See It in September! New DVDs in the APL Collection

The whirl of back-to-school–under new circumstances–may have you in a bit of a post-summer tizzy. If so, you may want to set aside a bit of time for cinematic self-care with one or more of the Abbot Public Library’s brand-new DVDs. They’re currently fee-free, and you can check them out for two weeks (with renewals if there are no other patrons waiting), so if a demanding autumn schedule upends your movie-night plans, no need to stress!

Latest in are 17 recently-released titles that span the genres: documentary to docudrama,  romance to comedy, action/thriller to road-trip feature. Here’s hoping that our unique list, See It in September, will offer plenty to entertain you. You’ll be linked directly to the catalog, where you can place your holds right away!

If jazz is your beat, you’re in for a very special treat. Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool collects the artist’s music, home movies, manuscripts, and paintings for a close-up new look at his life. For timely social justice-themed films, The Infiltrators and Burden offer challenging perspectives on U.S. border detainment and the power of friendship and radical transformation across a racial divide.

Crowd pleaser The High Note explores themes of family, women’s ambition, and romance, all wrapped up in a fantastic soundtrack propelled by Tracee Ellis Ross. For another music-lover’s gem, have a look at Military Wives, a comic tribute to women’s resilience and friendship, with the brilliant Kristin Scott Thomas in the lead role. The pleasures of travel and a droll male friendship will also delight, as Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon take you on a Trip to Greece. (Oh, and if you enjoy that, try the duo’s Trip to Italy and Trip to Spain, also ready for you at the Abbot Public Library!)

Recent weather events may draw you to the hurricane-related thriller Force of Nature, starring Emile Hirsch, Kate Bosworth, and Mel Gibson, while The Outpost spins a classic David-and-Goliath tale into a thriller pitting a few American soldiers against the ferocity of the Taliban militants.

If you’re in the mood for something quieter and more contemplative, you’ll also want to see the father-son road trip in Ireland that is End of Sentence, a film of reconciliation that has pleased critics and the public alike. If nothing else, the scenery will enchant you!

Once you’ve made your selections, placed your holds, and received notification that your holds are ready to pick up, visit this page or give us a call at 781-631-1481 to schedule your curbside pickup appointment. 

Happy viewing!

Celebrate Hobbit Day and Tolkien Week!

Hobbit Day started in 1978 and was chosen to be September 22nd, the date referenced in The Hobbit and The Lord of the RIngs as being the birthdate of both the hobbits Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. Tolkien Week – a celebration of both J. R. R. Tolkien and his son and editor, Christopher J. R. Tolkien – takes place through the whole calendar week of Hobbit Day, which this year would fall from Sunday, September 20th through Saturday, September 26th.

In honor of this Middle Earthian Celebration, we invite you to check out Tolkein’s books (in physical or digital formats) as well as the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies (which currently have no check out fee)! You’ll also find some other hobbit and LOTR-related items which can teach you more about Middle Earth and the brave creatures therein.

Tolkien’s Tales of Middle Earth 

The Hobbit (print copies and annotated version, book on CD, Overdrive ebooks and e-audiobooks, and hoopla ebook and e-audiobook)

The Fellowship of the Ring (print copies, Overdrive ebooks and e-audiobook, and hoopla e-audiobook)

The Two Towers (print copies, book on CD, Overdrive ebook and e-audiobook, and hoopla e-audiobook)

The Return of the King (print copies, book on CD, Overdrive ebook and e-audiobook, and hoopla e-audiobook)

Bilbo’s Last Song (print and ebook)

The Silmarillion (print and ebook)

The Fall of Gondolin

Narn i chîn Húrin : the Tale of the Children of Húrin  

The Book of Lost Tales: Part One (print and ebook)

The Book of Lost Tales: Part Two (print and ebook)

Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth (print and ebook)

The Lost Road and Other Writings: Language and Legend Before ‘The Lord of the Rings’

The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings Movies and Music

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Check out the music from or inspired by The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings on hoopla!

