A Sonic Feast

Try these new CDs:

• Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Berry
• Air on a G String by David Russell
• Distortion by The Magnetic Fields
• Circular Sounds by Kelley Stoltz
• Down in New Orleans by The Blinds Boys of Alabama
• The Best of the Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem
• District Line by Bob Mould
• Enchanted Original Soundtrack by Alan Menken
• The Awakening by Melissa Etheridge
• Mockingbird by Allison Moorer
• The Orchard by Lizz Wright
• Roots & Grooves by Maceo Parker
• New Amerykah Part One by Erykah Badu
• Odelay by Beck
• Lust Lust Lust by The Raveonettes
• Lucky by Nada Surf
• Old Growth by Dead Meadow
• August Rush: Music from the Motion Picture
• Vampire Weekend
• Warpaint by The Black Crowes
• Bedlam in Goliath by Mars Volta
• In the Future by Black Mountain
• Working Man's Cafe by Ray Davies
• The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse by The Besnard Lakes
• Tago Mago by Can
• Border Town by J.D. Souther
  

April's BookPage is Here!

April's BookPage is here, and it's a cracker!

New fiction from:

Joanne Harris
Jhumpa Lahiri
Karen Joy Fowler
Alice Hoffman

& many more

New nonfiction from:

Isabel Allende
Julie Andrews
Kurt Vonnegut
Germaine Greer

& plenty of others.

Plus...

Interviews with Mary Higgins Clark and & others
Great Children's books
Poetry
& Ideas for Green Living

Pop into the library and pick up a copy today.

Playaways are now Renewable

If you're yet to discover our Playaways, now might be the time. The Library has just changed the rules to allow renewals on our most portable and accessible of digital audio books, so now you can keep hold of them for twice as long. To celebrate, we've bought lots of new titles, including fabulous classics from Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, as well as a couple more of the incomparable Patrick O'Brian. Splice the mainbrace, m' hearties!

Hop on the Express

A couple more new Express DVDs:

The Mist Writer-director Frank Darabont, who showcased the softer side of Stephen King in his film adaptations of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, turns to darker material for The Mist, his latest King adaptation about a group of ordinary townspeople trapped in a supermarket by a mysterious fogbank. Thomas Jane is top-billed as a Maine illustrator who attempts to calm the frightened shoppers, but his job is cut out for him from the get-go, first by the discovery of malevolent creatures lurking in the mist, and then by the mad mutterings of Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), a local eccentric who calls for Old Testament-style sacrifices to appease the supernatural forces. Darabont delivers monster movie thrills and understated social commentary with equal skill, and he's well supported by his cast (which includes Andre Braugher, Toby Jones, William Sadler and Jeffrey DeMunn) and the vivid special effects by KNB EFX, which effectively mix CGI with models and stop-motion animation (the terrific monsters were designed by legendary comic book artist Bernie Wrightson). And for those curious about how the novella's downbeat ending has translated to film, suffice it to say that Darabont's conclusion is at once different and more unsettling than King's.

The Kite Runner Like the bestselling book upon which it's based, The Kite Runner will haunt the viewer long after the film is over. A tale of childhood betrayal, innocence and harsh reality, and dreamy memory, The Kite Runner faces good and evil--and the path between them, though often blurry and sorrowfully relative. Director Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland) presents a painterly vision of Afghanistan before the Soviet tanks, before the Taliban--lush, verdant, fertile--in its landscape and in its people and their history and hopes. The story follows two young boys' friendship, tested beyond endurance, and the haunting of their adult selves by what happened in their youth--and what horrors befall their country in the meantime. The performances of the two boys--Zekeria Ebrahimi (Amir) and Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada (Hassan)--are the film's strongest, unforced and gently evocative. The penance paid by their adult selves is foreshadowed, but never predictable--and the metaphor of innocence lost, a common theme in Forster's work, keeps the film, like the title kites, truly aloft.

Come to the Library for your DVDs!

