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