Summer nights!

Summer in New England means firing up the grill, baking an apple pie, inviting friends over for dinner, and listening to the cicadas hum after dark. These books will provide you with endless entertaining ideas and breezy recipes perfect for those dog days of summer.

And check out  these guides to summer celebrating:

30 Tips for Easy Outdoor Entertaining

Barbecue Food Safety Tips

Summer Entertaining Guide

Image courtesy of Flickr user lapstrake

It's out of this world!

NASA’s final space shuttle launch is currently scheduled for July 8, so we’ve put together a display with all of our best books on astronomy, NASA history, astronaut biographies and more.  Did you know NASA has an “Astronomy Picture of the Day”?  http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Also check out these great websites:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/

Astronomy Magazine: http://www.astronomy.com/                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

                                                                
And under “Homework Help” on our website (http://www.darienlibrary.org/kids/homework) we recommend these sources for students:

Windows to the Universe: http://www.windows2universe.org/

NASA Kids Club: http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/kidsclub/flash/index.html

NASA for Students: http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/index.html

Image courtesy of Flickr user Matthew Simantov

Boating season is upon us and the 2011 Connecticut Boater's Guide is available. You can pick up a copy in the Library on the second floor in the Play Glade or download a copy from the Department of Environmental Protection at www.ct.gov/dep/site/default.asp.

Career Cruising, named one of the best reference resources of 2010 by Library Journal, is the latest addition to the database collection at Darien Library. The perfect place to start your career exploration process, Career Cruising begins with a Career Matchmaker tool. Through a series of self-assessment and interest questions, it will create a list of career suggestions that includes 40 occupations ranked in order of suitability. You can answer as few as 39 questions or as many as 116, but the more they know about your skills and interests, the more refined the search results will be. Click on a suggested career and you will see why it is considered a good fit for you.

Once you have a list of potential careers in hand, the Explore Careers section offers in-depth information and occupation profiles, including job descriptions, working conditions, earnings, education and training, sample career paths, related occupations, and multimedia interviews with people in the profession.

In addition to the valuable assessment tools, Career Cruising also provides comprehensive college, university, and vocational school information to help you plan your education and training. Do you know what you are looking for in a school? Career Cruising will create a list with detailed information about schools that match your specific criteria. Is money an issue? Take advantage of the Financial Aid Selector to find programs you might be eligible for.

Finally, the Career Cruising Portfolio Tool can help you keep track of your educational background, activities, and interests, providing the basis for a customized resume. All of your assessment results, school selections, and occupational profiles can be saved for future use.

For the best e-reading experience on your computer, begin with the free download of Adobe Digital Editions. It allows you to create a bookmark, change the font size, and search for individual words or phrases within a book.

Here are some of our favorite classics, all linked to Project Gutenberg. This is just a small sampling of the thousands of eBooks available to you, all for free!

Books by Jane Austen

• Pride and Prejudice
• Emma
• Sense and Sensibiliby
• Persuasion
• Mansfield Park
• Northanger Abbey
• Lady Susan
• The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Jane Austen

Books by Mark Twain

• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
• The Prince and the Pauper
• Life on the Mississippi
• Roughing It
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Books by James Joyce

• Ulysses
• Dubliners
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Books by Charles Dickens

• A Tale of Two Cities
• Great Expectations
• A Christmas Carol
• Oliver Twist
• David Copperfield
• Bleak House
• The Pickwick Papers
• Hard Times
• Little Dorrit
• Nicholas Nickleby

Books by Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte

• Jane Eyre
• Wuthering Heights
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Books by Alexandre Dumas

• The Count of Monte Cristo
• The Three Musketeers
• The Man in the Iron Mask

Books by P. G. Wodehouse

• My Man Jeeves 
• Right Ho, Jeeves

Celebrate Earth Day with some easy green living.

From Martha Stewart, a website for healthy green living.

An inter-active look at the entire house, room by room, offering make-over tips, buying guides, and quizzes to test your green IQ.

 Greenerchoices, a part of Consumer Report's, is filled with hot topics and great solutions for living a green life.

David Knauff, Darien's Director of Health, has forwarded the following information from CT - Depeartment of Public Health.

The attached is a message from the CDC HAN* info service regarding Radioactive Material in the US as a Result of the Incident with the Fukushima Nuclear Incident in Japan.

(*Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); Health Alert Network (HAN))
 

There's an app for that!

Thinking about a kitchen renovation? In the mood to redecorate your living room? Need some design inspirations? Here are some websites that can help you with the big project, from start to finish.

Angie's List & Kudzu
Visit these sites to find high quality contractors and home services companies that have been reviews and rated by other consumers.

The Daily Green's Complete Home Energy Makeover
Lear how to conduct a DIY energy audit; discover energy tax credit projects; tour model green homes of all types and sizes, and access articles on how to make your house greener.

DIY Network
The ultimate website for do-it-yourself home projects. Find expert advice, how-to videos, and ideas for kitchens, bathrooms, painting, plumbing, flooring, electrical, decorating, and outdoor spaces.

Apartment Therapy
A think-outside-the-box approach to chic interior design, this blog allows visitors to see how others have decorated and designed their small spaces through high-quality uploaded photos.

Pad Style
Provides a Top 25 list of the web's best interior design and furniture blogs for further research. Don't miss this fun one - Ikea Hacker - which re-designs and repurposes Ikea items into interesting and functional creations.

Also, check out these smart phone apps that allow you to take your renovating and decorating needs on the go!

Color Capture (Benjamin Moore) & Color Snap (Sherwin Williams)
Take a photo of anything with your smart phone, and with this app, you'll be able to find a matching swatch of paint color that you can take to your local stores. They also offer advice on choosing complimentary tones.

iHandy Level
This handy app turns your iPhone into a level for hanging artwork with ease.

Home Sizer
Calculates square footage and construction costs for those DIY projects

Mark on Call
Created by interior designer Mark Lewison, this app is like having your own personal designer in your back pocket. It allows you to plan, preview, and carry out your room's design while staying organized and within budget.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Telstar Logistics.

March 6-12th is National Consumer Protection Week. Below is a list of web sites that will help you answer questions about consumer protection from where can I dispose of my old cell phone to how do I check my credit score. The library also has available a variety of publicatons published by the Federal Trade Commission.

www.ncpw.gov

www.consumer-action.org

ftc.gov

www.bbb.org/us

www.ct.gov/DCP/site/default.asp

www.usa.gov

Mark Twain once said, "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

These exciting accounts of adventure allow you to do just that. Trek the Appalachian Trail, build a log cabin in Alaska, explore the Antarctic alongside Ernest Shackleton, or board a raft to cross the Pacific Ocean.

Our second floor display table features books and movies that take us to the farthest reaches and the highest peaks...no passport required. Just click below to view our full list of adventure stories.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user rsenescu.