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LibraryPoint Blog

Sun and Sand Film Series: Gidget

Beach, Christie Hoerneman, films, Headquarters Film Series, LibraryPoint Blog, Arts Blog

07/30/2010 - 1:56pm

Come join the Central Rappahannock Regional Library as we present Gidget, the second film in the Sun and Sand film Series at the Porter Library on Saturday, July 31st at 2:00 pm.

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Folly du Jour

1920s, Detectives, LibraryPoint Blog, Paris (France), Theatre, Virginia Johnson, Shelf Life Blog, Reading Room Blog, Historical Fiction, Mystery

07/30/2010 - 8:57am

The streets of 1920s Paris are teeming with tourists and tramps, fine artists and con artists. Also killers. Knife fights at cafés and corpses floating along the Seine are all part of the daily parade. But now something newly wicked is in the air—murder with style. A day at the Louvre might reveal a fresh body among the dusty corpses of Egyptian nobles. Josephine Baker’s dazzling performance at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées could be the scene of an unexpectedly dramatic tragedy. Passionate Paris is indeed a perilous place in Barbara Cleverly’s recent mystery, Folly du Jour.

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Mister Monday by Garth Nix

Adriana Puckett, LibraryPoint Blog, Shelf Life Blog, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Kid Books Blog, Kids Blog

07/29/2010 - 9:07am

Arthur Penhaligon, star of Garth Nix's Mister Monday, thinks he's a normal 7th grader who has enough problems to deal with, like starting a brand new school and controlling his asthma. After the first day of school, though, his life gets a lot weirder. During a serious asthma attack, while he's gasping for breath on the ground, he sees a strange man in a wheelchair appear in blinding light with an attendant. He thrusts a "blade" into Arthur's hands and mutters some strange things about a Will, the Key, and suitable Heir. Although it makes no sense to him at the time, Arthur has just been given an instrument of power called the Key and named the Heir to the Will by Mister Monday. Arthur's life will never be the same.

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Books for Boy Scouts

Caroline Parr, Children's Book Columns, LibraryPoint Blog, Fantasy

07/29/2010 - 7:02am

As we welcome the Boy Scouts to Fredericksburg this week, I have to give a shout-out to the Eagle Scouts in my life. To my late father, my brother-in-law and, in just a few weeks, my nephew, congratulations on your achievements!

The Scouts enjoying the Jamboree will not only be climbing, fishing, rappelling and shooting off air rifles. They’ll also enjoy a visit from popular author Michael Scott, creator of the “Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel” series. Scott will also be appearing downtown at Jabberwocky on Thursday afternoon, July 29; call 371-56984 for details.

The first book in his bestselling series, “The Alchemyst,” introduces fifteen-year-old twins Sophie and Josh. Within just a few pages, their lives are turned upside down when two black-clad bad guys with “dead-looking eyes” storm the bookshop where Josh is working, take the owner hostage, and disappear with a rare book. But not before Josh, thinking fast, has torn out the last two pages.

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The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris

Caroline Parr, Diseases, LibraryPoint Blog, Shelf Life Blog, Reading Room Blog, Literary Fiction

07/28/2010 - 4:03pm

Tim Farnsworth is a successful lawyer, middle-aged but still good-looking, enjoying his beautiful house, his teenaged daughter and frequent trips abroad with his lovely wife Jane, when he discovers that while he has taken his easy life for granted, everything has changed. "The Unnamed" opens with the second recurrence of his puzzling disease, an unbearable compulsion to start walking and not stop for hours.

The first time this happened, he and his wife consulted doctors around the world in search of “The One Guy” who understood his unique condition. Though they tried everything, even strapping Tim to a hospital bed for weeks at a time, nothing worked. Then one day, for no reason he could discern, he just stopped walking, and life seemed to be back to normal. Now, years later, it’s started again.

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