Category: EBRPL Book

Libraries Transform Book Pick

For the first time ever, OverDrive and the American Library Association’s Libraries Transform program have gotten together to create the Libraries Transform Book Pick program! From October 7th-21st, join readers around the country in downloading and reading After the Flood by Kassandra Montag. Described as “a compulsively readable novel of dark despair and soaring hope,” After the Flood is the story of a mother who would do anything to find her daughter and keep her family together. Start reading it today through your Libby app!

Louisiana Authors, Two Weeks Left!

Calling all Louisiana authors – there are just TWO WEEKS LEFT to submit your self-published novel to the Louisiana Author Project!

Any self-published adult or young adult fiction work is eligible to win great prizes:

  • $500 each in adult and young adult categories
  • Honors at the Public Library Association Conference 2020 reception in Nashville
  • Opportunities to promote your book(s) at Louisiana public libraries
  • Inclusion in a full-page print spread in Library Journal

Already self-published through a platform like CreateSpace or Amazon? No problem! All independently published works in EPUB or PDF format are eligible for entry by May 31st.

Not sure your manuscript will format correctly outside of your word processor of choice? No problem! The library’s partnership with Biblioboard will help you CREATE new, perfectly formatted works with Pressbooks, SHARE them with Self-e (this is how you submit your books for the contest, too!), and DISCOVER your own books or indie authors just like you with Biblioboard.

You can submit your book at the following link: https://indieauthorproject.librariesshare.com/louisiana/

One Book, One Community 2019 Kickoff Party

It’s that time again … time to begin this year’s One Book One Community (OBOC) celebration of The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle! Everyone in the whole family is invited to join us for a fun, FREE street party at the Main Library at Goodwood from 6 until 8 p.m. Saturday, February 23. You won’t want to miss this family friendly event that’ll formally kick off the spring reading program with activities including FREE food, games and prizes, crafts, face painting, an old-fashioned Cake Walk to win a delicious confection, live music by the Wael and Anna band, plus a visit from Sherlock Holmes and much more!

In addition, events will be planned throughout the spring through May with book clubs, community groups, discussions on addiction and substance abuse, film screenings and more related to the book and its author. For more information about this year’s OBOC season, the book and a full schedule of events and programs, visit www.ReadOneBook.org.

Great American Read

LPB & Your EBRP Library want to see your shelfie! In preparation for The Great American Read, which will air on Louisiana Public Broadcasting (LPB) starting September 11, LPB is having a “Shelfie” contest! Between Friday, June 1, and Tuesday, July 31, go to your local Library location and take a photo of yourself with any of America’s Best Loved Books – see the list here!

Assistant library director Mary Stein poses with a few of her favorite Great American Reads!

Share your “Shelfie” on Instagram, and be sure to tag it with @lpb_org, #GreatReadPBS and #ebrpl. On Friday, August 3, LPB will draw five “Shelfies” at random and each will win an LPB mug, T-shirt and booklight. For more information, visit the Great American Read InfoGuide.

Authors After Hours: Kate Moore

We’re celebrating the One Book One Community selection Hidden Figures with a look at some other little-known women in history. Adults are invited to the Main Library at Goodwood at 7 PM Saturday, March 24, for a free book talk on The Radium Girls:
The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women with author Kate Moore. In the book, Moore traces the lives of more than a dozen American women who were employed as luminous watch-dial painters as early as 1917. She tells how these women, some barely in their 20s, were enchanted by high pay and the allure of the paint’s luminescent substance: radium. Carefully researched, the work will stun readers with its descriptions of the glittering artisans who, oblivious to health dangers, twirled camel-hair brushes to fine points using their mouths, a technique called lip-pointing. By the end of 1918, one out of six American soldiers owned a luminous watch, but the women who made them that way didn’t experience such glowing results. Copies of the book will be sold at the event. Stick around after the discussion to have your book signed by the author!

One Book, One Community: Hidden Figures Launch Party

Blast off with us at the One Book One Community launch party celebrating Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly at the Main Library at 6 p.m. Saturday, February 24! 2018’s title was first announced at the annual Louisiana Book Festival downtown in October 2017.

There’ll be free food, music, games, prizes, stargazing and even a “Moon Walk” cake walk! Our special guests include Dr. Tamiara Wade, former Learning Expert at the NASA Stennis Space Center; and Alyssa Carson, a 16-year-old aspiring astronaut who attended Space Camp seven times, Space Academy three times, Robotics Academy   once, and is the youngest-ever graduate of the Advanced Space Academy! Learn more about Carson at www.nasablueberry.com. Partners Forum 35 also will be on hand to welcome the NASA STEM Team!

