Once again we’ve decided to kick off the new year with a lengthier read, but this time we’ve chosen to go with a science fiction cult classic - buy viagra online.Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson was written almost twenty years ago but it still holds its own and even appeared on Time magazine’s list of 100 all-time best English-language novels written since 1923.Here’s the Publisher’s Weekly review of this cyberpunk adventure:

In California of the near future, when the U.S - buy viagra online.is only a “Burbclave” (city-state), the Mafia is just another franchise chain (CosaNostrastet Pizza, Incorporated) and there are no laws to speak of, Hiro Protagonist follows clues from the Bible, ancient Sumer and high technology to help thwart an attempt to take control of civilization–such as it is - buy viagra online.When he logs on to Metaverse buy viagra online, an imaginary place entered via computer, Hiro encounters Juanita Marquez, a “radical” Catholic and computer whiz.She warns him off Snow Crash (a street drug named for computer failure) and gives him a file labeled Babel (as in Tower of Babel).Another friend, sp ok/pk Da5id, who ignores Juanita’s warning, computer crashes out of Metaverse into the real world, where he physically collapses - buy viagra online.Hiro, Juanita, Y.T; buy viagra online.(a freewheeling, skateboard-riding courier) and sundry other Buy viagra online: burbclave and franchise power figures see some action on the way to finding out who is behind this bizarre “drug” with ancient roots.Although Stephenson ( Zodiac ) provides more Sumerian culture than the story strictly needs (alternating intense activity with scholarship breaks) buy viagra online, his imaginative juxtaposition of ancient and futuristic detail could make this a cult favorite.

If you want to wrap up 2009 by entrenching yourself in a dystopian futureworld, copies of Snow Crash are now available for checkout with your OPPL library card at the Oak Park Public Library’s second floor Adult and Teen Services desk. Buy viagra online: then we hope you’ll join us for our first 2010 discussion at Molly Malone’s (The Snug) in Forest Park on Tuesday, January 26 at 8pm!

image courtesy of Katie Kirk

Thanks once again to everyone who came out for Tuesday night’s discussion; buy cialis online.In December we will be continuing our genre X tradition of taking a hiatus from our book discussion to host a White Elephant book swap. Buy cialis online: this year we will be hosting the swap on Tuesday, December 15 at 8pm at Molly Malones (The Snug).Everyone is required to bring one gift wrapped book, which can be a title that you’re willing to sacrifice from your own collection or a brand new copy of a title you want to share with someone else - buy cialis online.Then prepare yourselves for the fun that only a White Elephant style swap can bring; buy cialis online.And who knows there may very well be sweets and treats to enjoy on behalf of the genre X elves..; buy cialis online.

We hope to see you at 8pm at Molly Malone’s tonight for a  discussion of Jeannette Walls’ fascinating memoir The Glass Castle.If you’re like me and left wanting to know more, check out this PBS interview with Walls or catch this entertaining exchange with her from Colbert’s Nation. Levitra online: and then you may want to peruse these questions to get your mind in gear for another great genre X discussion!

Due to low contestant registration we’ve decided to postpone Smell the Glove until Saturday, January 30 2010 - order viagra online.Fortunately this gives all of you guitar hero fanatics a chance to get your band together and polish up your act for the new year! So keep practicing and stay tuned for more details on Smell the Glove 2010.

We are thoroughly excited to invite you to our next genre x after hours program, Smell the Glove: A Guitar Hero World Tour Competition.  In celebration of American Library Association’s National Gaming Day, Smell the Glove will give you the opportunity to take the stage and perform songs on plastic drums and guitars in front of a roaring audience, all while competing for prizes!

So if you’re a Guitar Hero enthusiast with mad skills, we’re looking for you!  Just round up a band of four and register following the instructions below the jump.  Or if you’re more comfortable playing on Easy (like me), then stop by with your friends and cheer for your favorite mock band.  After all, participants will be judged not only on their score and accuracy but also on showmanship & audience response.  And yes, costumes and personas are highly encouraged - take this as a cue to come dressed as the members of Spinal Tap, your favorite rock band, or to unveil a band uniform of your own design.