Other Books By Tolkein

Beowulf (print and ebook) 

The Fall of Arthur (print, Overdrive ebook, and hoopla ebook)

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún (print and ebook)

Letters from Father Christmas

Tales From The Perilous Realm 

The Lay Of Aotrou & Itroun 

The Story of Kullervo 

A Rare Recording Of J.R.R. Tolkien

Check out all the books by J. R. R. Tolkien in the library catalog, Overdrive, and hoopla. Hoopla also has a multitude of Tolkien biographies and materials about hobbits, which include trivia books, reader’s companions, literary criticisms, and more!

Keep Cool and Carry On: Ice-Cold Movies on hoopla!

No doubt about it–it can be scorching hot out there, even by the seaside, now that July is in full swing! If you’re about ready to dump an ice bucket over your head, hang on. Save that ice for a cooling beverage and pop on over to hoopla, where the Abbot Public Library has curated some Arctic (and Antarctic) titles to seriously cool you off.

Have a look at the collection titled 2020 APL Keep Cool and Carry On for some heat-beating film adventures. If you’re wishing yourself far, far away in the frozen tundra, grab your explorer’s gear and hitch a ride to the South Pole with some spellbinding documentaries. 

Award-winning Antarctica: A Year on Ice gives you a window onto an alien world and those who live there–both animal and human–through the lens of talented nature photographer Anthony Powell. Climate change-conscious Antarctica: Ice and Sky  is an entrancing biopic of Claude Lorius, whose research as a glaciologist was vital to our understanding of the deleterious effects of human industry.

Or head north to the Arctic Circle for more tales of derring-do with Across the Ice. You’ll be keeping company with intrepid explorers Sebastian Copeland and Eric McNair Landry as they chase a Guinness record, kite-skiing the length of Greenland. Get your snowshoes on for an extreme trek across 4000 kilometers of the Canadian Arctic with Adam Shoalts (Alone Across the Arctic.) Some frigid thrills await in feature film Icequake: Panic in the Alps,where a wedding party finds themselves in a nail-biting predicament . Whew! You may just break out in a frozen sweat!

Looking for something a little less white-knuckle and just a shade or two warmer? Lose yourself in a late-life romance between a Czech widow and a charming “ice-swimmer” after a dramatic rescue in Ice Mother. Or watch a comically awful father-son relationship unfold as they try to connect over a shared hobby–ice fishing (Frozen Stupid with Academy Award-winning actor Ernest Borgnine.)

So tune into hoopla and keep your cool–all you need is your library card!

Oh, and by the way, if you’d like access to our expansive DVD collection full of the coolest (and hottest) titles, you’re in luck! Please see the post “What You Need to Know for Curbside Pickup” for all the details. And–good news–during Curbside Service, there is no fee to borrow DVDs!

If you’re new to hoopla, have a look at our FAQs page for pointers. And if you don’t currently have a library card, you can easily get started here.

Happy Pride! – Nonfiction and True Stories of the LGBTQ Community

Celebrate and commemorate the LGBTQIA+ Pride Month with the library’s resources and a curated reading list. Here, you will find books on the tumultuous history of the LGBT+ community’s struggle for equal rights, its disappointments and victories; you will learn about the evolving perspectives on homosexuality, and about pivotal events in the LGBT+ movement. 

All books are free and accessible through Overdrive/Libby:

A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski, winner of the Stonewall Award in nonfiction, covers the entire LGBT+ history from 1492 (!) to the present. Based on primary cultural and historical sources, the author shows how the American culture affected the LGBT+ experience, and how the LGBT+ experience shaped the cultural and societal history of the country. The starred review calls it “equally intellectually rigorous and entertaining.”

The Stonewall Reader, edited by New York Public Library, came out last year to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, the epoch-making event in the fight for equality in the LGBTQ movement that began in the early hours of June 28, 1969. A collection of first accounts, diaries, and periodic literature that came from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers in the library’s archives, the book carefully chronicles the tumultuous fight for LGBTQ rights from five years leading up to through five years following the riots. The book was named one of the best books of 2019 on the subject.

