they start freshman year, Junior boldly transfers from a school on the Spokane reservation to one in a tiny white town 22 miles away. Despite his parents’ frequent lack of gas money (they’re a “poor-ass family”), racism at school and many crushing deaths at home, he manages the year. Rowdy rejects him, feeling betrayed, and their competing basketball teams take on mammoth symbolic proportions. The reservation’s poverty and desolate alcoholism offer early mortality and broken dreams, but Junior’s knowledge that he must leave is rooted in love and respect for his family and the Spokane tribe.” (From Kirkus).

Power by Linda Hogan


Hogan, who is absolutely magnificent in one radiantly dramatic scene after another, compels us to consider all the forms power takes and how foolishly we abuse it. When sixteen-year-old Omishto, a member of the Taiga Tribe, witnesses her Aunt Ama kill a panther-an animal considered to be a sacred ancestor of the Taiga people-she is suddenly torn between her loyalties to her Westernized mother, who wants her to reject the ways of the tribe, and to Ama and her traditional people, for whom the killing of the panther takes on grave importance.

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich

Called a novel, Erdrich’s book of powerful stories interlocks the lives of two Chippewa families in North Dakota, the Kashpaws and the Lamartines (though some are Morrisseys too, and Nanapushes)–a tribal chronicle of defeat that ranges from 1934 to the present, Illegitimacy, alcoholism, prison, and aborted dreams of something better mark both clans. This web of stories keeps its theme vividly in focus: the magical haunting that reminds the various generations of the families of their basic identity. And, whether the haunting comes in the form of nightmares or supernatural powers, Erdrich convinces us that these people, sunk as low as imaginable, retain powers, the “love medicine” of the title. (From Novelist).

<Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

Thirteen-year-old Salamanca Tree Hiddle’s mother leaves home suddenly on a spiritual quest, vowing to return, but can’t keep her promise. The girl and her father leave their farm in Kentucky and move to Ohio, where Sal meets Phoebe Winterbottom, also 13. While Sal accompanies her eccentric grandparents on a six-day drive to Idaho to retrace her mother’s route, she entertains them with the tale of Phoebe, whose mother has also left home. In her own award-winning style, Sharon Creech intricately weaves together two tales, one funny, one bittersweet, to create a heartwarming, compelling, and utterly moving story of love, loss, and the complexity of human emotion. (From School Library Journal)

Check out some of these new titles in the new books section at the front of the library!

1493 by Charles C. Mann

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This is deeply engaging new history that explores the most momentous biological event since the death of the dinosaurs. More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed totally different suites of plants and animals. Columbus’s voyages brought them back together–and marked the beginning of an extraordinary exchange of flora and fauna between Eurasia and the Americas. In 1493, Charles Mann gives us an eye-opening scientific interpretation of our past, unequaled in its authority and fascination (From Novelist).

Girls to the Front by Sarah Marcus

A Brooklyn-based journalist gives a brash, gutsy chronicle of the empowering music and feminist movement of the early 1990s led by young women rock groups like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile. Marcus enthusiastically tracks the “scattered cartographies of rebellion” and captures the combustible excitement of this significant if short-lived moment. (From Publisher’s Weekly.)

Unbroken: a World War II story of survival, resilience, and redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared–Lt. Louis Zamperini. Captured by the Japanese and driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor. (From Novelist.)

Well Offed in Vermont by Amy Meade

In Meade’s new Vermont cozy mystery series, Stella Thornton Buckley feels out of her element in small-town Vermont, and not just because she’s fresh from Manhattan. Hours after moving to maple country, she and husband Nick find a body in their well. The investigation pushes the couple into a less than luxurious deer camp. They drive their Smart Car all over the hamlet to question the quirky locals about the dead man, a businessman that rubbed a lot of folks the wrong way.

Tag Man by Archer Mayor

“Across Brattleboro, Vermont, rich people (some with dark secrets) are waking up in their high security, alarm-equipped homes to find a Post-it note stuck to their bedside tables reading, “You’re it.” There is little sign of disturbance anywhere, nothing stolen (that anyone admits,) and only a bit of expensive food eaten as a signature. The Press loves the story and dubs the burglar the Tag Man. But who is he? And what’s he actually doing? In fact, he’s quickly running for his life, for what he discovers in one of these houses appears to be proof of a heinous string of murders. But is it? Joe Gunther, struggling to recover from a devastating personal loss, leads his VBI team to untangle the many conflicting pieces of evidence, while the burglar himself struggles for survival in the no-man’s-land between the police and the villains.” (From Novelist).