The tragic demise of Tommy Ks in Wallingford is yet another reason you should consider the Library first when you're looking for some great screen entertainment. Recent additions to our new movies include:

I Am Legend Will Smith stars in the third adaptation of Richard Matheson’s classic science-fiction novel about a lone human survivor in a post-apocalyptic world dominated by vampires. This new version somewhat alters Matheson’s central hook, i.e., the startling idea that an ordinary man, Robert Neville, spends his days roaming a desolated city and his nights in a house sealed off from longtime neighbors who have become bloodsucking fiends. In the new film, Smith’s Neville is a military scientist charged with finding a cure for a virus that turns people into crazed, hairless, flesh-eating zombies. Failing to complete his work in time--and after enduring a personal tragedy--Neville finds himself alone in Manhattan, his natural immunity to the virus keeping him alive. With an expressive German shepherd his only companion, Neville is a hunter-gatherer in sunlight, hiding from the mutants at night in his Washington Square town house and methodically conducting experiments in his ceaseless quest to conquer the disease.
The film’s first half almost suggests that I Am Legend could be one of the finest movies of 2007. Director Francis Lawrence’s extraordinary, computer-generated images of a decaying New York City reveal weeds growing through the cracks of familiar streets that are also overrun by deer and prowled by lions. It’s impossible not to be fascinated by such a realistically altered cityscape, reverting to a natural environment, through which Smith moves with a weirdly enviable freedom, offset by his wariness over whatever is lurking in the dark of bank vaults and parking garages. Lawrence and screenwriters Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman wisely build suspense by withholding images of the monsters until a peak scene of horror well into the story. It must be said, however, that the computer-enhanced creatures don’t look half as interesting as they might have had the filmmakers adhered more to Matheson’s vampire-nightmare vision. I Am Legend is ultimately noteworthy for Smith’s remarkable performance as a man so lonely he talks to mannequins in the shops he frequents. The film’s latter half goes too far in portraying Smith’s Neville as a pitiable man with a messianic mission, but this lapse into bathos does nothing to take away from the visual and dramatic accomplishments of its first hour.

Enchanted Life is idyllic in the fairytale world where conflict is minimal and breaking into song solves every problem, but what happens when a princess from the fairy world gets magically transported into the real world? Enchanted begins in the animated fairytale world of Andalasia where Princess Giselle (Amy Adams) is destined to marry Prince Edward (James Marsden) and live happily ever after. Problem is, Edward's step-mother Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon) doesn't want to give up the throne and will do anything to get Giselle out of Edward's life. Queen Narissa's solution is to push Giselle into a well that magically lands Giselle smack in the middle of the real world--the center of Time Square in New York City, to be exact. This launches the live-action portion of the film where Giselle immediately realizes that things are frighteningly different in this new world and that she is ill-prepared for the callous ways of the people who inhabit it. Giselle finds herself alone on a stormy night in the wrong end of town, but a chance encounter with Robert (Patrick Dempsey) and his princess-loving daughter Morgan (Rachel Covey) leads to a warm, safe place to spend the night and the beginnings of a complicated, yet compelling relationship. As Giselle begins to question the fairy-tale truths she's always inherently believed, Robert's outlook on life and love also begins to change significantly. Parallels to the classic Disney fairytalesabound in the form of a King's and Queen's ball, small animals and rodents who clean house when called, the threat of poisoned apples, characters impulsively breaking into song, and the power of the kiss of true love and the absurd juxtaposition of fairytale idealism and stark reality is hilariously funny. Features music by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz, Wicked's Broadway Elpheba Idina Menzel as Nancy, and even a brief appearance by former Princess voice talent Judy Kuhn (Pocahontas). Enchanted is one of the best, most entertaining Disney films of the year.

