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Spotlight On

A rotating showcase for topics of interest: current, historical, local, global. At the Library,
find a physical display highlighting materials in the collection that deepen one’s
understanding of and give context to the featured subject.

“Spotlight On” is also home to “Staff Picks,” where patrons will find reading, viewing,
and listening recommendations, and a forum for book clubs and other groups
in the community to share what they’re enjoying.

Prize Winning Books

Beloved

Toni Morrison

 

Breathing Lessons

Anne Tyler

 

Angle of Repose

Wallace Stegner

 

The Age of Innocence

Edith Wharton

 

The Old Man and the Sea

Ernest Hemingway

 

     When I was in high school and didn’t want to read the books they assigned us, I would go over to a great old bookstore in White Plains called Brentano’s. I’d pick up a favorite book that I wanted to own, or a book by a favorite author, or maybe a book about something I already knew about (like the Beatles, scifi movies, or Van Gogh).
     But one day, I came into a windfall of about twenty dollars and decided it was time to do something different. So I picked up ten books that I had heard of but never read – maybe not judging a book by its cover, but by its title. I don’t remember all ten, but the titles included The Dharma Bums, For Whom the Bell Tolls, East of Eden, Naked Lunch, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and Native Son.
     It was the best bookstore day I ever had.
     But we all have books we never read: kids books we never got around to, high school assignments that were just too long, college reading lists for courses we never took, or best sellers that came and went and slipped through the cracks.
     Well, we intend to help fill that gap. Come on in and  browse our shelf of Forgotten Titles and Undiscovered Gems. Books new and old that you always wanted to read, but never quite got around to, from Wuthering Heights to A Clockwork Orange, from the Brontes to the Beats.
    Take a glance at the first bookcase on your right as you walk down the center aisle of the Library and see what grabs you!
-Mike McCoy, Reference Librarian

Lonesome Traveler

Jack Kerouac

A collection of essays by Kerouac, finding the beauty and turmoil in his times spent as a firewatcher on Desolation Peak, sailing on a tramp steamer to Tangier, and hanging out on a Greenwich Village street corner in NYC. A little-kown look at what makes the Beat life.

The Last Hurrah

Edwin O’Connor

One of the pre-eminent novels about American politics, it tells the story of Frank Skeffington, a big-city political boss making his last bid for mayor. It was made twice into a film, most famously starring Spencer Tracy.

Wuthering Heights

Emily Brontë

Everyone knows the story of Heathcliffe and Catherine, and the film with Lawrence Olivier, but Bronte’s only novel is one of the greatest works about heartbreak and the dark side of passion to be written. Say the word ‘moor’ and people think of this story.

Explore More…

Interested in The New York Times best sellers? See them here!

The Lorraine Hansberry Coalition in Croton-on-Hudson will be running a series of events in June. It centers around voting rights in the South in 1963-64 and Lorraine Hansberry’s Rally for Freedom in 1963.

Watch a Youtube video from the Social Security Administration about scam awareness.

200 Books That Shaped 200 Years of Literature from The Center for Fiction

Meet Libby, the library reading app that has now replaced the OverDrive app. Upgrade to Libby today. You’ll find the same great titles and all of your loans, holds, and wish list items waiting for you. Watch a video about Libby to get started.

The New York State Department of Labor is partnering with Coursera to offer free classes to unemployed New Yorkers.

Visit Westchester Library System’s website for Seniors to see library programs and services just for seniors. This includes information on VisionLabs, a program designed to find new ways for libraries to serve patrons with visual impairments and emerging vision loss.

The Television News Archive, launched September 2012, is an archive of hundreds of thousands of hours of news programming from 20 different networks, made sharable and searchable through closed captioning data. Follow this link to check it out.

The Internet Archive’s Democracy’s Library is working to provide free and open access to government materials in an online catalog for the public.

Check out the Hastings Public Library’s Instagram: @hohpubliclibrary or tag us.

Stay current on the pandemic by using this COVID-19 information page on the Community Conversations website, brought to you by Westchester Library System.

You can now turn your smart phone into a mobile PDF scanner! Download the free Adobe Scan app and scan any text, convert to PDF or JPEG, edit and share easily.

 

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