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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.

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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

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

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.