Atonement Director Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice) gives Ian McEwan’s bestselling novel a sumptuous treatment for the screen that should come to be regarded as one of the defining films of the epic romantic drama. Indeed, everything about this film stems from those three words: there is little here that is not epic, romantic, and dramatic, and Atonement is a film that masterfully expresses the overarching sense of adventure and emotion that such stories are meant to convey. In this instance, the story centers around the love story of highborn Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley) and housekeeper’s son Robbie Turner (James McAvoy, in a star-making turn), in England shortly before World War II. Despite their class differences, they are powerfully attracted to each other, and just as their relationship begins Robbie is tragically forced away due to false accusations from Cecilia’s younger sister Briony (Saoirse Ronan). She has a crush on Robbie, too, and after reading a private letter he sent to Cecilia, and then witnessing the first expression of their mutual love but mistaking it for mistreatment, her resentment grows until it leads to her telling the lie that will send Robbie away. Soon World War II breaks out; Robbie enlists and is posted to France, Cecilia is a nurse in London, and Briony, now age 18 and aware of what she has done, tries to atone for her actions--but none of them will be able to get back what they have lost. Knightley and McAvoy are perfectly cast as the young star crossed lovers, and the young Ronan is particularly impressive, but it’s clear that the real star of this film is the director. Wright allows Atonement to revel in every moment of its story and each scene is compelling in its own way, but that now famous extended shot with Robbie on the beach at Dunkirk--filmed in one take and sure to be considered one of the great long tracking shots in film history--is the most memorable moment in this remarkable film. Atonement is an excellent example of what can happen when a great book meets great filmmaking. This is one that is not to be missed.

More Great New Express Titles

Losing It: And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time by Valerie Bertinelli We all knew and loved Valerie Bertinelli years ago when she played girl-next-door cutie Barbara Cooper in the hit TV show One Day at a Time, and then starred in numerous TV movies. From wholesome primetime in America's living rooms, Valerie moved to late nights with the hardest-partying band of the decadent eighties when she became, at twenty, wife to rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen. Losing It is Valerie's frank account of her life backstage and in the spotlight. Here are the ups and downs of teen stardom, of her complicated marriage to a brilliant, tormented musical genius, and of her very public struggle with her weight.

Surprising, uplifting, and empowering, Losing It takes you behind the scenes of Valerie's acting career and marriage, recalling the comforts, friendships, and problems of her television family, her close relationships with her parents and brothers, the stress and worries of being the wife of a rock star, and the joys of motherhood. Like many women, Valerie often remembers the state of her life by the food she ate and the numbers on her scale. So despite her celebrity, Valerie's voice is so down-to-earth, honest, and appealing that you'll feel as if you're talking with a girlfriend over coffee. Funny and candid, Valerie recounts her attempts to maintain a healthy self-image while dealing with social pressures to look and act a certain way, and to overcome career insecurities and relationship problems, all of which will be familiar to the hundreds of thousands of women who struggle every day with these same issues.

From marital turmoil to the joys of a new career, from being named among Penthouse's ten sexiest women in the world to overhearing whispers about her weight gain in the grocery store, this is Valerie's inspiring journey as she finds new love, raises a terrific kid, and motivates other women as a spokesperson for Jenny Craig.

Betrayal by John Lescroart At the start of the adrenaline-infused 10th thriller to feature DA Dismas Hardy (Dead Irish, etc.) from bestseller Lescroart, Hardy agrees to wrap up some of the caseload of a Bay Area lawyer who has mysteriously disappeared. After discovering that the lawyer was set to appeal an apparently straightforward murder case, Hardy realizes that the crime had its origins in Iraq, where the alleged killer and his victim first met. With the help of his old friend, Det. Abe Glitsky, Hardy learns that the victim, ex-navy SEAL Ron Nolan, was sleeping with the girlfriend of National Guard Reservist Evan Scholler, who was later convicted of killing Nolan. As Hardy and Glitsky dig deeper, they discover that Nolan had committed several murders himself, and it's up to Dismas and Hardy to unravel the conspiracy that may have roots in the U.S. government. Lescroart weaves his trademark complicated yet fast-moving tale, full of believable characters and crisp dialogue. A first-rate addition to the author's ongoing series, this should please both longtime readers and new fans.

