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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 7, 2011)
Page 12 The INDEPENDENT, December 7, 2011 Between the Bookends By Susan Cackler, Library Assistant Banks Public Library Thanks to everyone who helped to make the latest bookfair a successful fundrais- er for the Friends of the Banks Public Library. Many people placed orders online or shopped in the store. Others bought books to donate to the library, and still others enter- tained the public with fiber samples and crafts. Plans for renovation continue, although no start date has been set. Work on the Public Works Build- ing should start this month and work on the library will begin after the Public Works building is completed. In preparation for the work, the library is not accepting donations of books until after work has been complet- ed. Also, the community room is no longer available for rental since the library will be expanding into that space. With the change of seasons comes the possibility of worsening weather conditions. If roads are snowy or icy, call the library at 503 324-1382 to make sure that we have been able to open. Also, if you are un- able to come to the library to return items because of weather conditions, give us a call and we will renew them for you. Join us for craft night Wednesday, December 14 from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. in the community room. Enjoy some lively conversation while you work on your fa- vorite craft. Come and meet some new friends or visit with old ones while using the library’s work space and enjoying some light snacks. You may find knitters, scrapbookers, quilters and maybe even a tatter or two. If you would like to be on an e-mail reminder list for craft night, call the library with your name and e-mail. Come to the library for story time on Wednesdays and let your kids enjoy some great stories. Our read- er, Miss Cathy, picks a few stories around a theme each week and shares these stories with the children in an entertaining, engaging way. Join us for Pre- school Story Time on Wednesdays at 10:15 a.m. in the community room of the library. Story Time is de- signed for children aged three to six, but younger sib- lings are welcome. The themes for December are: December 7: Crazy Critters December 14: Happy Holidays There will not be storytime on December 21 or 28. The Friends of the Banks Public Library can always use your support. You can make a tax deductible do- nation, become a member, or volunteer. Money that the Friends raise helps the library purchase Cultural Passes, upgrade equipment and purchase books and movies. Also, we take donations of books that are in good condition. On the Shelf: We have just added many new titles to our adult non-fiction collection. Here are descriptions of just a few: Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer. On av- erage, people squander forty days annually compen- sating for things they’ve forgotten. Foer was like most people in this regard, then he spent a year training his memory and ended up in the finals of the U.S. Memo- ry Championship. This book chronicles how he im- proved his memory, including cutting-edge research as well as centuries-old techniques, to double his abil- ity to memorize digits and concretely improve his re- call ability in other ways. It is also a story about the im- portance of memory and what it means to a culture. And it is a story about how being able to memorize long strings of numbers may not be much help as one might hope in day-to-day life, when he tells of taking the train home from a restaurant – although he had driven his car there. A Covert Affair by Jennet Conant. Julia Child is fa- miliar to most of Check out our Month Long Specials More Month Long Specials in available in store All 24 pack Pepsi Products $7.95 + Deposit Bandon 2 lb Medium Cheeder Cheese $6.49 660 So. Main, Banks • 503-324-2171 us as the host of an iconic cooking show. The book and film “Julie and Julia” showed the world a softer side. Now, this book brings another facet of the fasci- nating woman’s fascinating life to light. Single and 30 years-old during World War II, Julia joined the staff of Colonel William Donovan and volunteered to be part of the OSS’s ambitious mission to develop a secret in- telligence network across Southeast Asia. It was on her first assignment that she met Paul Child, the old- er, sophisticated man who would become her hus- band. The two witness the end of the war in China and the beginnings of the Communist revolution that would shake the world. Finally, Conant depicts what hap- pened to the couple in the 50s during McCarthy’s Red spy hunt. The Social Animal by David Brooks. Brooks, New York Times columnist and author of Bobos in Par- adise, has long explored and explained the way we live. Now, he turns his attention to the building blocks of human success. Much has been learned about the human brain in the last 30 years. The unconscious mind, it turns out, is most of the mind, where most of the brain’s work gets done. This is the realm of emo- tions, intuitions, biases, longings, genetic predisposi- tions, personality traits and social norms. In short, it is where character is formed and our most important life decisions are made. Brooks creates characters to il- lustrate these social aspects of our minds, and show how it is that our social characteristics, more than IQ or rationalism, determine how successful we will be. Banks Public Library: 111 Market Street. Hours: Mon., Fri., Sat., 11 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Tue., Wed., Thur., 11 a.m.-7:00 p.m. Preschool Story Time: Wednesdays, 10:15 a.m. Phone: (503 ) 324-1382 for information Internet: www.wccls.org Browse library resources, reserve or renew materials online. Call for information. Learn to protect your family during an emergency On any given day, news headlines highlight disasters or other emergencies across the U.S., causing Americans to evaluate their own levels of safety. Whether looking back 10 years at the tragedy of the 9/11 attacks or remembering the high levels of floods, torna- does, tsunamis, earthquakes and other natural disasters 2011 has wrought, we are con- stantly reminded of the impera- tive to be fully prepared for the unexpected. According to the Federal Signal 2011 Public Safety Sur- vey, half of Americans feel they are less safe today than they were prior to the 9/11 tragedy. In addition, almost 4 out of 10 consider their city or town to be slightly to completely unpre- pared in the event of an emer- gency, including unexpected emergency risks such as natu- ral disasters, terrorism and health pandemics. December 7 is Pearl Harbor Day. A day of remembrance set aside to commemorate the attack on Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor during World War II. “This survey speaks vol- umes to perceptions about the current state of public safety awareness and emergency preparedness and reminds us solutions must come from year- round, community-wide en- gagement and action,” noted Joe Wilson, president of Feder- al Signal’s Industrial Systems Division, Safety & Security Group. “In addition, we need to remind Americans what individ- uals and families can and should do on their own.” While recognition should be given for the advances in safe- ty preparedness, continuous efforts need to be made with visible progress to make Amer- icans feels safer and ready to respond during a state of emergency. Even though pub- lic safety officials are responsi- ble for enhancing awareness and preparedness, it is the re- sponsibility of each individual to be ready when disasters See Learn on page 15
