Are you bored reading everything in English?

You can borrow books from the Library in 17 other languages, both fiction and nonfiction:

1. Bengali

2. Chinese

3. French

4. German

5. Greek

6. Hebrew

7. Hungarian

8. Italian

9. Japanese

10 Korean

11. Latin

12. Marathi

13. Polish

14. Portuguese

15. Russian

16. Spanish

17. Yiddish

You’ll find them all at the back of the second floor, with the exception of Russian books, which are shelved at the back of the third floor. ¡Feliz lectura!

Gift ideas for readers, 2008

See what the library staff is recommending in our annual Books Librarians Give list!

Not enough ideas for you?  Check our our lists from 2007, 2006, and 2005.

And here’s more:

Greater Boston (WGBH-TV)’s list of holiday books (and movies), with local authors and Mary Cotton from Newtonville Books–video of the show is here.

The Books of ’08 from WBUR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook.

NPR has a whole page of “Best Books” lists, covering booksellers’ picks, fiction, crime & mystery novels, graphic novels, foreign fiction, cookbooks, and more.

And Book Group Buzz has a roundup of a few more lists here.

Interestingly, none of these lists overlap very much, demonstrating that there’s a great book out there for everyone!

Books make great gifts?  Why?  Read more here (with more gift book ideas, too!).

Do you have holiday gift favorites?  Click here to comment and add your own suggestions!

Happy reading!

Do you like audiobooks?

If you enjoy listening to audiobooks–whether checked out of the library on tape or CD, or downloaded–you might be interested in the Audiobooker blog.  Written by a “teacher, librarian, and audiobook addict,” the blog has listening suggestions, links to free downloadable audiobooks, information on MP3 players, and more.  Happy listening!

Celebrate National Reading Group Month!

An initiative of the Women’s National Book Association, October is National Reading Group Month! Celebrate the joy of shared reading, and if you don’t already belong to one, join or start a book group! (Book Group Buzz has a great list of Book Group Resources.)

Events will be held around the country, including  a readers’ round-robin at Hotel 140 in Boston (140 Clarendon St.), Sat., Oct. 25; 2-5 p.m., with Joan Anderson (The Second Journey, Hyperion); Ann Harleman (The Year She Disappeared, Univ. of Texas Press); Jennifer Haigh (The Condition, HarperCollins); Judith Nies (The Girl I Left Behind, HarperCollins); Deborah Noyes (Angel and Apostle, Unbridled Books); and Gina Ogden (The Return of Desire, Trumpeter). Contact: Laurie Beckelman, lbeckelman@aol.com, or Katherine Dibble, kdibble@att.net.

Do you have a book group?

Check out Book Group Buzz, a blog “about all things book group,” from Booklist Online.  You’ll find reading lists, reviews, tips and resources for book groups, links to author websites, reading guides, and more.