Strangers in Death by J.D. Robb In bestseller Robb's slick 26th not-so-near-future crime thriller to feature Lt. Eve Dallas (after 2007's Creation in Death), the New York City homicide cop investigates the murder of business tycoon Thomas Anders, whose strangled body is discovered tied to his bed, apparently the victim of a kinky sex encounter gone bad. Aided by her mysterious husband, Roarke, and long-time sidekick Det. Delia Peabody, Eve doggedly questions Anders's widow, Ava, and his nephew, Benedict Forrest, number two at the victim's corporation, Anders Worldwide. Both Ava and Benedict have alibis that put them far from the crime scene at the time of Anders's death. While the guilty party soon becomes obvious and the gimmick used by the culprit clear to anyone familiar with Strangers on a Train, Robb's strong, hard-nosed heroine once again generates the kind of heat that keeps fans turning the pages.

New Express Collection Title

Brand new today, and straight onto our Express Collection shelves:

The Dark Tide by Andrew Gross Gross, who's partnered with James Patterson on a number of bestsellers (Lifeguard, etc.), mixes murder, suspense, sex and romance as capably as his mentor in his assured second solo thriller (after The Blue Zone).

An explosion rips through New York City's Grand Central Station one morning, destroying the train Karen Friedman's husband, a successful hedge fund manager, is riding in to work. Days later, with many bodies still unidentifiable, Karen resigns herself to the awful truth: her husband of eighteen years is dead.

On that same day, a suspicious hit-and-run accident leaves a young man dead in Karen's hometown of Greenwich, Connecticut. Ty Hauck, a detective, becomes emotionally caught up in the case and finds a clue that shockingly connects the two seemingly unrelated events.

Months later, two men show up at Karen's home digging into Charles's business dealings. Hundreds of millions of dollars are missing—and the trail points squarely to Charles. With doubt suddenly cast on everything she has ever known, Karen, with Hauck, steps into a widening storm of hedge fund losses, international scams, and murder. And as the investigations converge, these two strangers touched by tragedy are pulled into a deepening relationship and unwittingly open the door to a twisted—and deadly—conspiracy.

With its breakneck pacing, plentiful twists, compelling characters, and abundant heart, The Dark Tide confirms Andrew Gross's place as a master storyteller at the top of his game.

Learn a Language on the Move

A whole bunch of great new Playaways have arrived, and soon we're going to have a series of language instruction Playaways. You'll be able to learn Spanish, French, Italian and lots more whilst weeding the garden or cooking the dinner, or walking the dog. Woof!

Exciting New Express Movies

We've added some humdingers to the Express Collection...

No Country for Old Men The Coen brothers make their finest thriller since Fargo with a restrained adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel. Not that there aren't moments of intense violence, but No Country for Old Men is their quietest, most existential film yet. In this modern-day Western, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is a Vietnam vet who could use a break. One morning while hunting antelope, he spies several trucks surrounded by dead bodies (both human and canine). In examining the site, he finds a case filled with $2 million. Moss takes it with him, tells his wife (Kelly Macdonald) he's going away for awhile, and hits the road until he can determine his next move. On the way from El Paso to Mexico, he discovers he's being followed by ex-special ops agent Chigurh (an eerily calm Javier Bardem). Chigurh's weapon of choice is a cattle gun, and he uses it on everyone who gets in his way--or loses a coin toss (as far as he's concerned, bad luck is grounds for death). Just as Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), a World War II vet, is on Moss's trail, Chigurh's former colleague, Wells (Woody Harrelson), is on his. For most of the movie, Moss remains one step ahead of his nemesis. Both men are clever and resourceful--except Moss has a conscious, Chigurh does not (he is, as McCarthy puts it, "a prophet of destruction"). At times, the film plays like an old horror movie, with Chigurh as its lumbering Frankenstein monster. Like the taciturn terminator, No Country for Old Men doesn't move quickly, but the tension never dissipates. This minimalist masterwork represents Joel and Ethan Coen and their entire cast, particularly Brolin and Jones, at the peak of their powers.