The Stonewall uprising of 1969 was pivotal in the history of the LGBTQ+ community, and marks the start of the Gay Liberation Movement. Before Stonewall is a 1984 documentary about the LGBT community in America prior to 1969, decade by decade, and events that led to the Stonewall uprising.

A companion documentary, made fifteen years later in 1999, After Stonewall captures the lives of the LGBTQ community after the event through the end of the century.

You will find these documentaries in hoopla, free of charge and accessible at any time with your library card.

We Are Everywhere by Matthew Riemer is another book that came out in commemoration of the 50^th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. The book is a photographic history of the LGBTQ+ movement and features the turbulent history of queer activism from its start at the end of the 19^th century in Europe to the present. The book contains more than 300 images from various photographers and archives.

The Deviant’s War by Eric Cervini is the story of resistance and a secret fight for gay rights that started more than a decade before Stonewall. Franklin Kameny, a brilliant astronomer working for the U.S. Defense Department, was fired on suspicion of being a homosexual, like so many men and women before him. He fought back.

The book demonstrates a huge intellectual role that Kameny played in the gay liberation movement that triggered fundamental social changes in the post-war America.

Very well-researched and brilliantly written, the book received starred reviews in The New York Times and The Washington Post.

How to Survive a Plague by David France is another story of civil activism, this one taking place during the AIDS epidemic. It is a social and scientific history of AIDS, and a story of the AIDS movement and its activists who took their salvation into their own hands. Not only did their work expedite drug development, but it also transformed the entire medical system and cardinally changed the direction of the movement.

Prior to writing the book How to Survive a Plague, journalist David France created a documentary with the same title. The film received numerous awards and became the 2012 Academy Award nominee in documentary feature.

Anxious Anglophile Therapy: Acorn TV + hoopla

We know you’re out there. Those who flicked on the Queen’s calm, collected, compassionate (and historically rare) televised addresses to her nation on the COVID-19 pandemic. Those who followed the unexpected drama of the Prime Minister’s COVID-19 illness and recovery. Maybe there’s an ancient rootedness, an age-old solidity about the United Kingdom that–despite the recent upheaval of Brexit–appeals to us in our comparatively young and volatile New World. Or perhaps the Brits just have a knack for making us laugh, a good enough therapy in itself. Whatever the reason, there’s no denying Americans’ fascination with and rapacious consumption of British programming!

For Anglophiles, there’s just nothing like Acorn TV. Shows that were once available only on DVD or through subscription streaming are now just a couple of clicks away for Marblehead library card holders. Even better, they’re always available and free. No holds, no waits, no fees. Check out a 7-day pass, and you can blissfully binge-watch until it’s time to check out another pass: no monthly limits or checkout caps. Whether your “comfort genre” is comedy, historical drama, mystery, or documentary, you’ll find plenty to your taste. If you’re the sort who finds solace in schedules (especially in this time of disruption), Acorn TV offers you one, so that you can keep track of offerings that are “Recently Added,” “Coming Soon,” and “Leaving Soon”–you’ll never miss a trick! You can of course browse by category, one of which is currently “Soothing Documentary.” The British really are unapologetic about the value of comfort in these anxious times! 

For those who are already passionate fans of Acorn TV and feel as though they’ve exhausted its possibilities for the moment (though that would take some seriously committed bingeing!), the Abbot Public Library’s newest digital service, hoopla, offers yet more tempting BBC fare. Have  a look at this search of hoopla’s TV category and this one of BBC movies, with 150 and 63 results, respectively. Odds are you’ll find a previously unseen treasure, as there are plenty of titles you may well not have encountered on Acorn – series and films that were popular in the UK but not as widely known in the US.

So, brew yourself a cuppa, butter some toast, and settle in for some seriously brilliant British telly. No therapist’s bills here–just let those plummy accents soothe your stressed-out psyche!

