May is National Bike Month

May is National Bike Month! More than half the American population lives within 5 miles of their workplace, but many do not take advantage of this fact to bike to work. 40% of all drives we make are 2 miles or less. Why don’t you decide that this month will be the one where you start biking to work? You’ll save gas money, and get more fit at the same time!

Overcoming Biking Excuses

1. Ride at an easy pace to gain fitness; your fitness level will improve over time
2. Trips of less than 3 miles can be done more quickly by bike.
3. If it’s too far to work, consider biking to a friend’s house closer to work and then bike in together for fun.
4. If there’s no designated bike parking, look around for a storage area in your workplace.
5. Tune up your bike at a bike repair shop before you start riding to avoid breakdowns.
6. Ride slow and easy on the way to work to avoid needing a shower.
7. Pack your clothes and change into work attire at the office.
8. Wear a helmet and obey traffic signs to maximize your safety on the road.
9. Get a basket or add a rack to your bike to allow you to carry more stuff and do errands.

All data and reasons to overcome bike excuses came from the League of American Bicyclists.

Here are some books the library has about biking. Enjoy!

Memorial Day Films

Here’s some films to help pay tribute to the sacrifices that our men and women of the armed forces do for us:

Pork Chop Hill (1959) Rated NR

Korean War film of a true tale of the desperate soldiers who finally take the top of Pork Chop Hill, only to find themselves surrounded by enemy forces.

Glory (1989) Rated R

Two idealistic young Bostonians lead the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, America’s first Black regiment in the Civil War.

Saving Private Ryan (1998) Rated R

Captain John Miller must take his men behind enemy lines to find Private Ryan, whose three brothers have been killed in combat. Faced with impossible odds, the man’s question their orders. Why are eight men risking their lives to save just one? Surrounded by the brutal realities of war, each man searches for his own answer and the strength to triumph over uncertain future with honor, decency and courage.

Apocalypse Now (1979) Rated R

A United States Army officer/trained assassin is sent into the depths of a southeast Asian jungle to seek out a renegade colonel and terminate his command during the Vietnam War.

Black Hawk Down (2001) Rated R

With exacting detail, the film re-creates the American siege of the Somalian city of Mogadishu in October 1993, when a 45-minute mission turned into a 16-hour ordeal of bloody urban warfare. Helicopter-borne U.S. Rangers were assigned to capture key lieutenants of Somali warlord Muhammad Farrah Aidid, but when two Black Hawk choppers were felled by rocket-propelled grenades, the U.S. soldiers were forced to fend for themselves in the battle-torn streets of Mogadishu, attacked from all sides by armed Aidid supporters.

Author Visit : Brian Freeman

Author Visit : Brian Freeman
Saturday, May 21 @ 2 pm
Friendship Room, RLPL

Edgar Award nominated author Brian Freeman is coming to Rice Lake, WI. Come to the Rice Lake Public Library on Saturday, May 21, at 2 pm. And if you’d like to spend extra time with the author, there is a lunch fundraiser at noon on the same day at the Adventures Restaurant & Pub in Rice Lake. Tickets to attend are $5, and all proceeds go to the Friends of the Library.

Freeman has written seven books, five of which are part of a series. The books take place in Wisconsin, mostly the Superior/Duluth area. His newest book, The Burying Place, is set in Door County. Freeman writes in a style he calls “psychological suspense.” He describes his style :

The drama isn’t about how the crime was committed … or even really about how the crime is solved … Instead, the focus is really on why a crime took place to begin with. What was it about the backgrounds of the characters that drew them across a terrible line? The result is that, chapter by chapter, the story peels back the emotions, secrets, and sexuality of the characters … The suspense and drama are driven by their actions and motives. As a result, the ending should not only be shocking and unexpected; it also should feel like the last piece in the emotional puzzle and the right psychological resolution.

This event promises to be fun. Come learn about a new-to-you author, or reaquaint yourself with an old favorite. The author presentation at the library is free.

PageTurners Read : “House of Mirth”

The House of Mirth
by Edith Wharton

“The House of Mirth” by Edith Wharton was written in 1905, contemporary to the action of the novel. Lily Bart is a beautiful and vivacious woman, living among wealthy relatives in turn of the century New York City. She is popular with many, and receives numerous marriage proposals. However, after an indiscretion of hers becomes known, she is made persona non grata among her former friends. The novel traces her rise and fall as she is held to a high social standard that makes no allowances for individuality or foibles.

Three people attended the discussion for “House of Mirth” by Edith Wharton. Opinions were divided on whether it was liked, but everyone agreed that it was as timely now as when it was written in 1905. The average score was 3.37 out of 5 possible; the lowest was a 2.5, and the highest was a 4.5. Click on the books below to see a full write up of the book club’s opinions.

