Priest Lake Public Library The Little Log Library

Hundreds of college students were surprised on Wednesday when they were handed free copies of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" as they walked across campus. But they were perhaps even more surprised when they opened the book and discovered that it contained a 50-page foreword by a Christian ...

If you are one of those organized people interested in completing your holiday shopping as quickly and unerringly as possible, I have a suggestion for you: Pick up a copy of Guardians of Being by Eckhart Tolle with illustrations by Patrick McDonnell. In fact, while you’re at it, you might ...

The Republic by Plato is simply an outstanding book that give one a grand perspective. I'm very happy to have engaged this work because it stimulates the mind and furthers my thinking processes.

Warning: I know someone who curiously picked up William T. Vollmann’s hefty 1,300-page Imperial, took a minute to read a page at random, and then exhaled a whimper of incomprehension as he thunked it down in disbelief. Maybe it was the sheer weight (three pounds) that distressed, or maybe it ...

 There was a bit of gallows humor at the 60th annual National Book Awards ceremony in New York last night. Host Andy Borowitz said that when he was first invited to emcee the awards, he was so honored that he said he would have done it for free. As it ...

Cult-wise, now we know the Twilight books have really arrived. No, we’re not talking about author Stephenie Meyer’s appearance on Oprah, or about the “Twilight Series” coffee beans offered by one enterprising company in brews like “Bella’s Blend”. The news that caught us ...

Safe Passage by Ida Cook, was originally published in 1950 as "We Followed Our Stars".  It's been republished in 2008 by Harlequin Book  under the new title. A wonderful story of the Cook  sisters. of Great Britain, who fell in love with opera and the stars of opera in the  ...

When Vladimir Nabokov died in Switzerland in 1977, he left explicit instructions for his heirs to destroy the penciled index cards that made up his work to date on his unfinished 18th novel, The Original of Laura (Dying is Fun). Véra, his loyal wife and amanuensis, who died in 1991, ...

Not necessarily. Instead, the New Oxford American Dictionary has chosen "unfriend" (meaning to remove someone from your friend list on a social network like Facebook) as 2009 Word of the Year because of its "currency and potential longevity," says Christine Lindberg, Senior Lexicographer for Oxford's US dictionary program, who adds ...

Running through Stephen King’s 1,100-page domesday novel – and you will run through it – one of your first thoughts will be: That didn’t feel like an 1,100-page novel. And, really, can there be a higher compliment for a novelist?

If you follow book headlines (or headlines of any kind), brace yourself in preparation for this week. Pretty much what you are going to be hearing and seeing is all Sarah Palin, all the time. Her memoir "Going Rogue: An American Life" (on sale as of tomorrow) is already a ...

The birth of his first child posed a painful quandary for novelist Jonathan Safran Foer: Would he serve turkey at his son’s first Thanksgiving? In Eating Animals, a work of nonfiction, Foer (author of “Everything is Illuminated” and “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”) confesses to a lifelong ambivalence toward eating meat. ...

In Blake, respected biographer Peter Ackroyd shows painter and poet William Blake challenging 18th-century logical reasoning. Blake was a non-conformist and spiritual seeker who depicted in his art his inspired inner visions.

[This review from the Monitor's archives originally ran on Apr. 13, 1981.] Suspense novels can either be cut-and-dried thrillers, or they can strike deeper chords through the interweaving of universal themes and concerns with plot. Gorky Park, the most recent work by Martin Cruz Smith, belongs to the latter ...

Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo by Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence is an outstanding book about one man's compassion and courage to protect animals in the face of incredible odds. It is a must-read for animal lovers.