 

Lots of other events, programs, movie nights, book talks, crafts and more related to the book and OBOC will be scheduled throughout the community all spring long. All the events are FREE. A schedule and related information, as well as an InfoGuide, is posted at www.ReadOneBook.org, and it will be updated periodically with additional events.

Here’s a sample of the great things to come:

  • LASM Discovery Dome Presents Magic Tree House: Space Mission & We Are Stars – Discovery Dome presentations run March 5 – 28; For a full schedule, pick up a copy of the Library’s monthly newsletter The Source, or visit the online calendar at www.ebrpl.com.
  • Book Talk with Author of The Radium Girls Kate Moore -7 p.m. Saturday, March 24, Main Library at Goodwood
  • Hidden Figures Movie Night on the BIG Screen – 7 p.m. Friday, April 6, Main Library at Goodwood
  • The World Behind Hidden Figures with Dr. Renee Horton -2 p.m. Saturday, April 7, Main Library at Goodwood
  • History of Flight with Jim Slade & Katharine Wright – 2 p.m. Sunday, April 22, Main Library at Goodwood
  • And many more!

For more information about the FREE One Book One Community launch party, call (225) 231-3750. To learn about any of the Library’s other free programs, events or resources, visit us online.

Fantasy Book Club

Good morning, campers. If the daily grind is getting you down, please come with us on a variety of magical journeys. We’re speaking, of course, of the nearly-brand-new Fantasy Book Club at the Greenwell Springs Branch.

Watership flyer

You can find Watership Down all over the place, like in our online catalog. It’s a great book. We have it on good authority that if you read it and then go to book club, there will be snacks. Enjoy!

One Book, One Community Kick-Off Bonanza

Join us at the Main Library for an old-timey festival to kick off One Book, One Community 2016!

obocElectHueyPostersg2-16If you’ve been carefully avoiding library resources because your reading list has gotten ridiculous and you just can’t add another book to it (…not that we can relate), you may not know that this year’s book is Kingfish by local historian and dean of the E.J. Ourso College of Business, Dr. Richard D. White, Jr. The book is a biography of notorious Louisiana governor Huey P. Long. It begins with his beginning, and ends with a thoughtful analysis of the long-lasting effects of his political machinations. The middle is full of all kinds of scandals. So you should read it anyway! Everything else you’ve got checked out can totally be renewed until later!

But first you should come to the party, this Saturday, February 20th at 6:30 PM on the plaza at the Main Library, on Goodwood! We’ll have all kinds of food, music, games, and activities, including a sing-along of the LSU fight song “Every Man a King” (which Governor Long helped write); soap-box debaters; mock voting; and at least one of our dear librarians will be dressed up in a seersucker suit!

HueyLongOBOCBadgeRed&BlueBySG1-16

 

Raising Cane’s, Taylor Made Concessions, and Bertrand Bailey’s Down Home Country Cooking will all be providing free concessions! There will be performances by the Greater Baton Rouge Barbershop Quartet and the Michael Foster Project! There will be free face painters, caricaturists, and a cakewalk, to name just a few of the entertainment options. You can even win something, like a party pack from Raising Cane’s!

With this much going on, I mean, we’re not saying we’ll think badly of you if you don’t come, but we WILL be very sad. For you. For missing out. So when you think better of it and show up, don’t forget to use the hashtag #readEBR on Twitter and Instagram to let us know what a fabulous time you’re having!

Book Review: The Other Language

The Other Language by Francesca Marciano. Reviewed by Louise Hilton.*

 

Italian author and screenwriter Francesca Marciano presents a stunning collection of short stories with her latest work, The Other Language. other-language

All of the nine stories feature Italian characters and share common themes of wanderlust and change. Marciano’s protagonists come from all walks of life and are scattered across the globe — from New York to Kenya to Rome — but each protagonist is yearning for something (or someone) else but not in an off-putting way.

Highlights are “Chanel,” about a filmmaker who buys a Chanel haute couture gown for the David Awards (the Italian equivalent of the Academy Awards) and, through a series of setbacks, ends up never wearing it, and “The Presence of Men,” in which an old seamstress in a remote Italian village receives the commission of her life when a Hollywood actor hires her to make him a bespoke wardrobe.

I usually don’t go for short stories, but this collection is a gem. It takes talent to create a fully developed atmosphere and characters the reader will care about in some way in just a handful of pages. Marciano has it in spades. Brava.

*This review was first published in The Advocate (Baton Rouge, La.) on Sunday, August 9, 2015.