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There's plenty of things for adults to do this summer at the library. In addition to what's on our calendar of events, there are the following special summer programs, events and contests for you to check out!

Kick off Summer Reading with James Grippando @ the East Library on June 1
Nick Schuyler @ the Main Library on June 15

Looking for something good to read?

Check out our catalog to see whether we have your favorite book, place holds and more. Here's the Water Your Mind reading list below, or click here to find a great read.

Fiction

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Marlow, Conrad’s famous maritime wanderer and narrator, spins a story with a mysterious thread: how he shipped on a steamer bound for Africa; how he landed on the banks of the “the big river”; and how he first heard the name Kurtz, the enigmatic figure at the heart of darkness. Looking for discussion questions? Find them here.

Dorris, Michael. A Yellow Raft in Blue Water. Moving backward in time, Dorris’s critically acclaimed debut novel is a lyrical saga of three generations of Native-American women beset by hardship and torn by angry secrets.

Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. The diary of an Englishman shipwrecked for almost thirty years on a small isolated island where, using wit and industry, he manages to build life anew.

Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit.

Gruen, Sara. Water for Elephants. When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, grifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town.

Hiaasen, Carl. Skinny Dip. Joey Perrone takes revenge on her husband after he tries to kill her and she learns that he’s been part of a scam that is polluting the Everglades.

Maclean, Norman. A River Runs Through It. Based on Norman Maclean’s childhood experiences, A River Runs Through It has established itself as one of the most moving stories of our time with vivid descriptions of life along Montana’s Big Blackfoot River and its near-magical blend of fly fishing with the troubling affections of the heart.

Martel, Yann. The Life of Pi. This brilliant fabulist novel combines the delight of Kipling’s “Just So Stories” with the metaphysical adventure of "Jonah and the Whale," as Pi, the son of a zookeeper, is marooned aboard a lifeboat with a hyena, a wounded zebra, an orangutan, and a tiger.

McBride, James. The Color of Water. The story of James McBride and his mother—a rabbi’s daughter, born in Poland and raised in the South, who fled to Harlem, married a black man, founded a church, and put 12 children through college.

Naipaul, V. S. A Bend in the River. V. S. Naipaul takes us deeply into the life of one man—an Indian who, uprooted by the bloody tides of Third World history, has come to live in an isolated town at the bend of a great river in a newly independent African nation. Naipaul gives us the most convincing and disturbing vision yet of what happens in a place caught between the dangerously alluring modern world and its own tenacious past and traditions.

Nichols, John. The Milagro Beanfield War: A Novel. The day Joe Mondragon illegally irrigated his parent’s beanfield was the day change came to the small southwestern town of Milagro. How a small town of disenfranchised people came to rally over Joe’s beanfield and reclaim their own lost rights is a story that remains funny, fresh, and inspiring.

Sparks, Nicholas. Message in a Bottle. Divorcee Theresa Osborne thinks she is done with love, but when she plucks a message from a bottle found on the beach, she becomes obsessed with finding the man who had written a tender love letter to Catherine.

Non-Fiction

Childs, Craig. The Secret Knowledge of Water. Naturalist and adventurer Craig Childs seeks out water in the place where it is most rare: the American desert. In a narrative of exploration into unknown canyons and across remote arid expanses, Childs searches for water that is hidden, water that moves, and fierce water that kills without mercy.

Community Gardening. This all-region guide, filled with hands-on tips, offers a snapshot of today’s vibrant North American community gardening movement.

Conroy, Pat. The Water Is Wide. The first-person account of the year spent by the author teaching black children on an impoverished island off the South Carolina coast.

Container Gardening: 250 Design Ideas and Step-by-Step Techniques by the editors of Fine Gardening. A smart and sensible gardening guide.

Dunnett, Nigel. Rain Gardens: Managing Water Sustainably in the Garden and Designed Landscape. Explains the methods of collecting and managing water to enhance the garden and benefit the environment.

Hock, Randolph. The Extreme Searcher’s Internet Handbook: A Guide for the Serious Searcher. An essential guide for anyone who conducts research on the Internet—including librarians, teachers, students, business professionals, and writers.

Junger, Sebastian. The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea. In October 1991, three raging weather fronts, one of them a powerful hurricane, combined in the North Atlantic to form the greatest storm in recorded history. Caught in the storm was the swordfishing boat Andrea Gail. A hair-raising, true adventure story.

Kinder, Gary. Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea. Chronicles the sinking of the S.S. Central America in 1857 about 200 miles off the Carolina coast, and her recovery in the mid-1980s.

Kingsolver, Barbara. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. When Kingsolver and her family move from suburban Arizona to rural Appalachia, they take on a new challenge: to spend a year on a locally produced diet, paying close attention to the provenance of all they consume.

Lansing, Alfred. Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage. In 1914, an expedition headed by Sir Ernest Shackleton set out to be the first to cross the continent of Antarctica. Shipwrecked and marooned for months on end, their ill-fated voyage became a triumphant story of indomitable courage and faith in the face of astounding obstacles.

