If you cannot attend the book sale, please drop by the Friends Bookstore located inside the Mitchell Park Library, Downtown Library, and Rinconada Library, and open during library hours. They are restocked regularly with a unique selection of books for all ages and interests.

 
Suggestions?

FOPAL saying a fond farewell to long-time volunteers extraordinaire Althea Andersen & Marcia Goodman!

FOPAL has a legion of volunteers whose hard work throughout the years has made FOPAL the successful Friends group it is today. But few volunteers have become as familiar and steadying a presence at FOPAL as Althea Andersen & Marcia Goodman!

FOPAL customers recognize these two from their consistent whereness each and every month. On sale Saturdays Althea begins her day before 8am managing the Ephemera sale held outside the Main Room. Weather permitting, Althea can be found presiding over many treasures. She has a loyal following of buyers, some of whom shop the Ephemera section outside while they are waiting for entry into the main room on book sale days. Marcia is an early arriver to her morning main room cashiering position each sale Saturdays as well. She also taking time to check out what's going on in the "sorting room", as Marcia is the editor of FOPAL's sorter handbook: What goes where, a guide for sorters, now in its third edition.

Althea Andersen and Marcia Goodman will be volunteering at their final sale this month and both will be moving close to family as they begin new chapters in their lives. Please take a moment to wish these two tremendous volunteers well and thank them for their individual decade plus years of commitment to literacy and community service!

 
Member's Corner - New Membership Benefits - Members Early Book Sale

The FOPAL Board of Directors has set a date for the bi-annual Members Early sale for Saturday, July 9th. If you're a member of the Friends of the Palo Alto Library, you'll be able to get into the Main Room early at the July 9th sale. As a sign of appreciation for the generosity of all our members, we have increased your benefits!

From now on Life Members & Sponsors are allowed to shop the sale at 9-10am and can purchase up to 100 books. 10-11am all members at all levels can shop the sale and purchase 25 books at a time. Enjoy a less crowded main book room and get first crack at our wonderful collection of materials.

Tickets for early arrivers are handled differently at the Members Early sale. Tickets given out are for the 9am and 10am lines at the Main Room, since most people who come early are members of the Friends. Each Member will get just one ticket although members at and above the $30 levels may bring in their families, consisting of one or two adults and children. No tickets will be given out for the general public 11am line.

You may renew your membership, or join FOPAL, that day. Renew, or join now at www.fopal.org/join!

 
Health

Did you know that Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, hypothesized that cocaine could be an antidote for morphine overuse? It was effective with some somatic problems: it cured his indigestion and dulled his aches and pains as well as relieving his depression. And did you know that William Halstead, a pioneer in modern surgery, studied cocaine's use in surgical anesthesia, developed methods to control bleeding and promoted sterile techniques: he invented the surgical glove. He also "repeatedly committed himself to an insane asylum to withdraw from his out-of-control cocaine use." Once in a while, the Health section receives a book so multi-factorially excellent that it can be read as biography, health, medical history, character study, suspense and just an over-all Good Read. An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halstead, and the Miracle Drug Cocaine by Howard Markel is this month's starred find. A truly fascinating new look at addiction, it has been a best-seller since its publication five years ago. Abraham Verghese says "...I could not put it down -- addictive is the word for this terrific book." Actually, this month another starred book arrived, guaranteed to appeal to lovers of literature, art, history and medicine, and to readers tormented by aches, pains and symptoms. The Hypochondriacs by Brian Dillon, is "an intriguing, suavely written blend of medical history and literary criticism, with engrossing glimpses of the 'fit unwell' including Charlotte Bronte, James Boswell, Andy Warhol, Glenn Gould, Charles Darwin and Marcel Proust." Another bestseller! -Verne Rice

 
Nature for June

"Have you ever been tempted (or perhaps been told) to 'go take a hike'? This month the Nature section is featuring a collection of tales by solo adventurers who did just that, including: Into the Wild, The Long Walk Home, Survive!, Alone On the Ice and Wild. In the New Arrivals section: The World is Blue: How Our Fate and the Oceans are One, What We Leave Behind, Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival, and two books by best-selling author Amy Stewart: Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful and The Earth Moved. Check out the Nature Writers and the Animal Stories sections for the perfect book(s) to take with you wherever you 'adventure' this summer." -Karen D.