Bee Movie There aren't a lot of choices in a bee's life: a bee attends a few days of school, graduates from college, and chooses a job in the hive that he'll labor at for the rest of his life. Barry (Jerry Seinfeld) is different from his best friend Adam (Matthew Broderick) and all the other bees: he wants to see the world outside the hive and can't begin to contemplate doing the same job for his entire life. Naturally, the life of the "pollen jock" bees appeals to Barry because it's the only job that takes a bee outside the hive and into the larger human world. Once outside the hive, Barry breaks the most sacred bee law and speaks to a human named Vanessa (Renée Zellweger) in order to thank her for saving his life. A relationship quickly blossoms and leads Barry to the discovery that humans are stealing honey from the bees and selling it for their own profit. Vowing to hurt the humans the one place they’ll feel it, Barry brings a legal suit against the honey industry and the courtroom drama begins. There are some hysterical moments in the film, as one would expect from a Seinfeld production, and an abundance of one-liners, double-meanings, slapstick humor, and innuendo-laden dialogue that will keep adults guffawing throughout the show. Still, the whole concept of seeing the life of a common pest through non-human eyes is getting repetitive thanks to films like Ratatouille, Flushed Away, Open Season, and Over the Hedge. It should be noted, though, that this first foray into animation by Jerry Seinfeld was four years in production due to its collaborative nature, so its theme may actually have well predated all of the aforementioned films. Children ages 5 and older will love the bees' silly antics, though many of the jokes will go right over their heads and parents should be cautioned about some mildly suggestive humor. More than just a comical film about the life of one very different honeybee, Bee Movie is a social commentary that pokes fun at human behavior while stressing the importance of doing even the most menial job well and championing the power of working together toward a common goal. There's even a lesson to be learned from the bees about controlling one's temper.

Dan in Real Life Steve Carell’s best film performance to date can be found in the fitfully engaging Dan In Real Life, where his long-suffering persona suits a character who lets his long-dormant hopes rise for a moment, only to be shot down again. Carell plays Dan Burns, a newspaper columnist who writes about family issues and relationships. As a widower with three growing girls to raise, however, the difference between Dan’s printed wisdom and his struggles with fatherhood and loneliness is often vast. He’s put to a severe test when he packs up the kids for a cabin holiday with his parents and siblings, then falls for the exotic, if elusive, Marie (Juliette Binoche) during a solo excursion to a bookstore. Stirred by a woman for the first time since his late wife, Dan is shocked to find that Marie is actually dating his brother Mitch (Dane Cook), and that she’ll be spending the vacation with him in the midst of his family. From that point, the script, co-written by director Peter Hedges (Pieces of April), pretty much becomes a parade of difficult circumstances under which both Dan and Marie have to keep their attraction to one another secret. Certain scenes work better than others, but there is an overall monotony to the movie that isn’t helped by a lack of onscreen chemistry between Binoche and Carell. Both actors are fine on their own terms, but whatever is supposed to be clicking between Marie and Dan isn’t compelling enough to make one truly care that they get together somehow. Still, this is a film with plenty of moments to like, especially when Carell gets to broaden his previous range of emotions in a movie.

Nancy Drew Nancy Drew is an iconic girl detective created by Carolyn Keene with a passion for mystery and all things old. The small-town Nancy Drew (played by Julia Roberts' niece Emma Roberts) is about to experience a serious case of culture shock as she heads to Hollywood on an extended business trip with her father Carson Drew (Tate Donovan) and prepares to join the 21st century (well, sort of) at Hollywood High. Having promised her father that she'll give up sleuthing in favor of becoming a "normal" teenager, Nancy tries her best to resist the lure of the age-old mystery of famous actress Dehlia Draycott's (Laura Harring) death, but living in Dehlia's old booby-trapped mansion full of clues proves too powerful a force for Nancy to resist. Feeling completely out of place with high school peers who prove self-absorbed and obsessed with fashion, Nancy makes an unlikely friend in 12-year-old Corky (Josh Flitter), the brother of one of the meanest girls at school. Hormones and hero worship land Corky right in the middle of Nancy's dangerous detective work and inspire some good old-fashioned jealousy when Nancy's close friend Ned (Max Thieriot) visits from River Heights. Nancy's deductive skills are as sharp as ever, and her inspired detective work will profoundly impact the lives of complete stranger Jane Brighton (Rachael Leigh Cook), her own father, and a host of others. Offering a faster pace for modern audiences than the classic Nancy Drew films, this 2007 movie is sure to enthrall a whole new generation of tweens and teens while simultaneously living up to their parents' expectations. Rated PG for mild violence, thematic material, and brief language.

