March is Women's History Month. Check out one of these books about interesting women who played important roles in history:

Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life by Lori D. Ginzburg

Civil War Wives: The Lives and Times of Angelina Grimke Weld, Varina Howell Davis and Julia Dent Grant by Carol Berkin

Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer

The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir

Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits by Linda Gordon

Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, and the Afterlife by Francine Prose

The Sisters Who Would  Be Queen: Mary Katherine, and Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Tragedy by Leanda  De Lisle

Strong Medicine Speaks: A Native American Elder Has Her Say: An Oral History by Amy Hill Hearth

Check our catalog, these books and others on women in history are available in the non-fiction section of the library.

Some of February's new fiction releases are listed below. To place a hold on any of these titles, please call 828.6091, option 1, or click to use our email form.

Big Girl by Danielle Steel
Brava, Valentine by Adriana Trigiani
Fantasy in Death by J. D. Robb
Flirt by Laurell K. Hamilton
Money to Burn by James Grippando
Poor Little Bitch Girl by Jackie Collins
Split Image by Robert B. Parker
The Wild Zone by Joy Fielding
Worst Case by James Patterson

AND... It's not too late to sign up for the adult winter reading program. The program ends on Sunday, March 7. Click here to sign up and print your reading log! Happy reading!

Author Robert B. Parker, best known for his Spenser mystery series, died Monday while writing at his desk. Expectations are that a new Jesse Stone novel, Split Image, due out next month, and a western titled Blue-Eyed Devil, due out in May, will both be published on schedule. Click here to find your favorite Robert B. Parker novel in our collection.   

Here's a sampling of January's new fiction releases. To place a hold on any of these titles, please call 828.6091, option 1, or click to use our email form.

Blood Ties by Kay Hooper
Burn by Ted Dekker
The First Rule by Robert Crais
Gator-a-Go-Go by Tim Dorsey
Kisser by Stuart Woods
Not My Daughter by Barbara Delinsky
Treasure Hunt by John T. Lescroart

Beginning January 4, we invite all adult readers to "read in the new year" and sign up for the adult winter reading program. You may sign up online or in person to participate and receive your reading log. For every 2 hours of reading completed, you'll get to enter into a prize drawing for gift certificates to downtown Bloomington businesses. Read as much as you'd like, there's no limit to the number of entries a participant may submit. Program ends on Sunday, March 7.

The year is coming to a close and that means numerous "best books" for 2009. Click to view the best books lists from NPR, The New York Times, and Entertainment Weekly (as selected by Stephen King.) I'm sure there are many more. We'd love to hear of ones we missed!

If you are fascinated with Chicago and its sights, check out these new additions to the library's Illinois Collection.

Chicago 1890: The Skyscraper and the Modern City

The Chicago River: A Natural and Unnatural History

Soldier Field: A Stadium and Its City

I subscribe to feeds from the blog EarlyWord. It's a great way to stay on top of what's predicted to be hot in the publishing world, thus creating demand in libraries. A book being made into a movie always generates demand for the book. Here is a list of books being made into movies for the remainder of 2009 and into 2010. 

Here are some of December's new fiction releases. To place a hold on any of these titles, please call 828.6091, option 1, or click to use our email form.

Divine Misdemeanors by Laurell K. Hamilton
The Honor of Spies by W. E. B. Griffin
La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith
Sizzle by Julie Garwood
Trial by Fire by J. A. Jance
U Is For Undertow by Sue Grafton
 

If you enjoy reading biographies, try one of these new biographies found in our Illinois Collection.

A Man of Salt and Trees: The Life of Joy Morton by James Ballowe

Paul Simon: The Political Journey of an Illinois Original by Robert E. Hartley

The Railroad Tycoon Who Built Chicago: A Biography of William B. Ogden by Jack Harpster

Taking a trip this holiday season? Whether you're going 50 miles or 500 to reach your destination, consider an audio book to keep the family entertained. The library has many family-friendly audiobooks to choose from. Classics such as Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder and new favorites such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney are among the choices. CD, cassette, and MP3 CD formats are available, or take advantage of downloading titles from your home computer to your MP3 player or other portable device via My Media Mall. With all these options, you're sure to cure the "are we there yet?" blues.