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The digital revolution notwithstanding, there are still simple pleasures
that require no booting-up, no sophisticated shutting down and no energy
source beyond that provided by those who enjoy them.
Delivered through devices that never crash, that advertise nothing, that
are widely available to all, these pleasures are the raison d’etre for
“Celebrate the Center for the Book” -- a series of Newport Beach Central
Library programs that will promote the joys of reading and the legacy of
libraries.
Planned in conjunction with the library’s designation as a California
Center for the Book, the programs will advance the message of the Center
of the Book, a major Library of Congress division, which has noted on its
logo since 1977 that “books give us wings.”
“How a Book Comes to Be,” featuring illustrator Robin Preiss Glasser,
will launch the celebration at 2 p.m. March 25. Children will dramatize
Glasser’s “You Can’t Take a Balloon Into the Metropolitan Museum,” a
whimsical picture story about a girl’s trip to New York City’s famed
museum and the parallel journey of her balloon.
While the tale is told without text, it blends all the elements of a
winning narrative: engaging setting, lively characterization, absorbing
conflict and the power to inspire individual interpretations from each
“reader.”
Throughout April, photographs from “Library: the Drama Within,” a
nostalgic tribute to libraries published in association with the Center
for the Book, will be displayed at the Central Library.
While capturing a sense of the variety of the world’s libraries, the
photographs reveal that people, as well as books, find shelter in the
stacks.
At 7 p.m. April 11, Diane Asseo Griliches, the photographer who snapped
60 views of “one of the very few institutions ... where any soul may walk
through its doors free and depart enriched” will present “Tales from the
Road.”
Through anecdotes gleaned from the six years she spent photographing
libraries around the globe, Griliches will reveal why she concluded it is
the readers inside who create a library’s drama.
On tap for 7 p.m. May 17 is a reading from “Demolition Angel,” the ninth
novel by mystery writer Robert Crais. Although this new thriller by the
author of the popular Elvis Cole tales does not star the wisecracking
detective, Crais introduces an equally captivating protagonist in Carol
Starkey, a Los Angeles Police Department detective pitted against a
brilliant assassin.
Fans of the investigative crime genre won’t want to miss this
presentation by a Santa Monica-based writer critics have called the next
Raymond Chandler.
While providing entertaining interludes, all of these programs will
advance Center of the Book goals: heightening public interest in books
and printing, promoting reading, and encouraging the interdisciplinary
study of print and electronic culture.
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