August Rush Music has long been considered a universal language with the power to bring people together, but can the simple act of playing music possibly unite a child with a mother and father who live in two different cities and don't even know of the child's existence? Having shared one extraordinary night, classical cellist Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell) and Irish singer and songwriter Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) were a union meant to be that was torn apart by circumstances and a protective father (William Sadler). After eleven years, both Lyla and Louis have given up performing only to find that they are unhappy and searching for a sense of fulfillment that will ultimately lead both artists back to music and performing. Evan (Freddie Highmore) is an 11-year old orphan who's grown up hearing music in everything around him and is convinced that his real parents want him and will find him with the help of music. Driven by his innate musical genius and a powerful compulsion to perform before the world, Evan runs away from the orphanage and is initially taken in by a street man known as Wizard (Robin Williams) who encourages his musical talent and renames him August Rush and, later, by a local priest who arranges for August to receive a Julliard education. August is a child prodigy who excels beyond even the wildest expectations and earns the opportunity of a lifetime--a chance to perform in front of an enormous audience in New York's Central Park. The question is; can his performance possibly reach the audience August really craves? While elements of this film are completely unbelievable (take August's instant prowess on the guitar or his immediate and sophisticated grasp of musical notation and musical theory), the message of the universality of music and the notion that "the music is all around us, all you have to do is listen" is both compelling and powerful.

Spanish Culture Coming to Wallingford Library!

Join us for the following events highlighting the culture of Spain:

S.C.O.W. Dancers
Wednesday, April 9 at 7:00 pm in the Community Room
Program for adults and children featuring the Spanish-influenced dances performed by the Spanish community of Wallingford.

Telling Passages
Thursday, April 10 at 7:00 pm in the Community Room
Literature and poetry readings from Platero y Yo by Juan Ramon Jiménez, Don Quijote by Miguel de Cervantes, and the poetry of Federico García Lorca.

La Cocina Deliciosa
Wednesday, April 23 at 7:00 pm in the Community Room
Spanish cooking demonstration with Efrain Nieves, proprietor and chef of Tata's Restaurant.

Classical Spanish Music
Wednesday, April 30 at 7:00 pm in the Community Room
Classical guitar concert by solo artist Christopher Ladd.

Please stop by or call the Reference Desk at (203)265-6754 to reserve a seat for any or all of the events.

A Few New Sonic Gems

• 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields
• I Might Be Wrong by Radiohead
• Symphony by Sarah Brightman
• Baby, One More Time by Britney Spears
• Amazing Grace by Elvis Presley
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Original Soundtrack
• Shrek Original Soundtrack
  

Coming Soon: Movie Night and Cinema Club

Love to watch movies? Then perhaps one of our two new regular evening events will be for you.

Starting soon, we're going to be running two monthly film events: Family Movie Night and Cinema Club.
Family Movie Night will be open to everyone, and show great new popular DVD releases once a month.

Cinema Club will show a great classic movie once a month, followed by a discussion of the movie and its context. This night will be run a little like a book club: patrons will be able to talk about the movies we watch, and will be encouraged to help choose the program of movies we enjoy and discuss. We are currently considering kicking off with Spike Lee's Malcolm X, but we're also absolutely open to suggestions. If you're interested in getting involved in the planning stages of the Cinema Club, feel free to e-mail: jaiken@lioninc.org. Otherwise, watch this space for more information about our first meeting at the library.

We look forward to welcoming you to these great movie events very soon. There might even be popcorn!

The Wallingford Library's Wonder Emporium

Some new additions to the Express DVDs collection…

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium Mr. Magorium is 243 years old, he informs us. He has possibly survived so long by being incapable of boredom. Life for him is a daily adventure, which he shares with the children who pack into his magical toy store. The emporium, a quaint old store squeezed in between two modern monoliths, has been run since time immemorial by Edward Magorium, who is played by Dustin Hoffman as a daffy old luv with a slight overbite, a hint of a lisp, a twinkle of the eyes and boundless optimism. He is so optimistic he is looking forward to his next great experience, which will be death. And he dearly hopes that after he departs, the emporium will be taken over by young Molly Mahoney (Natalie Portman), who is his only employee, except for Bellini the Bookbuilder (Ted Ludzik), who does not seem quite real and possibly just operates in the basement as a freelancer.