If you’re new to Acorn TV and/or hoopla, have a look at our FAQs page to get started right away! If you need to sign up for a Marblehead library card, you can start here. And do feel free to contact Reference staff at mar@noblenet.org with any further questions.

Pining for Playoffs

When the novel coronavirus pandemic sent us to seclusion, affecting all aspects of our lives, it also caused a dramatic impact on the world of sports, with major sporting events being cancelled or postponed. This left fans looking for other ways to stay connected to various sports.

ESPN’s timely release of Last Dance, a 10-part documentary about NBA legend Michael Jordan, immediately became hugely popular among sports fans. The series takes an in-depth look at Chicago Bulls’ dynasty through the lens of the final championship season in 1997-98. It features exclusive footage and interviews with athletes and journalists.

If you are into the sports and would like to read and watch more about basketball – or any other sports subjects – Abbot Public Library has much to offer.

These books are available through Overdrive/Libby with your library card.

Basketball: A Love Story is a book written in conjunction with the ESPN series of the same name, released at the end of 2018.

It is a story about basketball: its invention in Canada, its expansive history, and the game’s trailblazing players.

Authors interviewed more than 100 players, coaches, and journalists to collect their insight. The book seems to cover every issue pertaining to basketball, including fighting for racial and gender equality.

Another popular team sport, baseball, is the subject of Alex Speier’s Homegrown.

The book is an excellent record of the exceptional accomplishment of the Boston Red Sox winning the 2018 World Series and about building one the best baseball teams of all the time.

Marking the 40^th anniversary of the US men’s hockey team winning a gold medal in the 1980 Olympics, beating four-time medalists from the USSR, team captain Mike Eruzione’s book, The Making of a Miracle, recounts that 1980 Lake Placid game in detail. Dubbed “Miracle on Ice,” it is a tale of the underdog, as an amateur team of young American college students faced off against seasoned professional players from the Soviet Union and, against all odds, came out victorious.

Historian and National Book Award-winning author Nathaniel Philbrick (author of In the Hurricane’s Eye among other titles) takes on sailing in his book Second Wind, recounting his triumphs in regattas in his youth and going back to competing 15 years later, following vigorous retraining.

First-person accounts of major league athletes offer a unique perspective into the lives of people participating in professional sports. Numerous biographies of various sports players can be found in Overdrive/Libby when you click on the images: 

The following charming and heartwarming stories will make you smile. They are about sports, but also they are about creating a bond between humans and animals. Christopher McDougall writes about training a rehabbed donkey for the World Championship of burro racing – a very particular type of competition in which humans and donkeys run together. Training a donkey is a big job!

The author of Finding Gobi came across a stray dog while running an ultramarathon in the middle of the Gobi Desert – and gained a running buddy for the rest of the route. Click the images below to view these ebooks in Overdrive.

hoopla, a free service brought to you by the Abbot Public Library, contains an entire sports movie section, where you will find documentaries, biographies, instructional videos to learn new skills (or sharpen existing ones) in a particular sport, and more!

Mental Health Awareness Month: Acknowledging Personal Struggle During Global Crisis

The month of May, designated Mental Health Awareness Month in 1949, gives us the opportunity to remember that well-being means mental as well as physical health. Most of us are feeling a bit more stressed and anxious than usual: what about those whose struggles are chronic or even life-long? Perhaps now is a good time to try to understand and empathize with the challenges faced by those suffering from long-stigmatized mental illnesses.

Our e-collections can support this quest! Two specially-curated collections in hoopla offer audio-visual perspective on some specific mental health issues, from bipolar disorder to eating disorders to manic depression to obsessive-compulsive disorder to schizophrenia and even postpartum depression. 2020 APL Mental Health Awareness Month: Audio offers a sample reading list from medical professionals, biographers, memoirists, and historians.

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For a compelling autobiography written by a medical expert who, in the throes of fighting brain cancer, experienced symptoms similar to those suffered by dementia and schizophrenia patients, you might try the well-regarded book The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind by Barbara K. Lipska. Talk about learning empathy from the inside out!