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“The House of Mirth” by Edith Wharton is available at the Rice Lake Public Library. There are over twenty copies of this book in the MORE System. Please visit the card catalog website or call us at 234-4861 to reserve a copy today.

The PageTurners Book Club is sponsored by the Friends of the Rice Lake Public Library. It usually meets on the first Thursday of each month at 6 pm at the Rice Lake Public Library. Discussion lasts an hour; everyone is welcome.

Arthur Laurents

 

1917-2011

Arthur Laurents was a famed play and screen writer for 66 years. Arthur passed away on May 5th from complications of pheumonia. He was 93 years old.  He wrote a number of popular plays and movies, some of which are listed below.

Anastasia (1956) Rated NR

An expatriate White Russian general sets in motion a grand hoax after he meets a destitute woman on the banks of the Seine River in Paris. He is amazed at her resemblance to Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Czar Nicholas of Russia, rumored to have somehow survived the Bolsheviks’ execution of the Romanoff family in 1918. He trains her to impersonate the missing princess but soon begins to feel she may be the real Anastasia. Ultimately, the truth can only be decided by one person–Anastasia’s grandmother, the Dowager Empress.

Gypsy (1962) Rated NR

The story of burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee, her rise to stardom from vaudeville and her volatile relationship with her ambitious mother.

Turning Point (1977) Rated PG

Two friends who started in ballet are reunited after many years; one is now a star ballerina, the other a Midwestern housewife/dance teacher whose daughter is embarking on her own ballet career.

Way We Were (1973) Rated PG

The romance and marriage of opposites– the love that binds them together and the differences that tear them apart. A love story from college to Hollywood in the thirties, forties, and fifties.

West Side Story (1961) Rated NR

This musical sets the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet against a backdrop of the rivalry of two street gangs, the Sharks and the Jets, in New York of the 1950s. A young woman who is sister to the Sharks leader has her first taste of love with the former head of the Jets.

Arthur Laurents also wrote a book on directing musicals.

Mainly on Directing

Mother’s Day Films

 

Here’ s a list of films to watch with your mother this Mother’s Day:

Stepmom (1998) Rated PG-13

Anna and Ben, the two children of Jackie and Luke, have to cope with the fact that their parents divorced and that there is a new woman in their father’s life: Isabel, a successful photographer. She does her best to treat the kids in a way that makes them still feel at home when being with their dad, but also loves her work and does not plan to give it up. But Jackie, a full-time-mother, regards Isabel’s efforts as offensively insufficient. She can’t understand that work can be important to her as well as the kids. The conflict between them is deepened by the sudden diagnose of cancer, which might be deadly for Jackie. They all have to learn a little in order to grow together.

Sound of Music (1965) Rated G

As Nazism takes over Austria, a governess and a widowed father fall in love and escape the country with his large family of musically-talented children.

Chocolat (2000) Rated PG-13

When a single mother and her young daughter move to rural France and open a chocolate shop – with Sunday hours – across the street from the local church, they are met with some resistance from the rigidly moral community. But as soon as the townspeople discover their delicious products, their attitudes begin to change.

Divine Secrets of Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002) Rated PG-13

Like mother, like daughter. Neither a hard-as-nails New York playwright nor her flaky Louisiana mother will take the necessary steps to mend their long-time rift. No, this is a job for the Sisterhood, sworn life-long friends who stage an outlandish “intervention” to bring daughter and mother back together again.

Calendar Girls (2003) Rated PG-13

When Chris’ best friend Annie loses her husband, Chris derives a scheme to memoralize him. The two women, along with some of their friends–all fiftysomething women–will make a nude calendar to raise money for the hospital where he died. The calendar becomes hugely popular. Based on actual events, this story carefully balances the stories of several women as it follows the media explosion.

Cinco De Mayo Films

Here’s a list of Mexican made films to help celebrate Cinco De Mayo:

Desperado (1995) Rated R

A mysterious guitar player seeks vengeance against the men who murdered his girlfriend.

Frida (2002) Rated R

The life of artist Frida Kahlo, from her humble upbringing to her worldwide fame and controversy that surrounded both her and her husband, Diego Rivera.

Man on Fire (2004) Rated R

Hard-drinking, burnt-out ex-CIA operative John Creasy has given up on life. That is until his friend Rayburn gets him a job as a bodyguard to nine-year-old Pita Ramos. Bit by bit, Creasy begins to reclaim his soul, but when Pita is kidnapped, and ultimately presumed to be dead, Creasy unleashes a firestorm of apocalyptic vengeance against everyone responsible.

Like Water For Chocolate (1992) Rated R

Romantic fantasy set in Mexico during the early 20th century. A young couple is blocked from marrying by the demands of the young woman’s cold and selfish mother. To be near his love, the young man marries her sister, and she expresses her passion for him through her cooking.

