New at the library

Listed below are several of the great new travel books recently arrived at the library. Come check them (and many others) out!

Where to Go When: The Best Destinations All Year Round





The Seven States of Minnesota: Driving Tours Through the History, Geology, Culture and Natural Glory of the North Star State


America's Best Zoos: A Travel Guide for Fans and Families

At the library this week

Coming to the library this Saturday at 10:30 am will be birds of prey, courtesy of the University of Minnesota Raptor Center. The Raptor Center describes their hour long program as "packed with age-appropriate information that is both educational and entertaining. All outreach programs include a raptor education specialist, at least three live raptors, and a variety of hands-on props and activities that make this program a complete educational experience."

Lots more changes!

On Friday after hours, a group of library board members and employees volunteered their time to come in and make some dramatic changes to the location and layout of items in the library. The biggest change is that the children's non-fiction books have been moved to the children's area. Now all our children's books are in the same part of the library, making it easier for kids to find things. We've also added display tables and seating and moved things around to create a more open and welcoming space. Come in and check things out!

Changes to the children's area

Those of you who have been to the library this week may have noticed a number of changes to the layout of our children's area. We have added to and reconfigured the shelving in the anticipation of the move of all the children's non-fiction books back to that part of the library. In conjunction with that change, we have moved the Internet PC that was there over to the adult area, as well as moved the children's game PCs (and removed one of them to make more room for books). Stay tuned - there are more improvements to come!

New DVDs

Among the latest DVDs to arrive at the library are:

The Savages (Rotten Tomatoes rating 91%)




Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Rotten Tomatoes rating 87%)




Tudors: The Complete First Season




In the Land of Women (Rotten Tomatoes rating 43%)





Mad Money (Rotten Tomatoes rating 21%)

China

Has watching the Summer Olympics whetted your appetite for more information about China? Come to the library to check out any of these books (or any of the many other books on China we own):

The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom




Etiquette guide to China : know the rules that make the difference






From Wall Street to the Great Wall : how investors can profit from China's booming economy

MPR reporter Annie Baxter to speak at library

Annie Baxter, a Minnesota Public Radio reporter and author, will read from her work from 7 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 13 at the Red Wing Public Library. She is a resident fellow this month at the Anderson Center at Tower View. A selection of her radio work can be found at the Minnesota Public Radio website.

Award winning books

It's quite easy on the Internet to start with an award and see which books have won that award. Most major awards have a web site and maintain a list of winners. See our Awards and Bestsellers web page for lots of links. It's much harder to start with a book and see what awards it has won, or to look for books that have won lots of awards - at least it used to be. Now you can go to Award Annals and looks through "over 9,000 creative works that have received some of over 160 book awards, film awards, and music awards."

Foreign policy

New at the library is Newsweek columnist Fareed Zakaria's latest work, The Post-American World. In it, he describes "a world in which the U.S. will no longer dominate the global economy. He sees the "rise of the rest" as the great story of our time, and one that will reshape the world."

A few of the many other recent books on this topic available at the library include:

Reconciliation: Islam, democracy, and the West by Benazir Bhutto





The War for Wealth: The True Story of Globalization, or Why the Flat World is Broken




Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power

At the library this week

Get comfortable in your pajamas and come listen to bedtime stories read by the new Miss Red Wing Royalty at Pat's Pajama Party on Tuesday, August 5 at 7 pm!

College courses for free!

According to the College Board, the average annual cost of a private 4 year university is $23,712. But there is a way to take college courses for free, without homework or exams, and taught by the the top professors in the country: check out from the library one or more of the Great Courses series, available on CD or audiocassette. For example, one such course is Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality, taught by Robert Sapolsky. Dr. Sapolsky is a Professor of Neuroscience at Stanford University in its Program in Molecular and Genetic Medicine and a recipient of a MacArthur "genius" fellowship and several teaching awards.

The publisher describes the course as discussing "behavioral biology, a field that explores interactions among the brain, mind, body, and environment that have a surprising influence on how we behave. In short, it is the study of how our brains make us the individuals that we are. In 24 lectures, you will investigate how the human brain is sculpted by evolution, constrained or freed by genes, shaped by early experience, modulated by hormones, and otherwise influenced to produce a wide range of behaviors, some of them abnormal. You will see that little can be explained by thinking about any one of these factors alone because some combination of influences is almost always at work."