Join us at Oak Park Public Library on Saturday, November 14 when the show must go on, or more precisely at 7pm.  This event is 18+, advance registration is required to compete, refreshments will be served, and it most definitely “goes to 11“.

Click on “the rest of this entry” for Complete Rules & Registration information.  Read the rest of this entry »

Just in time for the approaching Holiday season, we bring you one of the finest documents of dysfunctional family life in recent years.  Published in 2005, The Glass Castle spent a remarkable 100 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list which shows just how well loved Walls’ memoir has become.  Though the events of the story threaten to paint her eclectic parents in a less than favorable light, it is Walls’ sympathetic, non-judgmental tone despite everything she endured that makes this book so unique.  A review, from Booklist:

Walls, who spent years trying to hide her childhood experiences, allows the story to spill out in this remarkable recollection of growing up - accessrx.From her current perspective as a contributor to MSNBC online, she remembers the poverty, hunger, jokes, and bullying she and her siblings endured, and she looks back at her parents: her flighty, self-indulgent mother, a Pollyanna unwilling to assume the responsibilities of parenting, and her father, troubled, brilliant Rex, whose ability to turn his family’s downward-spiraling circumstances into adventures allowed his children to excuse his imperfections until they grew old enough to understand what he had done to them—and to himself; accessrx.His grand plans to build a home for the family never evolved: the hole for the foundation of the “The Glass Castle accessrx,” as the dream house was called, became the family garbage dump, and, of course, a metaphor for Rex Walls’ life. Accessrx: shocking, sad, and occasionally bitter, this gracefully written account speaks candidly, yet with surprising affection, about parents and about the strength of family ties—for both good and ill.

Please join us to discuss this moving memoir on Tuesday, November 24 at 8pm at Molly Malone’s (The Snug) in Forest Park.If you need to pick up a copy of the book accessrx, just stop by Oak Park Public Library’s second floor Adult and Teen Services desk with your OPPL library card and we’ll set you up.

In July we’ve decided to take on another nonfiction selection - viagra on line.This time we’re delving into our first collection of essays by the sorely missed David Foster Wallace. Viagra on line: we felt this was a more manageable Wallace selection than Infinite Jest (although I have a feeling many of you are already experiencing an Infinite Summer).  Here’s the Booklist review for Consider the Lobster:

In his latest essay collection, Wallace, known best for his expansive metafiction, traverses a wide swathe of territory, swinging from a consideration of pornography to a reading of John Updike (perhaps not such a stretch), from the 2000 campaign trail of Republican John McClain to reflections on Kafka and Dostoyevsky, and from Bloomington, Illinois, to lobster-trawling Maine. Viagra on line: the uberliterate Wallace is a subtle Hunter Thompson, pointed, yet sly, in directing transitions to reveal his true intention–that is, he misleads, then opens up.Humorous, engaging, albeit a bit perplexing in his style, he is a little too trendy in his postmodern use of boxes, arrows, footnotes, and so on.But when Wallace is on the mark, few can compare in craft and craftiness; viagra on line.And there is enough that is uncool here to make it cool in a truly culty sense; viagra on line. Viagra on line: wallace’s complex essays are written, and rightfully so, to be read more than once.

Please come join us in discussing the last collection of essays Wallace published on Tuesday, July 28 at 8pm at Molly Malone’s (The Snug) in Forest Park.If you need to pick up a copy of Consider the Lobster, please stop by the Oak Park Public Library’s Main Library second floor Adult and Teen Services desk with your OPPL library card and we’ll set you up with one!

Before Katherine Dunn charmed the world with Geek Love twenty years ago,  she had begun establishing a career writing about a different subset of society - the world of boxing; accessrx.com.Last month she released an anthology of essays entitled One Ring Circus about this subculture she has come to know and love; accessrx.com.Guernica magazine caught up with Dunn this month to discuss both works.

Get yourself into discussion mode by pondering some of these Geek Love questions and then come on out to Molly Malone’s (The Snug) this evening at 8pm to share your thoughts on the freaks and geeks!