 
June Music

"Visit the Music section for books on a wide variety of musical topics in the genres of classical, rock, jazz, world music, and dance. New this month - calendars with the Beatles; Vienna Urtext Guide to Piano Literature; The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want; Street Posters and Ballads; Man in the Music: The Creative Life and Work of Michael Jackson; Dylan's Visions of Sin; and The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power. Also browse our wide selection of sheet music neatly sorted by instruments including violin, piano, trumpet and guitar." -Charlotte Epstein

 
Historical Fiction

"Historical Fiction has a collection of vintage books this month. Look for them in the special display case near the cashier line. We have a complete collection of Patrick O'Brian sea stories in both hard cover and paperback format. We also have an extensive number of Bernard Cornwall historical adventure novels. Alan Furst is widely recognized as the master of the historical spy novel and this month we have a nice variety of his books. If you are early you might even be able to grab a couple of the very popular Flashman books by George McDonald Fraser." -Suzanne Little

 
Philosophy for June 2016

"The Philosophy section in June has new arrivals in very good editions, including Emerson's Essays and Journals, two by Derrida, Writing and Differences and Religion, Gould's Existential Philosophy, Berlin's The Crooked Timber of Humanity, Karnos's Falling in Love with Wisdom, and Law's Great Philosophers. Biographies include Monk's Wittgenstein, Adelman's Hirschman, The Worldly Philosopher and Richardson's Emerson, Mind on Fire.

"Don't forget the Bargain Room; there was not enough shelf space in the Main Room for all the books received and there are some excellent books to be found there as well." -Nigel Jones

 
Judaica for June

"Browse the Judaica section for books on the Jewish religion, Jewish history, the Holocaust, Israel, Jewish Women, the Jewish American Experience and other related subjects.

"New this month: Jews on the Frontier; In the Image of God: A Feminist Commentary on the Torah; The Book of Blessings; The Jewish Mind; a signed copy of The Slopes of Lebanon by Amos Oz; My German Question: Growing Up in Nazi Berlin; and two special cookbooks - In Memory's Kitchen: A Legacy from the Women of Terezin and Joan Nathan's The Jewish Holiday Kitchen.

"Check the appropriate fiction section if you are interested in literature with a Jewish or Israeli theme." -Charlotte Epstein

 
2016 June Humor

"Humor in June is New Yorker Cartoon month - we have 8 different titles all in excellent condition - including one we rarely get - Baseball Cartoons.

New arrivals from this side of the pond include Groucho's Letters, The Three Stooges, the biography of Lou Costello by his son, Mike, Lou, two books on sex from Cynthia Heimel and Tina Fey's Bossy Pants. From the other side of the pond we have 5 books from Wodehouse, three Python-related books, and if you need some clerihews, Auden\u2019s illustrated Academic Graffiti.
Make sure to check out the Bargain Room for Humor and look through the large collection of cartoons and magazines." -Nigel Jones

 
Teen Recommendations by Tristan Wang

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Fourteen-year-old Junior was born in the wrong place at the wrong time. Born on the Spokane Indian Reservation, a community stricken with poverty and alcoholism, and graced with a stutter and lisp, he is bullied by everyone except his best friend. An aspiring cartoonist, Junior sets off to attend an all-white school "where the only other Indian is the school mascot," before the small-town outlook of "the rez" crushes his dreams. Condemned as a traitor to his people, Junior takes life head-on as he employs wit and humor to stay afloat in the crevice between two worlds.

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

A gruesome horror novel. Oskar is a reclusive boy whose mistreatment sets him increasingly inward, harboring morbid interests including an obsession for crime and forensics. That is, until Oskar meets Eli, a young girl, in a fateful encounter that materializes in an intimate friendship. But behind the seemingly naive romance, dark, macabre secrets begin to bubble to the surface as Eli is connected to a string of grueling murders that has ravaged the neighborhood.

Wringer by Jerry Spinelli

The small town of Waymer celebrates an annual Pigeon Day, in which five thousand live pigeons are released from wooden crates to be shot down by observing entrants. As the tradition edicts, ten-year-old boys will receive the honor of becoming wringers, collecting wounded pigeons during the shooting and wringing their necks to end their misery.

Enter Palmer LaRue, a kid who, unlike all his peers, is revolted by the pigeon shoots and consequently dreads the day he turns ten. But when a pigeon shows up outside his window and demands entrance, Palmer is faced with an ultimatum. Should he decline the pigeon to gain the acceptance of his friends? Or should he follow his conscience and open the window -- and take up the dreadful burden of keeping an unspeakable secret from everyone around him?