The Wonderful World of eReaders or: How I gained access to all the hot titles and stopped worrying about what to read during the holidays

Is there a book you have been on hold for what seems like forever for? Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl immediately comes to my mind. What if I told you you could become the first in the hold line without cheating? The library has three copies with no hold list (at this time of writing!), and all can be checked out for 28 days. If you are a Des Plaines Library cardholder, simply search “Nook” in our online catalog and place a hold on one of our ereaders.When your hold is in, visit the Reader Services desk on the 3^rd floor and pick up one of the circulating Nooks the library owns. 

In addition to the Nook devices, we also have Sony Readers and Kindles available for checkout. The Sony Reader has both the Hunger Games trilogy and the first four books of the A Song of Fire and Ice series by George R.R. Martin (the inspiration for the Game of Thrones series you probably have a hold on). The Kindle also has a solid collection of new favorites including Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus and Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding. To find out the exact titles available on each ereader, click here to access the catalog, click on one of the ereaders (i.e. Sony Reader), and then click on the “Summary” option to view the titles available on the ereader. 

With the holidays coming up, if you have an ereader on your wish list but aren’t quite sure which one to go with, checking out different types of ereaders can be a way of seeing what might work best for you. These ereaders are equipped with at least 15 books apiece, easily enough to get you through downtime during holiday festivities without having to carry a bag of books with you.

If you have any questions regarding our circulating ereaders, feel free to contact the Reader Services department.

Love in Action

We recently reached the winter solstice, the point when the North Pole is tilted the farthest away from the Sun. For us in Illinois (and the rest of the Northern hemisphere) that means that December 21st was the longest night and shortest day of the year. As evening now begins to creep across the sky before 5pm, it is no wonder that the symbols of the holidays we celebrate this time of year involve light.

One of the most enduring symbols of the season is the candle. During Hanukkah (also known as the Festival of Lights) a candle is lit on the menorah for each of the eight nights of the holiday: each candle can only be lit from the ninth candle known as the shamash, or the servant candle. These eight lights symbolize the eight evenings the lamp oil miraculously replenished itself after the Jews reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem from the Syrians in 165 BCE. The celebration of Kwanzaa also involves the lighting of candles to commemorate the holiday. Seven candles are lit on a kinara, each of them representing the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa: unity, self-
determination, responsibility, cooperativeness, purpose, creativity, and faith. Soon, many Christian churches will have candle-lit ceremonies to commemorate the birth of the baby Jesus. They also will have the four candles lit on the Advent wreath that marks the season of waiting and anticipation of the Christmas holiday.

Another symbol of the holidays is the star. I grew up near Bethlehem, PA (inevitably, there is also a Nazareth, PA nearby). One of my favorite things about the season was the giant star located on South Mountain, up above the city (pictured above: photo credit alan(ator), A. Strakey). The original star was installed in a ceremony in 1937, the same year Bethlehem conferred upon itself the moniker "Christmas City, USA". I'd always enjoy seeing the star almost anywhere I went in the valley below South Mountain. It made me think of hope, peace, and expectation as it represented the star that was said to shine above the original town of Bethlehem guiding those in search of the baby in the manger.

So, candles and stars can be symbols for many things: hope for the future, reflection on the past, introspection of self, and freedom from oppression, among others. What if we could become lights ourselves? What if we could all be shamash candles, seeking to serve others and illuminate their lives as much as our own? Whether you are religious or not, the reason of this holiday season is to bring light into this darkest of natural seasons, including letting friends and family know how important they are to us, and to possibly even include strangers in our light. In a perfect world, this would be done year-round, but things being as they are, we are lucky to have this time of the year to remind us of what that world could look like.

I don't often quote Roy Rogers, or his wife, but Dale Evans had this to say: "Christmas, my child, is love in action."

My wish for all of us is to shine brightly and love actively in this season of celebration.

Happy Holidays!

Lighten Up

And it is upon us. The ultimate Day After, Black Friday is the foot on the pedal that revs the engine of holiday shopping. There are a few ideas of where the term originated. Some people think it was traditionally the day when many retailers come out of the red part of their ledgers and into the positive end, the black side. While that may be true, the actual term "Black Friday" is said to have been coined in the mid-1970's by the Philadelphia police department in their chagrin of having to deal with jam-packed traffic and extremely crowded sidewalks on the 1st official Christmas shopping day after Thanksgiving (being from the greater Philadelphia area myself, I will choose to believe that origin as gospel).

It being a day of heavy and unrestrained shopping in retail stores (ie. many, many people in smallish, enclosed spaces), Black Friday has achieved a connotation of being a day filled with frustration, angst, and consternation. I'd like to encourage an alternative to venturing out into the merchandising blizzard out there: come to the library and get a holiday movie to watch with your family! We are open today and have a lot offer. The following is a list of my favorite holiday movies:

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
John Candy and Steve Martin offer up comedic genius in this odyssey to get home for the holidays.

A Christmas Story
"You'll shoot your eye out, kid!" One of the most quotable movies ever. Ever.

Grumpy Old Men
Another excellent comedic pairing, Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon act as best friends gone awry, upper Minnesota style.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947 version)
Doris Walker does not believe in Santa Claus, but her daughter Susan is not so sure herself. Very appropriate for Black Friday with the feud between Macy's and Gimble's.

It's a Wonderful Life
George Bailey realizes the impact he could have on other people's lives by seeing what life would be like without him. It's just not the holidays without watching this film.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Maybe I shouldn't admit to this, but Clark Griswold has long been a hero of mine. When I put Christmas lights out in front of and on my house for the first time this year, I will watch this movie for inspiration.

Which films do you like to watch around the holidays?