Journey around the world by reading about different cultures.

Global girlfriends : how one mom made it her business to help women in poverty worldwide by Stacy Edgar

Like books and beer?  Join us at Jimmy's Pub.

Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl.

Like books and beer?  Join us at Jimmy's Pub.

The Hand that First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell

Movies are intended for an adult audience.

Join us to read life enhancing books.

29 Gifts:  How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life by Cami Walker.

Join us to read life enhancing books.

The Complete Idiots Guide to 2012 by S. Andrews and C. Andrews.

The national fact check web sites provided in the "Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!" blog have counterparts for Michigan politics.  Two web sites that can help us discern reality from illusion, especially for the upcoming multiple ballot proposals are:

 Michigan Truth Squad, a project of the Center for Michigan, which "helps blow the whistle on false and misleading Michigan political speech" by rating political statements from  "no foul" to "flagrant foul". The link will take you to their calls on the political ads for the various upcoming ballot proposals

the Citizens Research Council which provides factual, independent information on state organizational and financial issues.  The link will take you to their objective analyses of the November ballot proposals. 

Take moment and do a little reading, you may be surprised by what's behind the scenes! Or... maybe you won't be!

Love politics?  Hate 'em?  Either way, it's best to be informed!  Below is a brief list of websites focused on local and national voting information useful to prepare ourselves for the November 6 election.  

Michigan Votes: Voter Information Center : provides infomation on if you're registered to vote, where you're registered and your polling location.  Last day to register to vote for the November 6 election is October 9.

League of Women's Voters of the Lansing Area: voter guides for the Greater Lansing area.  Both the Ingham County and East Lansing School Board guides are useful for the East Lansing community. Also check out Vote411.org, where you can "build your own ballot" to prepare to vote for who and what you support.  

On the Issues:  every politcal leader on every issue.

Project Vote Smart: non-partisan information on U.S federal and state candidates.  Called "heaven for politcal junkies" by USA Today.

Detroit has been the subject of much discussion over the past few years.  It's a hot topic and not just here in Michigan.  On a recent trip to Los Angeles, people were still talking about Detroit becoming the "new Brooklyn" (read more here and here) and the Santa Monica Public Library had the book featured in this post prominently displayed for check out.  When I walked by 30 minutes later it was checked out.   

While opinions about Detroit vary wildly, one thing is for sure:  people sure like talking and writing about it.  Personally, I love Detroit. Being a huge fan of mid-century architecture, Detroit (Wayne State's campus is one of many places to explore) and the surrounding area (particularly Cranbrook) is amazing. 

If you are at all interested in Detroit, this book is worth checking out: Detroit: a biography by Scott Martelle. While not exactly a jolly read, it does give a good historical glimpse into what Detroit once was and what it can now become.  

Before reading this book, I found these interesting documentary videos about Detroit made by Johnny Knoxville.  It's a three part series that focuses on a variety of aspects of Detroit, including a lot of the positive changes being made.  

Since it's that time of year, I'll end this post by shouting (well, writing) Go Tigers!  

Enjoy food and drink at Dublin Square Irish Pub and 10% of what you spend will be donated to the ELPL!

The October 1 meeting of the Better Living Book Club has been canceled.  Club leader Robin Rushbrook is out with a nasty cold.  Stay tuned for more info on when this title might be re-scheduled.

Prior to this novel, I had never read any of Margaret Atwood’s novels, although I had heard nothing but praise for her works. I knew nothing about Oryx and Crake, other than it took place after some sort of cataclysm. All I expected was a standard, if well written, sci-fi story. What I got was better.

Atwood throws you into the world with what appears to be the sole survivor of a recent global disaster. It is through his eyes that we see what the world has become, and through his thoughts, how it got that way. We don’t learn, exactly, what went wrong until near the end of the book, although astute readers will catch on sooner than that. Indeed, we as readers can see the oncoming tragedy before our protagonist does, much to his lament. Atwood keeps her details minimalist, both in terms of plot and description, but what she does include is enough to evoke the sense of foreboding (in the memories) and despair (in the present). Though written a decade ago, the book is in no way dated. The world Atwood created pre-catastrophe is a fun-house reflection of what our world could easily become, with growing corporate control over every aspect of life, to the point of replacing the government. She probes the question of genetic modification, and its effect on both humanity and the environment. As these issues are sparking debate today, Atwood takes them to one possible conclusion, and tells a stunning tale while she’s at it.

If you have thoughts on Oryx and Crake, come to the library tonight at 7, we will be discussing it in the Storytime Room (in the rear corner of the Children’s Room).

If you can’t make it tonight, why not read The Nightmare People, by Lawrence Watt-Evans, and join us on October 24th.

The Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books celebrates the best science writing that is "accessible, interesting and compelling accounts of the world around us or inside us". This year's finalists are:

The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker

The Hidden Reality by Brian Greene

The Information by James Gleick

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

My Beautiful Genome by Lone Frank

The Viral Storm by Nathan Wolfe

The winner will be announced November 26.

Everyone is struggling to understand how our political rhetoric became so negative and distorted.  But an even greater struggle is determining what is truth and what is distortion within that rhetoric.  This is where the Web can really help us.  There are three, prominent, bipartisan web sites that separate the truth from the lies:

PolitiFact.com was started in 2007 by the Tampa Bay Times and rates statements with the "Truth-O-Meter".  The worst lies get the lowest and most outraged rating of "Pants on Fire"!

FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.  In addition to examining political statements, it scrutinizes internet rumors.

The Fact Checker at the Washington Post is a blog by Glenn Kessler.  The degree of falsehood is measured by "Pinocchios" on a scale of one to four.  Four Pinocchios is "a whopper"!  If a statement is complete truth...it gets the "Geppetto Checkmark".  It is a handy graphic alerting us to pay attention.

Books and Authors is an excellent database for finding books for casual reading.  Organized in a friendly layout, with its book entries accompanied by recommendations, summaries, and reviews, this database excels in helping people locate works of fiction and popular nonfiction.   You can find the database by following the link here. Also, you can get to the database by clicking on the "Research" button on the East Lansing Public Library's website.  Once there, click on the "Alphabetical list of all databases" link and then on the "Books and Authors" link.