New Collection of "Who Was..." Book Series

The new collection of the "Who was...?" youth nonfiction series is now ready to be checked out. 

First Sunday Lecture: The Corner Store & Its Role in African American Culture

Dr. Seneca Vaught today discussed the historical role the “Corner Store” (often called “Mom & Pops” or “bodegas”) has played in African-American culture and how it has evolved over time. 

Dr. Vaught is an Assistant Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at Kennesaw State University in the Departments of History and Interdisciplinary Studies.

The "First Sunday" lecture series is held in the Smyrna Public Library Meeting Room and is jointly sponsored by the Friends of Smyrna Library.

FOSL Celebrates 20 Years of Library Service

Congratulations to Ruth Hayden for 20 years of service with the Smyrna Public Library. Ruth is the Technical Services Librarian and manages the library’s large collection. We are thrilled to celebrate her many years of great service to the library’s patrons!

Hard-Boiled Hollywood Lecture by Jennifer Garlen

Thank you, Dr. Garlen.  Your film noir presentation today entitled “Hard-Boiled Hollywood” was fantastic.  

Author and classic movie blogger Dr. Jennifer Garlen provided an introduction to the films and literary roots of classic film noir, with special emphasis on iconic pictures like "The Maltese Falcon" (1941), "Double Indemnity" (1944), and "Touch of Evil" (1958). The attendees learned about private eyes and deadly dames as played by some of classic Hollywood's greatest stars, including Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Mitchum, and Veronica Lake.

The attending crowd also enjoyed refreshments and prizes.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Jennifer C. Garlen holds degrees in English Literature from Agnes Scott College, Georgia Southern University, and Auburn University. She teaches for LearningQuest in Huntsville, Alabama, and is the author of several books, including Beyond Casablanca: 100 Classic Movies Worth Watching and the YA fantasy novel, Wierm's Egg.  

Winter 2016 Reading List & Featured Book

Featured Book:

The Goldfinch
by Donna Tartt

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, October 2013: It's hard to articulate just how much--and why--The Goldfinch held such power for me as a reader. Always a sucker for a good boy-and-his-mom story, I probably was taken in at first by the cruelly beautiful passages in which 13-year-old Theo Decker tells of the accident that killed his beloved mother and set his fate. But even when the scene shifts--first Theo goes to live with his schoolmate’s picture-perfect (except it isn’t) family on Park Avenue, then to Las Vegas with his father and his trashy wife, then back to a New York antiques shop--I remained mesmerized. Along with Boris, Theo’s Ukrainian high school sidekick, and Hobie, one of the most wonderfully eccentric characters in modern literature, Theo--strange, grieving, effete, alcoholic and often not close to honorable Theo--had taken root in my heart. Still, The Goldfinch is more than a 700-plus page turner about a tragic loss: it’s also a globe-spanning mystery about a painting that has gone missing, an examination of friendship, and a rumination on the nature of art and appearances. Most of all, it is a sometimes operatic, often unnerving and always moving chronicle of a certain kind of life. “Things would have turned out better if she had lived,” Theo said of his mother, fourteen years after she died. An understatement if ever there was one, but one that makes the selfish reader cry out: Oh, but then we wouldn’t have had this brilliant book! --Sara Nelson

SOURCE: Copyright © Amazon.com. All rights reserved.

Winter 2016 Recommended Reading Selections

Blue by Danielle Steel 
Fractured Era: Legacy Code Bundle by Autumn Kalquist
Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman 
January Calendar Girl Book 1 by Audrey Carlan
My American Duchess by Eloisa James
My name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
Non Campus Mentis by Anders Henriksson 
NYPD by James Patterson
Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino 
Spark Joy by Marie Kondo
Spider Game by Christine Feehan
Staked by Kevin Hearne
Stranger Than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk 
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson
The Choice by Nicholas Sparks
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
The Last Anniversary by Liana Moriarty
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up by Marie Kondo
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
The Revenant by Michael Punke
Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman 
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
Toughest Indian in the World by Sherman Alexie
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

Compiled by FOSL Volunteer

First Sunday Lecture: The Metamorphosis of Downtown Smyrna, 1875 to 2002

Dr. William Marchione, author of A Brief History of Smyrna, presented detailed and thoroughly researched lecture titled “The Metamorphosis of Downtown Smyrna - 1838 to 2002” today. 

The presentation started by explaining the forces fostered the development of the thriving commercial district in and around intersection of Atlanta Road and Spring Street in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Every decade from the 1830s to the to the present time was included. 

Also presented were complete details on the factors led to the complete demolition of that once thriving commercial center in the late 1980s, and to its reincarnation as the modern, planned downtown we enjoy today.

The "First Sunday" lecture series is held in the Smyrna Public Library Meeting Room and is jointly sponsored by the Friends of Smyrna Library.

   

People's Choice Awards for 2015

The votes are in for the People's Choice Awards for 2015 Fiction & Non-Fiction. And the Myrna goes to...