First time novelist Angie Thomas has made a big splash with her young adult novel, The Hate U Give. Released last month, the novel has already topped the New York Times's Best Seller List for Young Adult Hardcover Books, been optioned for a Hollywood film, and been acclaimed by critics and in numerous articles, such as this one in New York Magazine, this one on Fusion.net, and this one in the New York Times. It is also currently one of the most requested books in the Minuteman Library... Read Post
Recommended by our Staff
February 23rd 2017
Did you know that the Somerville Public Library has a travel section? Well, if you didn't know. We do. It's very popular, in fact, people come in to browse all the time! Starting in the 910 section of the library, we have shelves and shelves of Fodors, Frommers, DK Eyewitness, Rough Guides, and many more.
Looking to plan a trip to Costa Rica or Peru? We have that.
Do you want to backpack across Europe, check here first!
Would you like to swim with... Read Post
February 18th 2017
The Dallas Buyers’ Club starring Matthew McConaughy, Jared Leto and Jennifer Gardner is about a blue collar electrician, in Texas, in the 1980’s, who is infected with the HIV virus. The movie portrays the stigmas surrounding AIDS and homosexual men of the decade.
The main character, Ron Woodruff, a heterosexual man, loses his job and home due to workplace and housing discrimination. He loses all of his friends, but gains new ones, including Jared Leto’s character, Rayon, a cross-... Read Post
February 17th 2017
I just finished reading the most delightful book: the Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. The novel debuted on The New York Times' best-seller list of 2015 and has been widely popular across the country. The book is about a single woman (Rachel) whose husband has left her for another woman. After the mysterious death of Megan Hipwell, Rachel becomes obsessed with finding her murderer. This suspenseful book is comparable to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. I highly recommend it. I would also... Read Post
February 7th 2017
If you're a lady and have ever felt fat, thought you were fat, been or are fat, then you should read 13 Ways of Looking at Fat Girl by Mona Awad. This sadistic comedy written in the voice of Lizzie, portrays her life in adolescence to older adulthood as an overweight person and the misery and unhappiness it can cause. Lizzie, accounts details of her relationship with her dates, boyfriends, husband, father, mother and other friends in sometimes a hilarious attitude and reveals innermost... Read Post
August 31st 2016
Blog by Kathryn Smith, author of “The Gatekeeper: Missy LeHand, FDR and the Untold Story of the Partnership That Defined a Presidency.”
Thanks, Cathy, for letting me be your guest blogger today.
Missy LeHand was one of Somerville’s most famous residents in the 1920s-1940s, when she was the private secretary of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Especially during her White House years, 1933-1941, every visit to her family home at 101 Orchard Street generated an interview by the Boston... Read Post
July 28th 2016
By: Aimee Bender
This endearing book is set in California and is about Rose Edelstein, who when tasting food, can feel the hidden emotions of the person who cooked it. The book is about her relationship with her out of touch parents, disappearing brother, fake classmates and how she handles all the emotions people dump into their food. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is about being present in everyday life; and how important it is to spend time with people who you actually like... Read Post
April 20th 2016
NBC nightly news correspondent Richard Engel has written an intriguing book, And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East, about his experience living in the Middle East.
From witnessing bomb explosions, kidnappings, and briberies, meeting Saddam Hussein, and at one point was the only living American reporter in Baghdad during the Iraq War, Engel has shared a great and fascinating experience with us that all American should read.
The book begins with... Read Post
December 18th 2015
If you're lucky you'll have some time off next week. Many Americans aren't that fortunate.
What do you plan to do with your time? I will be reading Jenny Lawson's new(ish) memoir Furiously Happy and returning to some old favorites: Carl Hiassen's Tourist Season and Daniel Boorstin's The Discoverers.
If you're looking for book suggestions, the staff of Jezebel have compiled a list of their favorite reads this year. And Slate's critics have compiled a list of the year's... Read Post
June 26th 2015
It's been a big week at the Supreme Court: the Affordable Care Act upheld, gay marriage bans struck down, and a blow struck against housing discrimination.
The Supreme Court's rulings have had a profound impact on American society: their decision in Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954) ultimately ended legal school segregation; New York v. Sullivan (1964) established certain protections for the press. The profundity of the Court's influence is ironic given that... Read Post
March 26th 2015
On November 18, 1985, people across the country opened their newspapers (this was back when most people read newspapers) and met a sandy-haired six-year old named Calvin and his stuffed (but sentient) tiger Hobbes. Calvin was every babysitter's nightmare, the bane of his teachers, Dennis the Menace on speed (but with a much better vocabulary and a more interesting mind). He was a source of nonstop stress for his parents and a constant torment to his neighbor Susie. Of course... Read Post
January 30th 2015
Reading the published diary of someone who died early can be a poignant experience. You can only speculate on what they might have become had they lived. Sometimes all you can think is, "The world lost this person too soon."
Petr Ginz (1928-1944) was a child of extraordinary energy and gifts: between the ages of 8 and 14 he wrote five novels. He was also an accomplished painter (for a child) and a fluent speaker of Esperanto with an insatiable curiosity about science. Given his... Read Post
August 4th 2014
by Eileen and Sujei
If you’re like me, you have a ton of things on your mind/plate. And although I knew July was International Zine Month, I couldn’t quite pull the trigger on this blog post till now. But, all this information is still valid – and it's always a good time to enjoy and make zines.
But wait – I should slow down, back up – and address a question you may have: What is a zine anyway?
A zine made by women over 40. Found at the Papercut Zine Library.... Read Post
October 30th 2013
In honor of Halloween, some denizens of the Interwebs are indulging their list-making mania by compiling lists of scary books or movies. Below is a brief list of my own: six works—three books, three movies—that were created with one purpose in mind: to scare the bejesus out of us.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
This 1959 novel is the haunted house story. Hill House is a long-abandoned country residence with an unsettling reputation. An investigator of psychic... Read Post
August 9th 2012
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is a great heart-wrenching book about the lives of two women, born a generation apart, and how they become entangled in an unlikely friendship amongst the ongoing wars in Afghanistan. I highly recommend it, either for summer reading or just for fun! It is very interesting and you can’t put it down once you’ve started reading it.
Hosseini’s first book The Kite Runner is now on my list of books to read in the near future.
P.S. Here... Read Post