Starting August 1st join our online book discussion group found on our website www.nflibrary.ca which will feature one book to discuss for the month. August’s book is “Rollback” by Robert J. Sawyer. Andrew Porteus and Carrie Chiaramonte will moderate this forum. On a first come, first served basis, online participants can pick up a copy of the book in person at the Victoria Avenue Library to use over the month of the online discussion, but you don’t need a library copy to participate.. Adults are invited to join in person one of our seven popular book discussion groups. The groups meet for about an hour once a month from September to April at the Victoria Avenue Library, Chippawa Branch, Community Centre Branch and Stamford Centre Branch. There are both daytime and evening sessions offered. Pre-registration has started and these sessions usually fill-up quickly. Registration is $8 for the year...

My wife and her girl friends and my daughter and her girl friends saw this summer’s popular movie “Sex in the City”. I didn’t see it but I know where to find related material - in the library! We have two novels by “Sex in the City” author Candace Bushnell. One is “ Lipstick jungle” and the other is “Trading up”. Beautiful and successful New York single women looking for love are the themes once again. Borrow the library’s copies of the first six seasons of the hit television show “Sex in the City”. Just published this year are novels about female friendships such as “Secrets of the Hollywood girls club”...

The Rosberg Gallery in the Victoria Avenue Library features monthly exhibitions of many local artists. It has long been an important cultural space showcasing a variety of arts and crafts. Artist Mario Palombo’s exhibition in June was seen be many. The following is the schedule of artists exhibiting there for the rest of the year: July: Gary Crosby; August: Photographs by the Niagara Falls Camera Club; September: Niagara Handweavers & Spinners; October: Mary Friesen; November: Susan Lot; December: Cyrus Harchegani. The Ontario Ministry of Culture reminds us that culture is increasingly being recognized as essential to prosperous, livable and sustainable...

See the library display at Optimist Park on July 1 during the City’s Canada Day celebrations. I will be there with Systems Administrator Jan Leak who will bring her laptop to promote our website. She will also bring an interesting series of winter images of Niagara Falls. Maybe the cool images will help keep us keep temperatures down on what is traditionally a very hot day! The four libraries will be closed on Canada Day .Use the book return slots and visit anytime the library website www.nflibrary.ca to search the catalogue and databases, place reserves, loan renewals and much more. Borrow “Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, and Lies” by Ginger Strand which is a new book about our history and development by an American author with some sobering points of view. The Publisher writes on the book jacket that “Americans call Niagara Falls a natural wonder, but the Falls aren't very natural anymore. In fact, they are a study in artifice. Water diverted, riverbed reshaped, brink stabilized and landscape redesigned, the Falls are more a monument to man's meddling than to nature's strength. Held up as an example of something real, they are hemmed in with fakery -- waxworks, haunted houses, IMAX films and ersatz Indian tales. A symbol of American manifest destiny, they are shared politely with Canada. Emblem of nature's power, they are completely human-controlled. Archetype of natural beauty, they belie an ugly environmental legacy still bubbling up from below. On every level, Niagara Falls is a monument to how America falsifies nature, reshaping its contours and redirecting its force while claiming to submit to its will....

Local resident Frank Long will launch his new book “A Century of Sports in Niagara Falls: Book II” at the Victoria Avenue Library on June 21 from 10am to 1pm. Autographed copies of the book will be on sale for $25 (tax included) and the public is invited to share their sports memories with the author. In 2006, Book I by Long was a bestseller and many local athletes and their families wanted a copy. After the official launch, the Library will once again be selling the book as a library fund raising project for $25 (tax included) at each of our four libraries (Chippawa, Community Centre, Stamford and Victoria Avenue libraries). The book committee included the author’s wife Joyce and friends Doug Caverson and Boris Dimitroff. Book II continues the first book and with new and different photographs. There are 300 photographs of 19 sports with more than 3100 names in the name index which will provide easier identification of local athletes....