Out and About

Renowned author Jennifer Weiner will be in town this week, in a visit sponsored by Cook Memorial Library, speaking to her fans at Hawthorn Middle North on Thursday evening.

Her latest book, “Then Came You,” will be available for sale at the event.

I’m acquainted with her work through her previous novel, “Best Friends Forever.” This was such a fun book, with mystery and adventure elements wrapped up in an appealing “chick lit” story of the lifelong friendship between two women.  The story immediately reminded me of the old adage, “good friends help you move, best friends help you move the body.” Weiner weaves her plot from the POVs of several characters, bringing to mind the comic mixups of Hitchcock’s classic “The Trouble With Harry,” combined with the solid friendship of “Thelma and Louise,” but with a happier ending.

Learn more about our visiting author here. Tickets still available at the Aspen Drive and Cook Park Libraries, and there may still be some left the night of the event for walk-ins. Give us a call at the library at 847-362-2330 to find out.

(Guess which librarian is celebrating a birthday at Aspen Drive Library this week – not to mention, the entire village of Vernon Hills! Get details on Vernon Hills Summer Celebration here.)

Late-breaking development: the publisher will be providing Jennifer's favorite dessert, Whoopie Pies, for the audience! The recipe can be found on our author page here. Yum, birthday pie! See you all there!

During the transition period between the closing of the Temporary Library Center in Libertyville and the reopening of the renovated and expanded Cook Park Library, the Bookmobile will serve as a service point for our local Libertyville patrons. At long last, our little mobile library will have the chance to be Libertyville’s “main” library for those few days!

Bookmobile will be in the parking lot behind the TLC, 3pm-7pm, Monday through Thursday, December 20-30. It will be stocked with a variety of “hot picks,” bestsellers, DVDs and music, for the convenience of browsing patrons. We hope lots of our Libertyville library lovers will take this last opportunity to visit our small-but-mighty library on wheels. After more than 50 years of mobile library service in all the towns of our district, our December 30, 2010, stop behind the TLC will be the last regular bookmobile stop in the Village of Libertyville. In 2011, Bookmobile will return to serving neighborhoods at a distance from our stationary libraries, and preschools, day cares, and smaller schools throughout the district.

Other upcoming changes:

The bookmobile stop at Sunset Foods on Wednesday evening, which has served the northern area of the library district since Cook Park closed in summer 2009, will be discontinued, with the last stop on the evening of December 15. We thank Sunset for their generosity allowing us to park directly in front of their store, and all our regulars who visited the bookmobile weekly. (Especially Cheryl, Maria and the triplets, and baby Juanito and his family.) We’ll miss you and look forward to seeing you back at Cook Park in the new year!

We’ll have a new stop established in the southern part of the district to serve the neighborhoods near our former Evergreen branch in Vernon Hills. Please check out our new location at the “Kiddie Korral” park on the corner of Cherry Valley Rd and Greenbrier Lane, 5pm-6pm, Wednesday evenings starting in January. We hope to see many of the old Evergreen regulars, and attract residents of the Cherry Valley neighborhood as well as the nearby Hawthorn Club and Westmoreland/Lakeside neighborhoods and Indian Creek.