Posted in News on March 26, 2024 at 6:00 am
To boost the library’s Summer Reading Program, the Library Foundation of Spokane County is fundraising to give books to kids and teens in Spokane County to kick off summer reading. You can give the gift of reading. The goal is to raise enough funds during Library Giving Day so that each youth who registers for summer reading can choose one from a […]
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Tags: books, donations, kids, Library Giving Day, reading, teens
Posted in News on July 19, 2023 at 6:00 am
For more than twenty years, Spokane is Reading has hosted an annual community-wide read in which the greater Spokane community is invited to read and discuss a common book together and hear from the author. This year’s selection is Kim Fu’s short-story collection, Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, winner of the winner of the 2023 Pacif […]
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Tags: adults, author talk, author visit, books, community, fiction, Kim Fu, reading, short stories, spokane is reading, teens
Posted in Explore and Discover on May 31, 2016 at 6:00 am
by Brian Vander Veen Yes, science fiction and fantasy have been global phenomena for a long time, but it feels like the last few years have seen an uptick in the number of foreign SFF novels getting English translations. Last year, The Three-Body Problem by Chinese author Cixin Liu became the first novel in translation […]
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Tags: adults, booklists, books, fantasy, fiction, science fiction, translation
Posted in Explore and Discover on April 28, 2016 at 6:00 am
By Brian Vander Veen Sometime during the tail-end of the 80s, my middle-school youth group made us watch a grainy VHS documentary about the evils of contemporary music. The presenter played samples of music that, slowed down and backwards, might have sounded vaguely like blasphemous utterings. He picked apart various band names and album covers, […]
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Tags: hoopla, music, musicians, pop music, r&b, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, the blues, violin
Posted in Explore and Discover, For You on April 5, 2016 at 6:00 am
By Brian Vander Veen When I went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I had prepared myself for disappointment. And sure, much of it was a rehash of a plot we’d already seen twice in the Star Wars franchise, and yes, there were plot holes aplenty, but I’d be lying if I said I […]
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Tags: books, graphic novels, Star Wars
Posted in Explore and Discover, For You on March 10, 2016 at 6:00 am
By Brian Vander Veen So Gods of Egypt happened. The film, with an estimated budget of $140 million, ended up being slammed by critics and grossing a mere $14 million in box office sales its opening weekend. I feel bad for the director, who had previously managed to produce two cult classics of 90s speculative […]
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Tags: indie, movies, sci fi, science fiction
Posted in Explore and Discover, For You on February 18, 2016 at 6:00 am
By Brian Vander Veen In my head, my home coffee table is something like the platonic archetype of coffee tables, with a few books arranged in a tidy stack, next to a generously sized mug–on a coaster, of course–still steaming with the fragrant, nutty aroma of freshly brewed coffee. And sometimes, for a rare and […]
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Tags: booklists, books, on my coffee table
Posted in Explore and Discover, For You on January 21, 2016 at 6:00 am
By Brian Vander Veen This year I will have been vegetarian for some 15 years, if memory serves me right, and vegan for roughly the last 10. And yet, there was a time I barely knew how to peel a potato. I had fancied myself pretty decent at grilling steaks or baby back ribs but vegetables were […]
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Tags: booklists, books, cookbook, food, health
Posted in Explore and Discover, For You on January 13, 2016 at 6:00 am
By Brian Vander Veen I’m feeling positive about 2016, as though it’s going to be a good year to be a nerd. Despite a glut of click-bait articles arguing that The Force Awakens was actually a terrible film, the fans I saw leaving the theater were in a jovial mood, as though the phantom of […]
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Tags: booklists, books, fantasy, sci fi, science fiction
Posted in Explore and Discover, For You on December 23, 2015 at 6:00 am
By Brian Vander Veen If you’re a regular reader of this blog, I imagine you probably already use OverDrive for downloadable ebooks and audiobooks. You might also use some of our other popular digital resources, like hoopla to stream music and movies, or Gale Courses to study up on a new skill. But there are […]
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Tags: books, education, Gale, gale courses, hoopla, library hacks, services, technology
Posted in Explore and Discover, For You on December 2, 2015 at 6:00 am
By Brian Vander Veen Years ago, I stumbled into a public library looking for some sort of literary palette cleanser, some light reading to break up the monotony of the weightier academic work I had to trudge through as a graduate student. I hadn’t read comics in some years, but I decided to check out […]
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Tags: adults, booklists, graphic novels, teens, tweens