Finley Public Library

  Book Reviews   | |

May 12, 2014

 

We had another winner in our Finley Library Trivia Contest--Ardell and Carol Lovejoy!  Congratulations! They  will receive a great book of their choice from Finley Library!  He and Carol correctly answered Anne Frank. This week's question is:  Who is the author  who in 1999 sold 23 million books about her bespectacled young hero?  Come by the library during regular hours (Thursday 6:30-8 P.M. and Friday 2-5 P.M.)  You may also answer on our Facebook page at Finley Public Library.  Good luck!
 
Thanks for the donations of several new-to-us paperbacks (PB).  Here's some titles we didn't have in paperback, but do now!  Family Ties, The Sins of the Mother, Until the end of Time all by Danielle Steel; Mad River by John Sanford; Bygones, The Gamble and Hummingbird by LaVyrle Spencer; Just Kate by Linda Lael Miller; Balancing Act by Fern Michaels; Jake, the 3rd in the Wyoming Sky series by R. C. Ryan; and Losing Isaiah by Seth J. Margolis.  They are all on the shelves along the hall and in the Paperback Room.
 
Remember June 12, 2014, our Open House at the library, celebrating 25 years here on Broadway and Joyce Jerstad's retirement from the board after 25 years!
 
Here's a review for you:
 
Max by Howard Fast.  (HC/LP) (NDSL books)  Whether you are a movie buff  or not, this book should be on your reading list if only because it so accurately depicts the beginnings of the "motion picture" and the "talking picture."  Of course, the fact that author Fast is a great writer of a myriad of  wonderful books including the six books in the Lavette Family series (The Immigrants et al) might sway you as well!  Max is a lower East Side (NYC) Jewish child of twelve when his father dies in 1891 and leaves him with the responsibility of feeding, clothing, and keeping a roof over the heads of his mother and five siblings. Max is an amazing child, full of ideas and ways to make money in a time when pennies counted for so much. He begins by buying bagels and taking them around to factories, selling to the workers.  Moving on he began getting "free" tickets to stage plays from business owners who got them free for allowing posters of the shows put up in the windows of their establishments. He would then sell them to "street ladies" in his neighborhood because they could afford them and they wanted to "better  themselves."  Then he is able to buy a a storefront shop that he turns into a Nickelodeon where he charges five cents for twenty minutes of "moving pictures" done in the "magic lantern" method.  He is a complete innovator, so as various negative events happen to him, he made changes that led forward to his future in "moving pictures."  Max was a conglomeration that allowed Fast to write this well-researched and factual "history lesson," but I was enthralled by him, his mind and the changes he wrought in this industry.
 

 
 
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