I know it’s a little late to be posting this, but I couldn’t resist. Every year, one of my favorite BBC Radio 4 programs broadcasts a Christmas travel quiz in front of a live audience.
Both presenters and participants have a lot of fun, and it’s amazing how much you learn about our planet and the myriad cultures that populate it.
So go on, have a listen, and remember to keep track of your own score to see how you measure up!
The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements: That’s the full title of the book folks, and yes, it’s time to get in touch with your inner geek.
This film was the winner of numerous international awards, including nine Clarín Entertainment Awards (Argentina) and the 2010 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
1999. Recently-retired Argentinean federal justice agent Benjamín Espósito decides to write a book about a cold case that occurred 25 years earlier. The brutal rape and murder of Liliana Coloto, her husband Ricardo Morales’s reaction, and the unresolved question of whether or not the crime was perpetrated by a childhood friend of the murder victim named Isidoro Gómez have haunted Benjamín for years.
Visit the Mt. Pleasant Library with your friends and have fun making your own crafty and creative gelt bag. Materials provided by the Friends of the Mt. Pleasant Library.
Ages: 8-12
Date: Wednesday December 8
Time: 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Meet Balram Halwai: servant, philosopher, entrepreneur, murderer. During the course of seven nights, this shameless, wily man will reveal to us through a series of letters everything there is to know about who he is and everything he did to reach his present station in life—leaving very little to the imagination when it comes to his opinions on just about all aspects of life.
Narrated in a brisk, searing manner, The White Tiger pulls no punches in its portrayal of a modern, vibrant India, a developing nation chomping at the bit, eager to make the jump from much-touted up-and-comer, to established global powerhouse.
In 1925 British explorer Percy Fawcett traveled to the Amazon jungle to find an ancient civilization believed to have lived there in the city of Z, a fabled El Dorado long-rumored to be located deep in the South American wilderness. Undaunted by the numerous failed expeditions that preceded his, he embarked on this dangerous journey with his son. Neither he nor any of his company ever returned.
Forget the turkey and cranberries, let’s celebrate peanut butter! That’s right peanut butter lovers, a whole month just for you, sadly overshadowed by that media maniac turkey.
Peanut butter has a rich history behind it going back as early as 15th-century Africa, where it was used and is still used today in yummy stews. In the U.S. Civil War, soldiers were known to dine on “peanut porridge,” and we all know that in 1903, Dr. George Washington Carver began his peanut research at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
When his orchestra is dismantled, Daigo Kobayashi decides to move back to the small town of his childhood with his wife to regroup. In need of a job, he answers an advertisement in the local newspaper for a specialist in “Departures,” without even being sure of what this might mean. Turns out, it’s for a “Nokanshi,” a funeral professional that, in Japan, is much more than your run-of-the-mill undertaker.
Small Island centers on the lives of four immigrants to London: Hortense Joseph, newly-arrived from Jamaica in 1948; her husband Gilbert Joseph, just returned from the war expecting to be treated as a war hero and not a second-class citizen; their landlady Queenie, raised as a farmer’s daughter; and her husband Bernard, also returned from the war with his own issues to resolve. Winner of the Orange Prize and the Whitbread Book of the Year, this is the quintessential story of immigrants to any land, of opportunities taken and lost, of moments of tenderness and cruelty, of understanding and fear.
This is not your average teen tale. In a post-apocalyptic world infected by the unconsecrated (zombies), young Mary must decide if there could be life beyond the fences of her small world ... in the forbidden forest , and if there is does she betray her upbringing and risk everything, including death, to find out? Once out, there is no turning back, and Mary and several others must push forward while trying to survive in the forest of hand and teeth.
