Science Friday: Underwater Greenhouses

Off the coast of Italy, a company has created underwater greenhouses, using the sea to grow plants like basil and strawberries. Read more about it here, see the livestream of the garden here, and check out some books that can help you think of creative ways to live in an environmentally-friendly way.

Aquaponic Gardening: A Step-by-Step Guide to Raising Vegetables and Fish Together by Sylvia Bernstein

The Conscious Kitchen: The New Way to Buy and Cook Food-- to Protect the Earth, Improve Your Health, and Eat Deliciously by Alexandra Zissu

The Locavore's Handbook: The Busy Person's Guide to Eating Local on a Budget by Leda Meredith

Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World by Mark Frauenfelder

Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life by Jenna Woginrich

The Plundered Planet: Why We Must, and How We Can, Manage Nature for Global Prosperity by Paul Collier

Shift Your Habit: Easy Ways to Save Your Money, Simplify Your Life, and Save the Planet by Elizabeth Rogers and Colleen Howell

Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living by Rachel Kaplan and Ruby K. Blume

#WCW Women Crush Wednesday- Cast of the "Ghostbusters" remake

By now, you've probably heard that Ghostbusters is being remade with the main characters as women. There have been some grumblings about this, but I can't understand how a new Ghostbusters film starring Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, and my favorite current Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon could possibly be a bad thing.

Accessed at: http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/07/10/comic-con-2015-ghostbusters-gets-first-official-cast-photo

While we're waiting for it to come out, watch some movies starring the new Ghostbusters.

Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader are the Skeleton Twins, a brother and sister who haven't seen each other in ten years, but come together after they both suffer a tragedy.

Melissa McCarthy stars as a single mom whose 12-year old son sparks a friendship with their neighbor played by Bill Murray. (I wonder if McCarthy and Murray talked about ghostbusting while shooting St. Vincent.)

Leslie Jones is on Saturday Night Live and has a role in Chris Rock's Top Five, where Rock plays a comedian trying to become a serious actor.

Kate McKinnon is a current Saturday Night Live cast member and has done some voice work on The Venture Bros.

#MCM Man Crush Monday- Blake Crouch

Even if you have been watching Wayward Pines on FOX, you may not know who Blake Crouch is. He's the author of the Wayward Pines trilogy: Pines, Wayward, and The Last Town, the books the TV series is based on.

  

I read the first book, Pines, a few months ago and it was a crazy mix of science fiction, mystery, and suspense. I don't know what happens in the last two books so I don't know how close to Crouch's original story line the TV show is, but trust me, it is also a crazy mix of science fiction, mystery, and suspense. I don't want to give anything away (and it's really hard to talk about the books or TV show without being able to give things away), but Matt Dillon (that's him upside down on the cover of Pines) plays an FBI agent who goes to Wayward Pines, Idaho to find two missing colleagues. And then things get nuts.

The books and the show have a wide appeal because even if you don't like the science fiction aspect (let's just say it involves an evolved species), you might like the mystery (why is everyone in the town so afraid to talk about how weird the town is and why are they so afraid to leave Wayward Pines?) and the suspense (after seeing what happens to someone who tries to leave, will Matt Dillon's character and his family also try to get out or will they stay in this super weird town?)

Blake Crouch, the man with the mind to mix all these different appeals, is my Man Crush Monday because getting me to be even slightly terrified (I watch Hannibal while eating dinner so I'm one tough cookie) is an accomplishment. Way to go, Blake!

Staff Review: Ten Things About "Ten Things I've Learnt About Love" by Sarah Butler

1. Reading it took my breath away. The writing is simple but true.
2. Each chapter starts with lists written by the two main characters, Alice and Daniel. “Ten Things I’m Frightened Of”, “Ten Things People Say to You When Your Father Dies”, and “Ten Things I’d Rather Forget” are a few of them. It’s a good writing technique and helps the reader find out a lot about a character’s interior thoughts in a small amount of words.
3. Daniel has synesthesia so sees words and letters as colors. He describes someone’s name as “the color of sun-warmed sandstone”. The letter D is “a pale orange, like powdered sherbet”. Alice’s name is the color of “milky blue water”.
4. Butler does a wonderful job of capturing the ache of wanting someone to love you.
5. Daniel walks around London, collecting things like bottle tops, paper clips, a string of plastic pearls, and an empty photo frame to make found art he uses to express himself.
6. This sounds weird, but I felt like my heart was also reading and reacting along with me.
7. “When the whisky is finished, I screw the top back on and slam the bottle into the ground. It doesn’t break. I want something to break.” Those lines perfectly capture the frustration of feeling broken and wanting everything around you to be broken, too, so you're not alone.
8. Butler’s writing style put me so into the novel that when a character was distracted, I felt it, too. A character’s thoughts would interrupt lines of dialogue and leave me with their feelings of uncertainty in my head.
9. Lines like these: “And I carried on doing what I’ve been doing for years. I have written your name more times than I can remember. Always, at the beginning, I write your name.”
10. I didn’t want it to be over.

Ten Things I've Learnt About Love is the debut novel of Sarah Butler. Alice is the youngest of three sisters and has never felt a true part of the family since her mother died when Alice was young. She’s off in Mongolia, escaping heartache, when she hears that her father is dying and returns in time to be there when he dies. Daniel is homeless and looking for the daughter he’s never met. We watch as these two characters slowly come together. As I mentioned before, Butler’s writing is simple but true and shows how the hope of love can root us when nothing else can.

~Aisha, Adult Services

Science Friday: Shark Week

After more than 25 years of Shark Week, you might think America would be losing interest in all things shark. Sharknado alone just screams that things have "jumped the shark," so to speak. Instead Sharknado has spawned its own franchise of campy films.

Despite what Hollywood might tell us, your average shark faces more danger from humans than we do of being attacked by a shark. Still, Jaws and Sharknado have their own appeal. With that in mind, we've put together a short list of books and DVDs mixing the educational and the entertaining.

If you're looking to swim with the sharks, we recommend checking out:

Soul Surfer: a true story of faith, family, and fighting to get back on the board by Bethany Hamilton, Sheryl Berk, & Rick Bundschuh

Surviving the Shark: how a brutal great white attack turned a surfer into a dedicated defender of sharks by Jonathan Kathrein, Margaret Kathrein, David McGuire, & Wallace Nichols

Sharks of the World by Leonard Compagno, Marc Dando, & Sarah Fowler

Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham

Tech Thursday: Michael Fassbender Transforms into Steve Jobs

If you haven't seen the trailer for Steve Jobs (based on the book by Walter Isaacson), here's a link to it. Starring Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs, Seth Rogan as Steve Wozniak, Kate Winslet as Joanna Hoffmann, and Jeff Daniels as John Sculley, the movie opens on October 9.

What do you think? While Fassbender was probably not a lot of people's first thought for the role, after watching the trailer, it looks like he embodies Jobs very well.




If you're interested in this, here are some other books you might want to check out.

Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli

Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs by Joshua Wolf Shenk

Smarttribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together by Christine Comaford-Lynch