Mask of Zorro (1998) Rated PG-13

A sweeping tale of love and horror, tragedy and triumph set against the Spanish conquest of Mexico. After twenty years as the legendary Zorro, Don Diego must transform a troubled drifter into the fearless hero he once was.

New Books of May

Caleb’s Crossing
By Geraldine Brooks

The narrator of the story is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. At twelve, she encounters Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a tentative secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia’s minister father tries to convert the Wampanoag. One of his projects becomes the education of Caleb, and a year later, Caleb is in Cambridge, studying Latin and Greek among the colonial elite. There, Bethia finds herself reluctantly indentured as a housekeeper and can closely observe Caleb’s crossing of cultures.

Doc
By Maria Doria Russell

Dr. John Henry Holliday is given an awful choice at the age of twenty-two: die within months in Atlanta or leave everyone and everything he loves in the hope that the dry air and sunshine of the West will restore him to health. Young, scared, lonely, and sick, he arrives on the rawest edge of the Texas frontier just as an economic crash wrecks the dreams of a nation. Soon, with few alternatives open to him, Doc Holliday is gambling professionally; he is also living with Mária Katarina Harony. It is Kate who insists that the couple travel to Dodge City, because “that’s where the money is.” And that is where the unlikely friendship of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp really begins.

Dreams of Joy
By Lisa See

See continues the story of sisters of Pearl and May from Shanghai Girls, with Pearl’s strong-willed nineteen year old daughter, Joy. Reeling from newly uncovered family secrets , and anger at her mother and aunt for keeping them from her, Joy runs away to Shanghai in early 1957 to find her birth father – the artist Z.G. Li, with whom both May and Pearl were once in love. Dazzled by him, and blinded by idealism and defiance, Joy throws herself into the New Society of Red China, heedless of the dangers in the communist regime. Devastated by Joy’s flight and terrified for her safety, Pearl is determined to save her daughter, no matter the personal cost.

The Snowman
By Jo Nesbø
Harry Hole series

Oslo in November. The first snow of the season has fallen. A boy named Jonas wakes in the night to find his mother gone. Out his window, he sees the snowman; around its neck is his mother’s pink scarf. Hole suspects a link between a menacing letter he’s received and the disappearance of Jonas’s mother – and of perhaps a dozen other women, all of whome went missing on the day of a first snowfall. As his investigation deepens, something else emerges: he is becoming a pawn in an increasingly terrifying game whose rules are devised – and constantly revised – by the killer.

Exposure
By Therese Fowler

Amelia Wilkes’s strict father does not allow her to date, but that doesn’t stop the talented, winsome high school senior from carrying on a secret romance with her classmate Anthony Winter. Amelia’s father, Harlan, is shocked and infuriated to find naked pictures of Anthony on his daughter’s computer. Harlan uses his wealth and influence with local law enforcement and the media to label Anthony a deviant who preyed on his innocent daughter. As events spiral wildly out of control and the scandalous story makes national news, Amelia and Anthony risk everything in a bold and dangerous attempt to clear their names and end the madness once and for all.

Twilight the first few chapters…

My goal: Read a chapter a day.

My hope:  that it becomes several chapters a day as most everyone I know that read this book did so in one day.

My reality:  after one chapter it is that book you read in high school where you force yourself to read just enough to get through the daily discussions and chapter quiz.  I did make it through two chapters before a migraine interfered with my reading schedule.  

Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

• Bella uses big words and sprinkles synonyms of said words throughout her sentences (yes, I’m jealous–I lack the total recall to insert intelligent words into my conversations
• If Bella did not sacrifice the sun and move to Washington where her Char…I mean her father is–not only would her mom not be able to travel with her husband, the minor league ball player, but her father would starve! (or at least not eat as well…she marinades steaks–Charlie, I mean, her dad, probably just salt and peppered his)
• Bella gets angry when beautiful boys look at her, don’t look at her, talk to her, don’t talk to her (I’m told I’ll understand this later)
• Bella thinks sarcasm is funny and mature (defense mechanism)
• Beautiful boy, aka Edward, has some sort of super power (I know, I know I did see the movie but I’m reading as if I didn’t know…and it’s hard)

Rolled my eyes at this quote on page 1:  “When life offers you a dreams so far beyond any of your expectations, it’s not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end”

Laughed out loud at this quote on page 30 : “…I made the cowardly lion look like the terminator.”

I’m no writer and obviously Stephenie Meyer wrote well enough to sell millions of copies and have movies made from the series, however,  as a reader I would not have continued past chapter one.

That being said I am on page 63 (work assignments)  and as soon as I finish this cynical sounding summary I will pick it back up and admittedly curious as to what happens with the beautiful boy and sarcastic drama queen.

My daughter assures me it becomes less horrible as you read on.

Will I become a Twihard? Stay tuned.

My apologies to any offended Twilight fans.

Would I recommend this book? Not so far.