June 12 Tom Sawyer Day in Hartford, CT

Saturday, June 12, 2010 is Tom Sawyer Day in Hartford, CT.

On the beautiful grounds of the Mark Twain House and Museum you can get a taste of Tom's boyhood adventures with free events organized just for kids and families from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Tours of the Twain House will be available for a fee - or check out our library's pass to the Mark Twain House and Museum and get a discount (available to Hamden residents with valid library cards).

Tom Sawyer Day is part of Hartford's Magical History Tour, which also involves The Amistad Center for Art & Culture, and the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. All three locations will have a full day of family activities, including games, music, crafts, theater, cake, and many, many more. There will be a free shuttle between the sites all day for maximum free fun for all ages.

BookPage

Complimentary copies of BookPage are now available again thanks to The Friends of the Hamden Library.

Come in early each month to get your copy!

BookPage reviews can also be accessed here with a direct link to our online catalog.

Authors A to Z

Authors A to Z gives you the opportunity to learn more about your favorite author or explore new ones. More than 1500 are listed. On the left is a picture of Kathryn Stockett who is the author of the popular novel THE HELP. If you enjoyed this novel, you will find Read-Alikes here.

Other sources for readers are:
Bloom’s Literary Reference Online Features hundreds of essays examining the lives and works of great writers throughout history, as well as thousands of critical articles by noted scholars.

NoveList A fiction database that provides subject heading access, reviews, annotations, and much more for over 120,000 fiction titles. It also includes other content of interest to fiction readers, such as Author Read-alikes, Book Discussion Guides, Book Talks, and Feature Articles.

What Do I Read Next? Contains over 115,000 titles, more than 62,500 plot summaries, 561 awards titles, recommended reading lists and biographical information.

Emily Dickinson and her Garden

The New York Botanical Garden has recreated the Victorian garden of American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886): Emily Dickinson's Garden: the Poetry of Flowers. The garden will be on display until June 13, 2010. View images of the garden here. Emily Dickinson enjoyed gardening. Her letters were often accompanied by pressed flowers. The lovely picture book by Michael Bedard tells the story of a girl who visits Emily Dickinson's house with her mother and receives a poem with a flower.


And Marcy just told me about a new picture book titled "My Uncle Emily" in which Emily's nephew receives a poem from his aunt and a dead bee.

See also NYT article by Holland Cutter "My Hero, the Outlaw of Amherst".

For more books on gardens and the writers and poets who were inspired by them, see our display THE GARDEN AS MUSE. May is "Gifts from the Garden Month". Visit Connecticut's Historic Gardens.

Edgar Award Winners: Best Crime and Mystery Books

The 2010 Edgar Award for best Crime and Mystery Writing went to John Hart for his novel "The Last Child" and to Stefanie Pintoff "In the Shadow of Gotham" for best first novel by an American author. Dave Cullen received a prize for best "fact crime" for "Columbine". Dorothy Gilman was named this year's grand master.

Complete list of winners

May Literary Birthdays

Literary birthdays for May include short story writers John Cheever and Raymond Carver; Ship of Fools author Katherine Anne Porter; American poets Walt Whitman and Adrienne Rich ; New England transendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson; Rebecca author Daphne Du Maurier; British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell; and James Bond creator Ian Fleming.

May 1 - Joseph Heller, American novelist (1923 - 1999)

May 3 - May Sarton, American writer (1912 - 1995)

May 3 - Niccolo Machiavelli, Italian writer and statesman (1469 - 1527)

May 3 - William Inge, American playwright (1913 - 1973)

May 4 - Graham Swift, British novelist (1949 - )

May 4 - David Guterson, American novelist (1956 - )

May 5 - Leo Lionni, Italian children's books author and illustrator (1910 - 1999)

May 6 - Robert Browning, British poet (1812 - 1889)

May 7 - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, German-born novelist and screenwriter (1927 - )

May 7 - Peter Carey, Australian novelist (1943 - )

May 7 - Rabindranath Tagore, Indian poet and writer (1861 - 1941)

May 8 - Thomas Pynchon, American novelist (1937 - )

May 9 - J.M. Barrie, Scottish novelist and playwright (1860 - 1937)

May 13 - Daphne Du Maurier, British novelist (1907 - 1989)

May 15 - Katherine Ann Porter, American writer (1890 - 1980)

May 15 - L. Frank Baum, American writer and actor (1856 - 1919)

May 16 - Adrienne Rich, American poet and essayist (1929 -)

May 18 - Bertrand Russell, British author and philosopher (1872 - 1970)

May 19 - Nora Ephron, American writer and filmaker (1941 - )

May 20 - Honoré de Balzac, French novelist (1799 - 1850)

May 21 - Alexander Pope, British poet (1688 – 1744)

May 22 - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Scottish-born physician and novelist (1859 - 1930)

May 23 - Scott O' Dell, American children's book author (1898 - 1989)

May 24 - Joseph Brodsky, Russian poet (1940 - 1996)

May 25 - Raymond Carver, American poet and short story writer (1938 - 1988)

May 25 - Theodore Roethke, American poet (1908 - 1963)

May 25 - Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, essayist, and philosopher (1803 - 1882)

May 27 - John Cheever, American novelist and short story writer (1912 - 1982)

May 27 - John Barth, American novelist (1930 - )

May 27 - Herman Wouk, American novelist (1915 - )

May 28 - Ian Fleming, British author and journalist (1908 – 1964)

May 28 - Walker Percy, American novelist (1916 - 1990)

May 29 - T.H. White, Indian-born British novelist (1906 – 1964)

May 29 - G.K. Chesterton, British writer (1874 - 1936)

May 31 - Walt Whitman, American poet (1819 - 1892)