The companion film collection in hoopla (2020 APL Mental Health Awareness Month: Film) features a number of documentary approaches to mental illness. By observing and acknowledging others’ struggles with mental health, we can individually and collectively remove the age-old stigma and fear of “madness” and strive to make the world a kinder place for sufferers.

Some of the bravest and most affecting writing about mental illness comes from those who have been there themselves. Amazingly, some of these writers have been able to wring humor and hope from otherwise harrowing experiences. For searingly honest but strangely uplifting–and yes, even funny–listens, try Jenny Lawson’s Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things and the newly-released The Hilarious World of Depression by radio announcer and podcaster John Moe. Both audio titles are available in Overdrive/Libby.

And remember that your awareness and concern support those who might otherwise be suffering almost invisibly during these difficult times.

The Majesty and Magic of Live Performance

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players
—W. Shakespeare, As You Like It

Live performances – operas, ballets, musicals, plays, concerts, and comedy shows – and documentaries about how they were created and the people who created them – are available on hoopla, a free service brought to you by the Abbot Public Library. You only need your library card to access hoopla.

Learn to play a musical instrument, or learn more about your favorite band or musical group – you can find all that and more on hoopla, including some of these gems:

Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Rigoletto tells a tragic story of love, passion, deceit, and sacrifice. A 1946 recording of this performance showcased the best Italian operatic voices of the time. 

The Phantom of the Opera, with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and lyrics by Charles Hart: this legendary musical won numerous awards and is the longest-running Broadway show. 

This gorgeous, full-cast production, accompanied by over 200 musicians in the orchestra, was performed at the musical’s 25^th anniversary celebration at the Royal Albert Hall.

Another legendary musical and spectator favorite, Les Misérables, composed by Claude Michel Schonberg, with lyrics by Alain Boublil and Herbert Kretzmer, won many awards and is the longest-running musical in London’s West End. This production, performed for the 25^th anniversary of the show, features an all-star cast that includes Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers.

Although there have been numerous film adaptations of Charles Dickens’ works, Great Expectations has never been produced for the theater, being considered too difficult to stage. This is the first – and very successful – staged performance of Dickens’ most popular book, which you now have a chance to experience.

A one-man show of Beowulf performed in old English, accompanied on the harp.

If you do not mind having Christmas in May, we suggest the gorgeous Nutcracker ballet, probably the most popular performance in the world around Christmas time.

And if you love The Nutcracker Ballet and wonder what it takes to produce such an eternally beautiful spectacle and to perform in it, then the documentary Getting to the Nutcracker is for you.

If you are interested in learning more about opera or classical music, we suggest the following documentaries:

Check out hoopla’s musical section, where you can find dozens of opera and ballet titles, as well as classical music, for listening. 

And if the classics aren’t to your taste, hoopla also has many other musical selections, from rock to gospel to pop.

Overdrive/Libby also has something to offer to the live performance experience: download and listen to recordings of live performances and full-cast audio plays of popular titles.

Black Water is a recording of a live performance of the chamber opera, created by Joyce Carol Oates (based on her novel) and composer John Duffy.

Angels in America is an audiobook performance of the National Theatre’s 2018 Broadway revival of Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play. The production features the entire cast, including Tony winners Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane. 

BBC Radio 4 has full cast dramatizations of the horror tale The Birds by Daphne du Maurier, and of Agatha Christie novels.

A variety of books (fiction and nonfiction) on the performing arts are also available through Overdrive/Libby, including:

The Fashion World in Books and Movies

Escape to the fashion world – the world of beauty, glamorous clothes, dazzling accessories, and the people who create them.

Start with a visit to the Christian Dior fashion house to learn about its history and look at some of the collections created there. 

If you are much into tattoo designs and its history, watch a documentary on the “godfather of modern tattooing:” Ed Hardy: Tattoo the World.

Discover the secrets of Tiffany’s art appeal, enjoy the beauty of art works and behind-the-scenes creation of those works in Crazy about Tiffany’s.

