This week at your library ... Jane Austen Book Club: Northanger Abbey
Location: Menninger Room 206 Date: Friday, March 14, 2008
Time: 9:30 AM to 11:30 AM
Written in 1799 but published posthumously, Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (1818) follows Catherine Morland, who at age 17 visits Bath, attends balls, and meets the Tinley family. She is invited to their country mansion, which she expects to be dark and mysterious because she has been reading gothic novels. Discuss Austen's work, her memorable characters, and her lasting influence. Registration required. Call 785-580-4540 or sign up in person.
Written in 1799 but published posthumously, Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (1818) follows Catherine Morland, who at age 17 visits Bath, attends balls, and meets the Tinley family. She is invited to their country mansion, which she expects to be dark and mysterious because she has been reading gothic novels. Discuss Austen's work, her memorable characters, and her lasting influence. Registration required. Call 785-580-4540 or sign up in person.
Need encouragement to read a classic?
Celebrating Veterans Awareness Week, November 5-11, the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library honors local veterans on Wednesday November 7, with activities beginning at 2:30 pm. Enjoy viewing displays, military vehicles and other memorabilia provided by local military restorers from WW II, Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm. There will be patriotic music, a presentation from local war veterans, re-enactors, and a Q&A session. 
Joe Posnanski visited the library yesterday to discuss his book about Negro League baseball legend Buck O'Neil, 
Sports columnist Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star comes to the library Sunday, August 19, to discuss The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America. The Soul of Baseball is a wonderful chronicle of Posnanski’s journeys around the country over the course of one year with Buck O’Neil, former Negro Leagues player, manager of the Kansas City Monarchs, and later the first black coach in the Major Leagues. O’Neil 
dedicated much of his life to championing the memory of Negro League baseball and the men who played the game—many in relative obscurity. Through vivid stories that range from humorous to sad to profound, Posnanski shows what made Buck O’Neil such a unique personality, beloved by so many. But O’Neil’s life story is not about baseball alone. It recounts the incredible ability of a man who lived through pain and prejudice while retaining a heart of tolerance and forgiveness. Baseball fans will certainly want to attend this program—even if you’re not a sports fan, you will benefit from hearing about Buck O’Neil and his approach to life.
This past Saturday was our Harry Potter Grand Finale Bash at TSCPL. Trivia, costumes, potions, puzzles and prizes dominated the afternoon! Our winners of the random prize drawing for a Harry Potter survival pack were:
Yesterday afternoon, Marilyn Johnson, author of 
Author Marilyn Johnson drew from hundreds of reading logs to choose our three Grand Prize Winners for the 2007 Adult Summer Reading program at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library.
Congratulations to everyone who read books this summer! Although the pleasure of reading is its own reward, sometimes prizes are fun too! 
It's been a long hot summer and after 3 solid months of reading, it's time to tally up the reading logs! Hundreds of readers in the Topeka and surrounding communities have been pouring in to hand over stacks of completed reading logs. 
The eight-legged metal mechanical hound with glowing eyes and a drug filled proboscis is a robotic character in Fahrenheit 451. The robot pictured here is perhaps not as pleasing to the eye as a Stepford wife but it can hang the laundry! Representatives from the Wichita Homeschool Warriors Robotics team presented a Big Read/Summer Reading program to an audience of approximately 90. The team has placed first in the last five years at the Kansas BEST competition. BEST is an acronym for Boosting Engineering Science and Technology and sponsored by the Engineering Dean’s Council at Wichita State University. The video shown featured shots of a wildly competitive event. Students explained the process followed to build a robot in six weeks time with only the materials provided for a specific purpose. Solving a different problem every year requires intense focus. The WHWR group traveled to Topeka in three vehicles carrying an additional three robots which the attendees were allowed to operate in the task of stacking pop cans. The WHWR group toured the library after the program. As you might guess, they were especially impressed and interested in our very own robotic beast—the Tech-Logic check in machine.
The TSCPL So Many Books, So Little Time book discussion group is seeking new members. Have you always wanted to join a book group, but never made the time? If you want to read well-crafted, contemporary, literary works and discuss them with interested readers, then this book group is for you! 
Test your knowledge of these classic books by guessing the book title from a short plot description and the author’s initials.