This isn't quite the over-the-top fantasy you'd like it to be, but it's a charming enough little movie, and probably the younger you are, the more charming.

Things We Lost in the Fire "Dad, what does 'fluorescent' mean?" asks a winsome young Dory of his doting dad, played by David Duchovny. Pondering a moment, dad answers, "It means, 'lit from within." "So Dad, am I fluorescent?'" "Yes, Dory, you are." The touching, brief moment telegraphs the bond Duchovny's character, Brian, has with his family, including wife Audrey (Halle Berry) and daughter Harper (Alexis Llewellyn), and the love that radiates through and around him. When tragedy strikes early in the film, Berry and the children must acknowledge, and somehow heal, the hole left in their lives. And in that human effort, so little explored in American films, Things We Lost in the Fire holds a luminous candle to the hope left in life--sometimes when all that seems to be left is hope. Directed by the talented Danish director Susanne Bier (Brothers), Fire is allowed to unfold almost in real time as grief washes over the family, and Berry gives one of her most memorable performances, captured mostly in tiny details that will hit the viewer in the soul. Her eyes, the carriage of her head, her slim shoulders appearing to buckle under the weight of her sorrow--Berry is well directed here and shows that her performance in Monster's Ball was no fluke. As she begins to connect with Brian's childhood friend Jerry (Benicio Del Toro), a new family web is woven--irregular, to be sure, but strong and comforting. Other affecting performances are given by the talented charater actor John Carroll Lynch, as Brian's friend and neighbor, and by the heartbreaking Llewellyn, an actress of stunning range for a child so young. Things We Lost in the Fire holds a torch in the deepest darkness, and lets souls connect--a rare gift indeed.

Into the Wild A superb cast and an even-handed treatment of a true story buoy Into the Wild, Sean Penn's screen adaptation of Jon Krakauer's bestselling book. Emile Hirsch stars as Christopher McCandless, scion of a prosperous but troubled family who, after graduating from Atlanta's Emory University in the early 1990s, decides to chuck it all and become a self-styled "aesthetic voyager" in search of "ultimate freedom." He certainly doesn't do it halfway: after donating his substantial savings account to charity and literally torching the rest of his cash, McCandless changes his name (to "Alexander Supertramp"), abandons his family (William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden as his bickering, clueless parents and Jena Malone as his baffled but loving sister, who relates much of the backstory in voice-over), and hits the road, bound for the Alaskan bush and determined not to be found. For the next two years he lives the life of a vagabond, working a few odd jobs, kayaking through the Grand Canyon into Mexico, landing on L.A.'s Skid Row, and turning his back on everyone who tried to befriends him (including Catherine Keener and Brian Dierker as two kindly, middle-aged hippies and Hal Holbrook in a deeply affecting performance as an old widower who tries to take "Alex" under his wing). Penn, who directed and wrote the screenplay, alternates these interludes with scenes depicting McCandless' Alaskan idyll--which soon turns out be not so idyllic after all. Settling into an abandoned school bus, he manages to sustain himself for a while, shooting small game (and one very large moose), reading, and recording his existential musings on paper. But when the harsh realities of life in the wilderness set in, our boy finds himself well out of his depth, not just ill-prepared for the rigors of day to day survival but realizing the importance of the very thing he wanted to escape--namely, human relationships. It'd be easy to either idealize McCandless as a genuinely free spirit, unencumbered by the societal strictures that tie the rest of us down, or else dismiss him as a hopelessly callow naïf, a fool whose disdain for practical realities ultimately doomed him. Into the Wild does neither, for the most part telling the tale with an admirable lack of cheap sentiment and leaving us to decide for ourselves.

And here’s a fantastic new Express Collection book…

Beautiful Children by Charles Bock One Saturday night in Las Vegas, twelve-year-old Newell Ewing goes out with a friend and doesn’t come home. In the aftermath of his disappearance, his mother, Lorraine, makes daily pilgrimages to her son’s room and tortures herself with memories. Equally distraught, the boy’s father, Lincoln, finds himself wanting to comfort his wife even as he yearns for solace, a loving touch, any kind of intimacy.

