Astray

The characters who roam across the pages of Donoghue’s short story collection have all gone astray.  They are emigrants, runaways, drifters, gold miners and counterfeiters, attorneys and slaves.  Inspired by various newspaper articles and stories from the last four centuries, these wanderings have profound echoes in the present.  “Splendid…. [An] original and compelling collection,” The Boston Globe .

Closing Reminder

 The library is closed on March 31 for Easter Sunday.

Wilton Library Association’s Annual Report for FY 2011-2012 is now available for viewing. The report has letters from retiring Board of Trustees president Judy Higby and executive director Kathy Leeds and is replete with images of wonderful happenings throughout the year. From children coloring and looking at books to people’s need for warmth and shelter, the report is a reminder of how important the library is to the community and in turn, how important the community is to the library. Thank you for your support. Copies are available in the reading area, as well as at the circulation desk.

Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World

On November 14, 1889 , Nellie Bly, the crusading young female reporter for Joseph Pulitzer’s World newspaper, left New York City by steamship on a quest to break the record for the fastest trip around the world. Also departing from New York that day–and heading in the opposite direction by train–was a young journalist from The Cosmopolitan magazine, Elizabeth Bisland.  The dramatic race that ensued would span twenty-eight thousand miles, captivate the nation, and change both competitors’ lives forever.

Be Fee Free—Your Email is Key!

As part of our migration to WILS (Wilton Library’s Integrated Library System, aka The Catalog), Wilton Library is now generating email and TXT notices in-house–moving away from using Library ELF (a paid vendor) and resulting in a significant cost saving to the library.

WILS is happy to send you:

Email and TXT notices of:

• Request Pickup Notices with an expiration date—allowing you to know the date by which you must pick up your requested items (“holds”)
• Almost Overdue Notices—lists which items are “amost due” with an additional summary of all items checked out to you
• Overdue Items Notices
• Patron Library Membership Expiration Notice—advises that your Wilton Library card will soon expire, giving you enough time to renew.

If you are still paying late fees because you forgot that your library item was due or if you want to know ASAP when that item you had on hold becomes available, we have the solution.  Save both money and time by signing up your email address or cell phone text number to receive notices on all of your family’s accounts. We don’t use your email address or cell phone number for any other purpose than to alert you about materials you have coming due, are overdue, or might be waiting for. It’s simple and fast to add your email or cell number and sign up for alerts –here’s how you do it:

• Click on Your Account in the upper right hand corner of the homepage
• You will be directed to log into your account with your Wilton Library card barcode and the last 4 digits of your phone number
• Under Contact Information and Preferences, add either your email address or cell phone number with service provider and then select to receive email or TXT message alerts
• Save the changes, log out and you will start automatically receiving emails or text messages about your Library materials

Please contact Mary Anne Mendola Franco at mamfranco@wiltonlibrary.org if you have any questions.

We have access to downloadable eBooks and Audiobooks through our partnership with Library Connection and OverDrive.  OverDrive has just updated with new interface improvements.

Visit the new and improved Library Connection OverDrive site or visit our OverDrive page for help and instructions.

If you have any questions, you may contact Mary Anne Mendola Franco (203-762-3950, Ext. 210; mamfranco@wiltonlibrary.org), Dale Cates (Ext. 264;dcates@wiltonlibrary.org), or Thomas Kozak (Ext. 240; tkozak@wiltonlibrary.org).

Happy Reading!

Beautiful Ruins

The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet.   And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio’s back lot—searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier. “Why mince words?  [It] is an absolute masterpiece,” Richard Russo.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

Winner of the National Book Award for 2012, this narrative nonfiction tells the dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the twenty-first century’s great, unequal cities. “A triumph of a book – a beautiful account, told through real-life stories, of the sorrows and joys, anxieties and stamina, in the lives of the precarious and powerless in urban India,” Amartya Sen, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Photo by Michael Franco

Dave Brubeck: 1920-2012

Dave Brubeck’s magnificent, distinctive, and unique music enlivened the room that bears his name. His musical genius brought joy to our library and to the World. We knew him as a library patron, supporter, fellow Wiltonian, humanitarian, gentleman, and most of all, as a very special friend of Wilton Library. He will be sadly missed by all of us! We invite you to share your thoughts and memories of Dave in the Remembrance Book located in the library’s gallery.

A Community Celebration of the Life and Music of Dave Brubeck will take place on Saturday, January 12th at the Clune Center at 8:00PM. We look forward to seeing you there.

Elaine Tai-Lauria
Executive Director