Friday, July 30, 2010

Swimming with Sharks

So by now you've heard that Shark Week starts this Sunday (quick, cue the Jaws theme). I must have been about nine or ten years old when I first saw the movie and I can remember begging my mom to take me to Zach's Bay at Jones Beach that summer. Hey, in my mind I assumed that the tranquil waters of the bay were much safer than swimming in the ocean with man-eating sharks.

Fast forward 15 years... as a new transplant I quickly found out that treading water by the pier wasn't one of my more brilliant moves. My soon-to-be husband, safely hanging out on the pier, was yelling down to me (frolicking, carefree Kim), to get out of the water because he had spotted some sharks swimming around near where I was. I must have set an Olympic record for running through ocean waves to the shoreline!

Well, all's well that ends well. Still retaining all of my limbs and natural curiosity about sharks, I've become a big fan of Shark Week. If you would like to learn more about this oft misunderstood creature, check out some of the following books available at your Socastee Library:

Titles currently on display and ready to find a good home for 28 days include:
The Shark Almanac by Thomas B. Allen
Shark Trouble by Peter Benchley
Sharks of South Carolina by Charles H. Farmer III
Twelve Days of Terror: a Definitive Investigation of the 1916 New Jersey Shark Attacks by Richard G. Fernicola
The Encyclopedia of Sharks by Steve and Jane Parker
Sharks of the World by Rodney Steel

You can also check out a DVD copy of the original Jaws movie
along with the CD soundtrack or join us as

FREE tickets are still available for our "Sharks, Tails, and Teeth" Family Fun Night program featuring a guest speaker from Ripley's Aquarium for this Thursday, August 5th at 6 p.m.! Guaranteed to be an hour of fun for families with school aged children. Call us at 215-4700 for more information.

Impress your friends and family with your new found biting knowledge of sharks!

-Kim

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Book Clubbers Welcome

Book clubs are wonderful. It is absolutely amazing to discuss a book with another person and get a totally different insight of the author's message. Of course, it is also comforting to find someone shares your excitement or who appreciates a certain passage beckoning you to take a trip down memory lane. How satisfying to recognize in someone else the anger the author made you experience! It is even redeeming to learn someone else thought a particular title was a total waste of time!

Another great benefit of being in a book club is discovering other books to read. Members are always sharing their latest find and advising one another if a certain title should be read before another one by the same author.

If you've never been part of a book club, you really should give it a try. In most cases, each member reads (or listens to) the same book and the facilitator prepares questions for discussion. I've yet to attend a meeting where we didn't get off-track from the book, but that's part of the fun too.

Socastee Library has several book clubs from which to choose. Each one is hosted by a library staff member. The most popular one is the one devoted to mysteries. Mysterious Mondays meets the second Monday each month at 6:00 in the evening. Last year, each monthly reading selection was set in a different country - and not a single one was written by James Patterson!

If the Book Fits Book Club is Socastee Library's eclectic reading group. Each month's selection is chosen completely without being limited to a certain genre and over the years a wide variety of books have been shared - from Pat Conroy's cookbook to the historical novel The Red Tent. The meetings are held the fourth Thursday at 6:00 p.m.

There is one Socastee book club which meets in the afternoon. It is devoted to southern fiction, but not limited to southerners. Recent reads have included The Prince of Tides, Ya-Yas in Bloom, and Sweetwater Creek. The meetings are held the third Wednesday each month at 1:30.

For each of these book clubs, the library staff stockpiles all the county library system's copies of the titles which are then made available for book club members to check out. At times we also borrowed books from Chapin Memorial Library as well as libraries around the country to provide enough copies for all interested persons.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention.......book clubs always have food! Refreshments and coffee just go hand-in-hand with a good read. Like the commercial said - "Try it, you'll like it!"

The FroggyOne @ Socastee

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Take a look at your library!

Check out our Flickr account at http://www.flickr.com/socasteelibrary.
You can see pictures of art displays, library programs, and more. The pictures are also on our Facebook page.

In other news, it looks like we'll be getting rain through the rest of the week and beyond. While this may wreck your beach plans, it's a great time to stop by the library and grab a few movies and a good book!

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Adult Summer Reading Program

Have you entered the Adult Summer Reading drawing yet?
If not, be sure to pick up your Tic-Tac-Toe entry form at Socastee Library today and enter to win! All you need to do is fill in three across, three down, or three diagonally, and write your name and a contact phone number on the form. Just cut out the form and drop it in the entry jar at the library's main desk for your chance to win great prizes such as tickets to Le Grand Cirque, Carolina Opry, movies, and gourmet reading lover's baskets. Last chance to enter is Saturday, August 14, 2010. You must be age 18 or older to win. ~Sharon

Subject: Other


In our non-fiction section we have books about every subject, and some books that are a little tricky to classify. If you're in the mood for something different, try one of these unusual titles from our New Non-fiction shelves:


  • Breakfast with Socrates by Robert Rowland Smith -- This book takes each part of a day--waking up, going to work, going to the doctor, cooking dinner--and tells what some of history's great thinkers have to say about it.

  • The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain by Barbara Strauch -- Good news! This book argues that "we have badly underestimated the middle-aged brain. We may lose some gray matter but we increase the white stuff that lets us process information faster. As the grown-up brain reorganizes itself, it creates powerful new systems that cut through complex problems to find unique solutions."

  • The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely -- This book tackles the age-old question of why we do irrational things, and applies it widely: Why can large bonuses make CEOs less productive? How can confusing directions actually help us? Why is revenge so important to us?

  • Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing Us And How to Know When Not to Trust Them by David Freedman -- The title says it all. How do we know whether to trust "scientists, finance wizards, doctors, relationship gurus, celebrity CEos, high-powered consultants, health officials, and more"?

Happy reading!


-Alan

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

New Art!

There's something new in the library! We're proud to be hosting a large exhibit by the members of the Seacoast Artist Guild. The exhibit can be seen all along the perimeter of the main library, surrounding the adult fiction, non-fiction, and periodicals sections.
There are many different artists and a variety of subjects and mediums. Exhibiting artists include:
Cindy Blanchard
Ron Blanchard
Sandi Blood
Woody Bower
Tom Britton
Mike Covington
Marcelle Cushman
Walter Cushman
Laverne Davis
Mary Dezzutt
Edna Fenske
Jim Gordy
Rose Perry

Come take a look today!