British designer Ozwald Boateng is a subject of A Man’s Story, an artist of versatile talents and interests: he was a clothing designer for Hollywood’s leading actors, costume designer for multiple film productions and series, and was also chosen to design uniforms for the British Airways.

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Watch a movie or read a book about Iris Apfel, an intensely original fashion icon with a decades-long presence in the fashion world, whose work gained immense recognition.

All these films are available on hoopla, brought to you by the Abbot Public Library. You only need your library card to check them out and enjoy. If you need a card, find out how to register online.

If you would like to take a closer look and get more familiar with the lives and work of some fashion designers or models,check out these ebooks:

A stylish memoir of Isaac Mizrahi, American fashion designer and the Chief Designer of the Isaac Mizrahi brand, his life, and his professional career. Included therein are accounts of famous people – designers whom he worked with and Hollywood actors and others for whom he designed.

In ebook and audiobook format on Libby/Overdrive and as an ebook on hoopla

A social history of the French Riviera in the 1930s, with the famous French designer Coco Chanel being at the center of the circle of the rich and famous.

Check it out on Overdrive/Libby

Famous fashion supermodel (and wife of quarterback Tom Brady) Giselle Bundchen writes a book about her life journey and shares her secrets of dealing with challenges and stress in her work and private life.

Check it out on Overdrive/Libby

A posthumous memoir of the legendary fashion photographer and eccentric fashion icon Bill Cunningham.

In ebook and audiobook format on Libby/Overdrive.

If you would like some practical advice from fashion gurus, consider these books:

If you wonder what a smart fashion designer is capable of, read the Maddie Springer fiction series by Gemma Halliday, in which fashion designer and amateur sleuth Maddie Springer solves mysteries and tracks down killers.

All these ebooks can be found in Overdrive/Libby. You only need your library card to check them out and download them.

Isabella Stewart Gardner: A Theft, Unsolved, Thirty Years On

March 18th marked the 30th anniversary of the infamous heist of 13 irreplaceable works of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The single largest theft of its kind in the world, the case remains unsolved to this day. The Museum’s website provides a comprehensive guide to the crime, the works that were lost, and the cultural impact of the theft. Visit their site to listen to an audio tour of the 13 stolen works and the story of their theft, conducted by Director of Security Anthony Amore, and view images of the lost artwork, which include pieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Manet (for further information, check out this guide to the stolen works, compiled by WBUR). 

Intrigued? For more artsy whodunits, delve into some titles of fictional (and some truth-is-stranger-than fiction) art world deception, on offer in our digital collections:

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Now a major motion picture, The Goldfinch follows Theo Decker, who survived an attack at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that left his mother dead, from his teenage years to adulthood as he is drawn further and further into the dark art underworld. 

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Check out the ebook or audiobook on Libby

Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett

The first in Balliett’s trilogy of middle-grade art mysteries, Chasing Vermeer follows intrepid sixth graders Petra and Calder as they solve the mystery of a Vermeer stolen from the Art Institute in Chicago. 

Check out the ebook or audiobook on Libby

The Art of the Heist: Confessions of a Master Art Thief, Rock-and-Roller, and Prodigal Son by Myles J. Connor, Jr. with Jenny Siler

The tell-all story from America’s most notorious art thief, Boston-based Myles Connor paints a revealing self-portrait of his life of crime. 

Available on hoopla

Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists  by Anthony M. Amore & Tom Mashberg

Co-authored by the Director of Security of the Isabella Stewart Gardner, Stealing Rembrandts takes a deep dive into one of the most profitable criminal enterprises in the world and those who are willing to obtain a piece by the Dutch master at all costs.

Check out the ebook on Libby

The Art of the Heist film

This documentary series chronicles some of the most thrilling art heists in the world — including the heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Stream it on AcornTV or hoopla

For more online content from the Gardner Museum, be sure to check out their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube channel — they are frequently posting highlights from their collections, including an Anders Zorn portrait of the lady herself, Isabella Stewart Gardner, to commemorate her birthday on April 14.