As the Ewings navigate the mystery of what’s become of their son, the circumstances surrounding Newell’s vanishing and other events on that same night reverberate through the lives of seemingly disconnected strangers: a comic book illustrator in town for a weekend of debauchery; a painfully shy and possibly disturbed young artist; a stripper who imagines moments from her life as if they were movie scenes; a bubbly teenage wiccan anarchist; a dangerous and scheming gutter punk; a band of misfit runaways. The people of Beautiful Children are “urban nomads,” each with a past to hide and a pain to nurture, every one of them searching for salvation and barreling toward destruction, weaving their way through a neon underworld of sex, drugs, and the spinning wheels of chance.

In this masterly debut novel, Charles Bock mixes incandescent prose with devious humor to capture Las Vegas with unprecedented scope and nuance and to provide a glimpse into a microcosm of modern America. Beautiful Children is an odyssey of heartache and redemption–heralding the arrival of a major new writer.

More New Express Books

The Express Collection shelves are heaving under the weight of a couple more hot new titles…

A Prisoner of Birth by Jeffrey Archer Bestseller Archer (Kane and Abel) pays homage to Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo in this delicious updating of the adventure classic. Four upper-crust friends from Cambridge University known as the Musketeers conspire to frame Danny Cartwright, an illiterate London East Ender, for the murder of Danny's oldest friend and brother-in-law to be, Bernie Wilson. The outcome of the intriguing trial, which pits a relatively novice defense lawyer against a skilled prosecutor, is a 22-year sentence for Danny. In maximum-security Belmarsh prison, Danny is lucky enough to share a cell with Sir Nicholas Moncrieff, the book's Abbé Faria figure, who teaches him to read and write. In a trick familiar to those who know their Dumas, Danny escapes by impersonating Moncrieff and hatches an intricate scheme to punish the Musketeers and clear his name. While Archer doesn't explore the cost to Danny's soul his revenge exacts, the author's firsthand knowledge of prison life and legal maneuvers helps make this a thoroughly enjoyable entertainment.

Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana by Anne Rice In the New Testament, the miracle at the wedding at Cana-where Jesus turned water into wine-marks the commencement of his tumultuous three-year ministry. In Rice's beautifully observed novel, a sequel to 2005's Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, however, the wedding miracle is in fact the culmination of an intimate family saga of love, sorrow and misunderstanding. As the novel opens, Yeshua (Jesus) struggles with a sense of restlessness of purpose and a deep love for a comely kinswoman. Waves of isolation sweep over him as he comes to understand that serving the Lord's will takes precedence over the desires of his own heart. Whereas the first novel in this series hewed so closely to Scripture and to the author's meticulous research as to be somewhat arid as fiction, this book, imagining the "lost" young adulthood of Jesus, offers wise and haunting speculation where the Bible is silent. And the final chapters, which pick up the story with the New Testament's accounts of Jesus' baptism, temptation and early miracles, manage to be soulfully insightful even while faithfully tracking the Gospels. Rice undertakes a delicate balance: if it is possible to create a character that is simultaneously fully human and fully divine, as ancient Christian creeds assert, then Rice succeeds.

March BookPage is Here!

The March edition of BookPage is her at the Library. We take a close look as Jodi Picoult's latest novel, Change of Heart , as well as new works in mystery and romance, as well as this month's audio book picks.

In addition, you'll find in this month's fabulous issue:

BookPage visits with:

Joshilyn Jackson
Jodi Picoult
Dee Dee Myers
Steve Toltz
Meg Cabot
Emily Gravett

Plus...

Well Read Richard Price's gritty New York tale
Behind the Book Helping troubled young women
Women's History Worthy contributions
Getting There Tips for travelers
Christian Living Thoughtful believers speak
Personal Journeys Well-documented travels
Gardening Coming up roses

BookPage is provided free by Wallingford Puyblic Library, and is available at the Information Desk. Enjoy!