Kids’ adventures around San Francisco Bay : educational places to go, things to do & classes to take in the North Bay, Peninsula, East bay, Silicon Valley & Santa Cruz / Elina Wong
This book is a great resource for parents who are looking for educational and fun things to do with children in and around the Bay Area. Summer is almost over, but there just might be time…..
We often forget that we live in such a rich culture here in the Bay Area. Along with our wonderful public libraries we have a great selection of local artists and art museums to visit. Many of these museums offer interactive events for families or adults. Feel free2explore!
The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, CA is showing “Lords of the Samurai” through September 20th. This exhibit focuses on the warrior class of feudal Japan. The Albany, Castro Valley, Dublin, Newark, and Union City libraries all have a pass that can be checked out allowing free admission for 2 adults and all kids 12 and under. Contact your library for more information on museum passes. The museum will be showing “Emerald Cities: Arts of Siam and Burma 1775-1950″ from October 23rd- January 10th. The Alameda County Library is offering a free docent preview of the show at their libraries http://www.aclibrary.org/hottopics/pdf/artmuseumprog4web.pdf The museum is open Tuesday-Sunday 10-5 and on Thursdays until 9. http://www.asianart.org/index.html
The Cantor Museum in Stanford, CA is currently exhibiting “From the Bronze Age of China to Japan’s Floating World” which runs until October 18th. The Cantor museum has a wonderful collection of Rodin bronzes inside and outside the gallery. The museum is free and open Wednesday-Sunday 11-5, Thursday 11-8. On August 20th, they are running their popular “MIX” program for people 21+ from 5:30-7:30. There will be Taiko drumming as well as a cash bar and music. Admission is free. http://museum.stanford.edu/index.html
The Oakland Art Murmur is a collective of downtown Oakland art museums that participate in art openings the first Friday of the month from 7-9pm. The museums are working on gaining public knowledge of the growing art community in Oakland. The museums are all walking distance between the 19th Street and MacArthur BART stations. A list of participating museums as well as a printable map is available here: http://www.oaklandartmurmur.com/pages/about.php
The M.H. deYoung Museum in San Francisco, CA is showing “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs” through March 28th, 2010. The show brings 130 pieces from the tomb of King Tut back to San Francisco after 30 years. This time around there is more focus on the family of Tut and pieces from their burial sites. Key pieces such as the death mask have been decreed a national treasure and are no longer allowed outside of Egypt. Althoug the show is a pricey, it is a cultural experience that many people have been waiting 30 years to see again. http://www.famsf.org/deyoung/
What I am patiently waiting for is an opportunity to see works from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, France again. Fortunately for us, the H.M. deYoung will be showing “Birth of Impressionism: from May 22, 2010 to September 6, 2010 and “Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Beyond” from September 25, 2010 to January 18, 2011 during the d’Orsay rennovation. There will be over 200 pieces loaned to the deYoung. The deYoung hopes to keep the popularity of the museum going by offering these shows soon after King Tut leaves the building.
Many Bay Area museums have a free admission day. Make sure to check with the museum beforehand to see if it includes entrance to special exhibits. These are some of the participating museums:
The Adult Summer reading game is going strong with several winners to date. Perhaps some of you are already winners and looking forward to finding new suggestions or maybe you’re ready to try your hand at winning. The game ends August 15th, which leaves plenty of time to start a new book or finish the one you have in your hands. For those of you who are finding it hard to find time to read, don’t forget to give audiobooks a try. I love listening to a good audiobook while I’m gardening or walking the dog.
Below are a few Bay Area authors you’ll find both in book format and in audiobook format.
I’ll start with one of my favorite Bay Area authors, Andrew Sean Greer, author of The Path of Minor Planets, The Confessions of Max Tivoli, an exquisitely sad love story and his most recent bestseller and critically acclaimed, The Story of a Marriage.
I don’t think it’s possible talk about the talent of the Bay Area without mentioning Khaled Hosseini. Author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini’s haunting tales take place in his native Afghanistan with all too human characters that resonate with his readers. The fact that The Kite Runner spent more than two years on the New York Times Bestsellers list and was later made into a movie is a tribute to his talents.
In keeping with authors whose characters and situations remain with us long after we put down the book, or our audio headphones, let me add Daniel Mason to this group. Mason is the author of The Piano Tuner and A Far Country. In The Piano Tuner, Mason takes us from 19th Century London to Burma. The New York Times wrote that Mason’s “powerful prose style and his ability to embrace history, politics, nature and medicine within a fully imagined 19th-century fictional world would be notable in any writer…”
These are just a few of the Bay Area authors you’ll find in audiobook format. Not having time to sit down and read shouldn’t stop you from playing our Summer Reading Game.
If you have been recently to the Dublin Library, you’ve noted the display for the “Books Around The Bay” adult summer reading game located near the public access computers. This reading game from June 15 to August 15. We encourage adult library members to read or listen to a books that was either written by an author from the San francisco Bay Area, or which takes places in the Bay Area.
Fill out an entry form for each book you read or listen to and then drop it in the entry box at your library. One complete entry form will be drawn each week for a prize. All entries (including weekly prize winners) are eligible for a grand prize drawing at the end of the summer.
One of our circulation staff, Carmin, wrote that she recently read the entire series of Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin. “These books are great for the summer, they are funny and a fast read. The series takes place in San Francisco so it is very easy to visualize the scene. The entire series takes the reader from a time when there was less to worry about through the introduction of a new disease that was killing off a lot of San Francisco residents to a cautiousness most people practice today. You’ll laugh and cry and wish there was more!”
I wholeheartedly agree with Carmin that the series definitely reflects the time in which it was written, a time that some of us look back upon with a little bit of nostalgia.
Of course, the Bay Area is also known for great weather, restaurants, and great access to the natural beauties of northern California. Written and recorded books are available through your library on these and other topics.
Join in the reading game and celebrate life and culture of the best part of California!
TIMELESS READS
At the Fremont Library
The 2nd annual Adult Summer Reading Game here in Fremont is starting its third week and off to a terrific start with 87 entries.
The weekly winners, their book title and comments are as follows:
• Dawn N., reading The Secret Hour. “Book 1 of The Midnighters- Better if you are a teen!”
• Sitalakshmi R., reading The Diary of Anne Frank. “Very touching and moving. A Must Read!”
• Sarah K., reading A Year of Living Biblically. “Simultaneously hilarious and profound. A.J. Jacobs, a secular Jew, spends a year following the Bible’s commandments, literally.”
All four libraries in Fremont, including our Centerville, Irvington and Niles branches invite you to come in and play our adult summer reading game. Good luck and happy reading.
Here’s a booklist from the Fiction listserv to to give you a few more ideas. Some titles may be on the Timeless Reads list.
Feel Good Books for Discussion
Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind by Ann B. Ross
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson
In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
Jan Karon’s Mitford books
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Stand in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg
Ladies of Missalonghi by Colleen McCullough (pair it with the following title)
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
Wizard of Loneliness by Jack Nichols
Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Burns
Kick the Can by Jim Lehrer
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Lonesome Traveler by Weldon Hill
East of the Sun, West of the Moon by Carole Bellacera
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
World of Pies by Karen Stolz
Undead and Unwed and the sequel Undead and Unemployed by Mary Janice Davidson
First Lady by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Books by Jeanne Ray
July 2004
Compiled by the subscribers of the Fiction_L mailing list.
