Posts from Seward Park Library

It's the end of August, which means soon we'll be trading in our fluffy beach reads for heartier winter tomes. NYPL librarians have plenty of suggestions for you.

Back to School! Back to School Books for Kids Favorites for Third Graders Lindsy's Top Ten Favorite Back to School Books for Young 

Visit NYPL's BiblioCommons for these lists and many more. You can also create your own and share them with us in the comments! See below for some interesting staff picks from the past month, on topics both timely and timeless:

Nonfiction Job Hunting Resources Most Talked About Female Biographies

Pretend you’re just outside Tompkins Square Park. Enter the park on Avenue A, at 8th Street. Take the windy path through the park towards Avenue B. Okay, now sniff. What do you smell?

You smell dogs.

The Way it Is or Eurydice in the Avenues opens early morning summer in the Park. Three feckless dog walkers stand over the dead body of a girl in a polka-dot dress. Who else is going to find a dead body in Tompkins Square Park? Okay, drug-addicts, probably, but still. Dog walkers. 

On June 7, 2012, a fabulous sunny day, the New York Public Library (NYPL) had a kickoff celebration for summer reading at the Seward Park Library.

NYC High School Band: Starting at 10 a.m., a high school band played outside the library. It is a great location for a party since the park is adjacent to the library and the weather was so terrific. The party drew a crowd, and the kids were having a lot of fun running around and playing with our Library Lion mascot and 

As we wait patiently for it to arrive and listen to Up All Night on replay, here are some novels filled with charming, brooding, floppy haired British and Irish boys.

Permanent Vacation opens with a moving crowd of New Yorkers, still dressed '70s groovy. It might be a camera trick, but no one appears to be rushing. The music is slow, diffuse horn and bells. We meet 16-year-old Aloysious Christopher Parker, already dressed '80s rockabilly cool. His body is like a marionette's — all long limbs and loose joints. His voice is like an oboe, and his delivery is like slow air out of a tire. He dances to

Visit NYPL's BiblioCommons for these lists and many more. You can also create your own and share them with us in the comments! See below for some interesting staff picks from the past month, on topics both timely and timeless:

Genre Fiction While You're Waiting for Fifty Shades of Grey, Try... Comic Books for Adults

Don't Shhhh me!.... NOT this time.

We are about to conclude the second season of our Lower East Side Heritage Film Series and for the closer we are ALL TALK.

Along with our now traditional send off (we can call it traditional after the second repetition, right?), the film that started this whole LESHFS, The Seward Park Branch and the Neighborhood It Serves will be projected in all its 16mm glory. I will be orating the original

I went to high school in the East Village from 1983 to 1987. This might sound kind of punk rock. Unfortunately, I totally missed out on CBGB in the late Seventies (see also: Punking Out) and early Eighties. And let's face it, I didn't go inside any real club for most of the Eighties either — I was underage, and too busy studying for the SATs. But I remember how the outsides looked. The streets and 

Guilty pleasure: something you like, but feel guilty about liking, because you are aware that your fondness for said thing is a little embarrassing or not so great. Reasons for feeling guilty include: enjoying a silly pop song, liking a band for their hotness and not necessarily for their music, the genre of music is considered uncool, liking the artist makes you one of them — and you are sooo much cooler than that! But SO WHAT? WHO CARES? You like what you like. Let your cheesy, pop-song lovin', freak flag fly! Have long discussions about your favorite member(s) of One 

Shhhh.... this one is silent.

One of the great things about silent film is the fact that it is, well, silent.

While this attribute certainly draws attention to body language and visual storytelling, it also provides a blank canvas. As someone who composes and arranges music, this proves a great opportunity to sharpen my skills and have a bit of fun, dropping different types of music into a set of scenes. The fun happens when music intended for one purpose magically enhances another. It is proved to be a much more laborious a task, as I am not able to rely on the timings 

Visit NYPL's BiblioCommons for these lists and many more. You can also create your own and share them with us in the comments! See below for some interesting staff picks from the past month, on topics both timely and timeless:

April is Poetry Month, and April 26 is Poem in Your Pocket Day. Don't be caught unprepared; NYPL staff can help you find the perfect poem.

You have not crossed the bridges I have crossed. You have not listened to the music I have listened to. You have not been in the top of the World Trade Center the way I have been there. You have not seen the waves I have seen. You have not fallen from horses the way I have fallen. You have not felt the guns on your neck the way I have felt them. You have not been in the sea with a big storm in a little boat the way I have been.

—Excerpt from "Don’t Give Me Advice," by Luis Marin, Tompkins Square CRW

This month is

In the late hours of April 14th, 1912 and the early morning hours of April 15th, about 85 years before a dying Leo DiCaprio urged a freezing Kate Winslet to live, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sunk into the icy waters of the North Atlantic. In a matter of hours this “unsinkable” ship was on the bottom of the ocean and only 712 out of its 2,208 passengers would survive.  Since the news of the sinking first got out up to the present day, on the100th anniversary of the tragedy, there have been hundreds of stories about those who died, those who survived 

Happy birthday to Charles Mingus, who would have officially become a nonagenarian this coming April 22, 2012 — a word I am certain he could have cleverly crafted into a title. And to celebrate one of the most unique and gifted voices in not just the jazz world, but, in my opinion, the whole of 20th century music, we are projecting on 16mm this wonderfully insightful film capturing Mingus at a very specific period in his life. A must see for all fans of Charles Mingus.

We are 

Visit NYPL's BiblioCommons for these lists and many more. You can also create your own and share them with us in the comments! See below for some interesting staff picks from the past month, on topics both timely and timeless:

Family & Home Be a Better Chef (at Home!) - Collection of popular cookbooks for new as well as "seasoned" cooks.

A woman came into the Library's Center for Reading and Writing, where she was enrolled in a basic literacy class. Visibly shaken, she pulled a staff member aside and confided that she wasn’t sure if she would be able to continue in the class. She had felt some pain in her breast, and her doctor had recommended that she have a mammogram. Not having any idea what a mammogram was, she understood it to mean that she had cancer. The staff member showed her how to find information about

Martin Scorsese has had a quite a run these past two months, with 11 Oscar nominations (four wins) for his film Hugo and a Golden Globe win for the Best Director category, to name just a few. So let's raise another toast (in the spirit of the Bridesmaids' SAG award presentation) to the man who gave us so much great Lower East Side imagery by screening one of his earliest films,

Updated  Links March 2015! Do the names Lord Grantham, Mr. Carson, and Lady Violet mean anything to you? Can you discuss at length the love story of Mary and Matthew? Does the word week-end, bring to mind Maggie Smith’s impeccably-timed line delivery? If so, then you are a Downton-ite... or is it Downton-head? Whatever the case may be, it means that you are a fan of the ITV/Masterpiece Theater drama Downton Abbey. First airing on PBS in January 2011, this British series depicts life (upstairs