Every month, the members of our Popular Services department get together for a “genre study” discussion. We go through book genres, like crime or historical fiction, pick representative authors, and then discuss their books. It’s not like a staff book club, though: we review the books with an eye toward recommending them to our patrons.…
The Winchester House, soon to be moved to Mundelein, might today be the place you go to visit your grandparents, but did you know that the nursing home is the descendant of the Lake County Poor Farm? For almost a century, through scandals, economic depressions, and a number of name changes, the poor farm stood…
Mark Russell is the author of DC Comics' re-imagined version of The Flintstones, one of our favorite comics here at the library. And yes, we are talking about the Yabba-Dabba-Doo Hanna-Barbera TV characters. Russell and illustrator Steve Pugh's version of Bedrock is a newly established Stone Age civilization just beginning to construct things like economics,…
Bluebird, Bluebird took me to a place that is completely unfamiliar to me: East Texas. Apparently it is its own little world; Wikipedia says "East Texas is a distinct cultural, geographic and ecological area in the state" and "is often considered the westernmost extension of the Deep South." Lark, Texas, the fictional heart of the…
At my house, family movie night is one of those ideas that seems SO GOOD in theory. Family bonding! Popcorn aplenty! Low-cost, thanks to the plethora of options at our friendly local library! But pretty quickly, this brilliant idea runs up against cold, hard reality: I have three children, ranging in age from almost-seventeen to…
If you consider yourself a book lover, bookworm, or bibliophile you will love this week's author interview. Annie Spence is the author of Dear Fahrenheit 451: A Librarian's Love Letters and Break-Up Notes to the Books in her Life. This collection of insightful and often hilarious letters to books will rekindle (no ebook device pun…
Did you know it's National Novel Writing Month? Also known as NaNoWriMo, November is a month to carve out some time to write. But you don't have to have a novel in mind. Genealogists have great stories: each of our ancestors has at least one tale to tell. Why not use this month to put…
Confession: I do not like Halloween. Candy aside, it is not my holiday. Not at all. I don't like scary things, or people in masks, or gore. I rely on other people to tell me which horror books and movies are good, because to be honest...horror makes me cry. In short, I am a scaredy…
Libertyville local mystery author Gail Lukasik discovered a family secret that led her on an extraordinary personal journey through America's complicated racial history. After appearing on PBS's Genealogy Roadshow, Lukasik began recounting her memories and compiling her research into a book. White Like Her was published last week and Gail stopped by our Digital Studios to…
Alice McDermott’s eighth novel is a quiet, beautifully written coming-of-age novel set among a group of remarkable nuns in Catholic Brooklyn. The central character in The Ninth Hour is not a nun, but a girl named Sally who is born after a tragedy in the early 1900s. Her life is forever entwined with the nuns…