Lord, Walter. A Night to Remember. A classic and completely riveting account of the Titanic’s fatal collision and the behavior of the passengers and crew, both noble and ignominious.

McBride, James. The Color of Water. The story of James McBride and his mother—a rabbi’s daughter, born in Poland and raised in the South, who fled to Harlem, married a black man, founded a church, and put 12 children through college.

Millard, Candice. The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey. The harrowing story of Theodore Roosevelt’s expedition in 1913 down an unknown tributary of the Amazon River in Brazil known as the River of Doubt.

Pearce, Fred. When the Rivers Run Dry: Water—The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century. Veteran science correspondent Fred Pearce travels to more than 30 countries to examine the current state of crucial water sources.

Phillips, Christopher. Socrates Café: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy. Motivated by charismatic optimism and passionate ideals, Christopher Phillips has traveled around the country, gathering people to participate in Socrates Cafés in bookstores, senior centers, elementary schools and universities, and a prison. These philosophic exchanges reveal sometimes surprising, often profound reflections on the meaning of love, friendship, work, growing old, and more.

Preston-Campbell, Brian. Cool Waters: 50 Refreshing, Healthy, Homemade Thirst Quenchers. Recipes for healthy one-of-a-kind drinks with names like Pineapple and Lime Seltzer, Pomegranate Flair, and Mint Mist.

Raban, Jonathan. Old Glory. Travel writer Jonathan Raban realizes a lifelong dream as he navigates the waters of the Mississippi River in a spartan sixteen-foot motorboat.

Robertson, Dougal. Survive the Savage Sea. After their 43-foot schooner was stove in by a pod of killer whales, the six members of the Robertson family spent 37 days adrift in the Pacific. With no maps, compass, or navigational instruments, and rations for only three days, they used every survival technique they could as they battled 20-foot waves, marauding sharks, thirst, starvation, and exhaustion.

Royte, Elizabeth. Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It. An incisive and habit-changing narrative investigation into the commercialization of our most basic human need: drinking water.

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. Recounts the author’s experiences living independently, away from society in a small house in the woods around Walden Pond near Concord in Massachusetts. The result is an intriguing work that blends natural history with philosophical insights. Discussion questions at BookTalk.org.

Films

The African Queen. 105 minutes. Not rated. In Africa during WW1, a gin-swilling riverboat owner/captain is persuaded by a strait-laced missionary to use his boat to attack an enemy warship.

Beach Party/Bikini Beach. 198 minutes. Not rated. These beach party movies from the sixties with Robert Cummings, Frankie Avalon, and Annette Funicello are great nostalgia films—fun for a summer movie fling at the library.

Jaws. 124 minutes. Rated PG. There has never been a movie or a phenomenon like Jaws, one of the most popular films of all time. Directed by Steven Spielberg 30 years ago, Jaws continues to shock moviegoers with its riveting tale of three men who become allied in a life-and-death hunt to destroy a killer embodying nearly three tons of instant white death.

Flow: For Love of Water. 84 minutes. Not rated. Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century—The World Water Crisis.

The Perfect Storm. 130 min. Rated PG. The Perfect Storm depicts the plight of one swordfishing ship, the ill-fated Andrea Gail, and her crew during the greatest storm in modern history. While friends and family on shore could only worry and hope to rescue them, a brave crew, played by George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, and others, fight nature and struggle for survival against hurricane-force winds and hundred-foot waves.

The Pirates of Penzance. 122 minutes. Rated PG. This musical comedy is an adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta. Frederic has been taught how to be a feared sea-faring pirate by the mighty Pirate King (Kevin Kline) since he was a young boy. Upon reaching his 21st birthday and, more importantly, upon falling in love with the sweet Mabel, he decides that a vocational change is in order. This does not fit in with the Pirate King’s plan of high sea raiding, and a riotous battle of wills ensues!

Poseidon. 98 minutes. PG-13. As passengers are celebrating New Year’s Eve, a giant wave crashes into their ship and upends it in the North Atlantic. A rogue group of survivors ignores the captain’s orders and heads on a treacherous journey into the ship to try to find their own way out in this epic adventure.

Titanic 193 minutes. Rated PG. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and a cast of hundreds, the journey of the Titanic begins in the present, at the site of the ship’s watery grave. Hidden within the tragic ruins, amidst the lost stories of well-wishers bidding bon voyage and tales of immigrants, destiny has brought together two young souls—a beautiful socialite and a penniless artist—in a romance so passionate that nothing on earth could stop it.

Trouble the Water. 93 minutes. Not Rated. An aspiring rap artist and her streetwise husband, armed with a video camera, show what survival is all about when they are trapped in New Orleans by deadly floodwaters, and seize a chance for a new beginning. An educational DVD is available.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Warner Home Video, 2006. 178 minutes. (DVD) Not Rated. Michael Caine and Patrick Dempsey star in this undersea adventure based on the novel by Jules Verne.