Unnatural issue: an Elemental Masters novel by Mercedes Lackey

Elemental Earth Master Richard Whitestone, devastated by the death of his beloved wife during childbirth, has ignored his daughter for years, until he conceives of a twisted plan to use her body to bring back the spirit of his wife. (From Novelist).

October is the month of the year when we celebrate the mysterious, the unexplained, and the eerie, hackle raising potential of things that go bump in the night. Here are some books and movies to invoke the spooky feelings of the season!

A Graveyard for Lunatics: Another Tale of Two Cities by Ray Bradbury

Hollywood in the 1950s. A stone wall separates a graveyard from a movies studio. It is Halloween, and a science fiction screenwriter is invited to the graveyard at midnight. Curious, he accepts, finds a corpse, and is plunged into a twenty-year-old mystery. A satirical account of his adventures follows, amid the world of studio characters and through the backlots to a fantastic climax. LR

FIC Bradbury or try the library catalog

Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

Witches are a powerful part of Halloween. This book offers us a different perspective on the most famous Witch of them all. Based on L. Frank Baum’s classic Oz books, Wicked tells the story of the Elphaba, the green-skinned girl who grows up to become the infamous Wicked Witch of the West. LR

try the library catalog

The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice

In this sequel to her famous book Interview with the Vampires, Rice continues her fascinating vampire chronicle. As Library Journals writes: “Don’t expect the usual stake-in-the-heart story; Rice creates a new vampire mythos, mixing ancient Egyptian legends into her narrative, and weaving a rich and unforgettable tale of dazzling scenes and vivid personalities. This extraordinary book outclasses most contemporary horror fiction and is a novel to be savored.” LR

FIC Rice or try the library catalog

The Shining by Stephen King
Danny is only five years old, but he is a ‘shiner’, aglow with psychic voltage. When his father becomes caretaker of an old hotel, his visions grow out of control. Cut off by blizzards, the hotel seems to develop an evil force, and who are the mysterious guests in the supposedly empty hotel? LR
FIC King, also available as a sound recording or try the library catalog

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

A timeless classic, written nearly 200 years ago, Frankenstein provides ample doses of horror, while also asking important questions about the ethics of science and technology. With genetic engineering and cloning looming on the horizon, this novel is as relevant today as it was when it was first published in 1818. LR

FIC Shelley or try the library catalog

Stop into the library to check out the display of Spooky Stories for Adults next to the Circulation Desk for more Halloween books, and movies!

The Town that Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food, by Ben Hewitt (2010) – In 2009, amid the double dip economic recession, the small town of Hardwick, Vermont was adding jobs in a handful of businesses practicing sustainable agriculture and promoting local foods. This much I already knew from following Hardwick in the media during that time. What I liked about this book is that it gave a voice to some of the folks that the media reporting left out: operators of a mobile slaughtering unit, back to the land anarchists, and aging farmers from another era. A lot has been written about Hardwick’s successes since then, but this book serves as an introduction and playbook to community economic development in the region. (EG)

338.1974 HEW or try the library catalog

Just as I Thought, by Grace Paley (1998) – A sampler collection of autobiographical essays and articles by a longtime poet and activist who died in Thetford, Vermont in 2007. While the pieces themselves do not form a linear biography, together they chronicle Grace’s life placed in the context of the larger social movements. “The Illegal Days” describes abortion before Roe v. Wade, “Report from North Vietnam” brings us to a war zone and inspires courage, and further essays in the book describe acts of organized resistance to the Gulf War and for womens’ rights. An inspiring read from an articulate woman who never wavered from the politics of speaking truth to power. (EG)

Call Number is B Paley or try the library catalog

The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love, by Kristin Kimball (2010) – I expected a predictable romantic comedy story about a city girl who meets a farmer and leaves behind her old life behind for the life of a farm wife. I did not expect to laugh out loud but I did. When she gets into details about Amish auctions, rat infestations, dysentery, and various states of decomposition, I knew it was the real deal. Among several titles in recent years where the author leaves city life behind, this one rings of authenticity in describing the challenges of farm life and marriage. (EG)

630.92 KIM or try the library catalog