Book Review: All Natural

When Nathanael Johnson was a child, he was considered the skeptic of his family. The son of two technophobic, medicine-eschewing nature lovers, he grew up constantly questioning his father's hippy ideals and complaining about his forced time outside. But when his wife was pregnant with their first child, he faced a dilemma: place his faith in modern medical technology despite a puzzling recent rise in maternal mortality, or repeat his own mother's at-home birth despite the unexpected complication that nearly killed her?

Johnson's attempt to make that choice provides the opening for his book All Natural: A Skeptic's Quest to Discover if the Natural Approach to Diet, Childbirth, Healing, and the Environment Really Keeps Us Healthier and Happier. Comparing modern Caesarean sections and Guatemalan birth customs, raw milk and upscale probiotic-infused yogurt, economically turbulent small ranches and high-tech factory farms populated by identical pigs, Johnson keeps searching for an answer to the question of nature versus technology. It is perhaps unsurprising that he never finds a clear winner, but some of what he discovers in his quest will surprise you. Whether you normally find yourself leaning toward the natural side or the scientific one, you might start to think a little differently about your own assumptions. - Michelle (Sunset)

Book Review: How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

"This book is a self-help book. Its objective, as it says on the cover, is to show you how to get filthy rich in rising Asia. And to do that it has to find you, huddled, shivering, on the packed earth under your mother's cot one cold, dewy morning."

This unconventional narrative opens the new novel How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. The unnamed main character struggles to rise from a childhood of crushing poverty in his unnamed Middle Eastern country, through various questionable money-making schemes, levels of bureaucratic corruption and often violent business rivals, to become one of the wealthiest men in Asia. At the same time he attempts to build a family life, feeling his wife drift away from him and trying to hold on to his son, all the while nursing an old crush on a woman from his childhood city, who has her own struggle for financial security in a tumultuous society. At times tragic, hilarious, and profane, the novel ends with a heartfelt realization about what really makes life worth living. - Michelle (Sunset)

Chandler Public Library Photo Challenge

April 14 – 20, 2013 is National Library Week and this year’s theme is “Communities Matter @ Your Library.” We want to know how Chandler Public Library is important to your community and invite you to take a picture of you showing us an example of this.

How do I play along? You can share your photos through any of the social media platforms: Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Flickr, etc.

Simply use the hashtag #nlwcpl2013 so that the rest of us who are playing can follow along and we can all see your photos. We will post our favorites to our Library Love board on Pinterest -- so be sure to follow us!

What is a hashtag and how does it work?  A hashtag is the pound sign (#) followed by a word of short phrase (without a space) that describes or classifies your tweet or photo on Twitter or Instagram.  If you click on a hashtag you will be taken to a list of tweets or pictures all containing the same hashtag.

Get creative with your pictures to show us how important Chandler Public Library is to your community. Do you check out books? Do you download music? Do you use a study room? Do you attend library programs? The possibilities are endless!

Don’t forget to follow us on:
Facebook - Chandler Public Library
Twitter - @ChandlerLibAZ
Pinterest – Chandler Library
Instagram - chandlerlibrary

Last week for tax help

Taxes are due Monday, April 15. Need help with your filing? VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) and AARP offer help to low- and moderate-income residents filing their tax returns. VITA has several sites in Chandler. Check the City of Chandler website for locations and hours, and please check the date that each site closes (sites are not open all week).

AARP offers tax help at the Downtown Chandler Library (22 S Delaware St) through April 15. Hours are:
Mon 9:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Tues 9:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Wed 4:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Thurs 9:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Please see their website for a list of documents to bring.

Find more tax information, including addresses and phone numbers for the IRS and Arizona Department of Revenue, and websites where you can get tax forms, on the library's Taxes webpage.

Strange things happening at the library...

Strange things are happening at the library. The books are marching up and down the shelves. Someone checked out an ebook on a 17-foot iPad. And wings have sprouted on the Sunset library - watch out for it to take flight!

Interested in the history of April Fool's Day? Check out this article from the Infoplease Almanac. For some of the best April Fool's pranks, take a look at this page from Snopes, which includes:

• The fast-food restaurant that advertised a new "left-handed" hamburger, with toppings rotated 180 degrees so they don't squish out from the right side.
• A radio program announcing a strange "gravitational" pull that would happen at 9:47am, and advised listeners to jump in the air at precisely that time to experience "a strange floating sensation."
• A fake news spot from the BBC in 1957, reporting an early spring spaghetti harvest.

Happy April Fool's Day - but don't forget that any materials due today are still due today!