This June online cialis, genre X is taking a plunge into the world of geeks with Katherine Dunn’s cult classic, Geek Love. Keep in mind, however, that these are not the same geeks lovingly portrayed in Judd Apatow’s darling television series, Freaks and Geeks - online cialis. Online cialis: instead, Dunn dreams up a family of carnies who’re at times hard to empathize with but entirely impossible to ignore. A synopsis online cialis, from Library Journal:

“Guiding us into the world of the grotesque, Dunn produces a novel of compassion, insight, and macabre humor.At its center are Al and Lil Binewski, carnival owners who breed freak offspring through drug use so that they can perform in the show.Over the years, this ghoulish process becomes the norm; indeed, as we share the experiences of the children, we find that for this close-knit family, a child’s signs of normalcy are seen as a real threat - online cialis.What elevates this work is Dunn’s controlled online cialis, matter-of-fact narrative, her skillful character development, and her relentless insistence that we address these people and their concerns in human terms.”

Please join us on our journey into the horrifying and engrossing world of the Binewski family. And if you’re in the Chicagoland area online cialis, we’d love to see you at our discussion of Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love at 8pm on Tuesday, June 23 at Molly Malone’s in Forest Park.

drawing of Kundera by Adolf Hoffmeister

We hope to see both new and old faces at Molly Malone’s this evening at 8pm for what is bound to be a hearty discussion of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera. Cialis: if you’re looking for some points to ponder before then, you might want to check out Philip Roth’s 1980 interview with Kundera in which the author offers up his perspectives on many of the more discussable aspects of the book.Numerous critics and fans have also ruminated over some of Kundera’s favorite concepts and conventions like the emigre experience and bending the definition of the novel, but I want to know what underlying theme resonated most with you? ; cialis

This May, genre X will be making a foray back into World Literature with Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting - cialis buy online. Cialis buy online: written by Czech-born Kundera in 1979, the novel was the first written after his exile to France in 1975, remains one of the most important of his career, and exemplifies his philosophical style. From Harper Collins Publishers:

“Rich in its stories cialis buy online, characters, and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970s.Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than its historical implications.In seven wonderfully integrated parts cialis buy online, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reordered and emphasized, newly examined, analyzed, and experienced.”

Join us for a discussion of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting on Tuesday, May 26 at 8pm at Molly Malone’s in Forest Park. Stop by the Oak Park Public Library’s Adult & Teen Services with your OPPL library card to pick up a copy (or just to say hi); cialis buy online.

Image designed by meganowdom.com

Join us Saturday, March 14th from 7 to 10 pm to participate in the pop culture trivia event of the year.

Hop on Pop is getting closer! Don’t miss out on your chance to flex your trivia muscles and compete for prizes during our first ever trivia event; cialis online without prescription. And don’t forget - this Genre X after hours event is FREE thanks to the support of the Friends of the Oak Park Public Library.

Invite your friends and pull together the best 2-3 person team you can. Cialis online without prescription: or arrive solo and meet another trivia fanatic to team up with. Either way, be aware that this multimedia competition that’s sure to make you lose your mind with awesome.

No registration is necessary, but if you’d like to size up the competition take a look at the Hop on Pop Facebook event page and tell us you’re coming.

photo by howieluvzus

Calling all Pop Culture Scholars: Do you know Entertainment Weekly like the back of your hand? Do your friends run to you for Oscar predictions? Can you assemble a team of 2 or 3 to vie for your chance at prizes and glory? Then this is your chance to prove that all of those hours reading gossip blogs finally paid off.

Join us on Saturday, March 14th at 7:00 pm for Hop on Pop: A Pop Culture Trivia Night sponsored by the Oak Park Public Library - order levitra. Teams from all over Chicagoland can compete for their chance to show off their pop culture scholarship and win gift certificates and other prizes.

If you’d like to play:

Come to the Oak Park Public Library’s Main Library at 7 pm on Saturday, March 14th - order levitra. The quiz begins promptly at 7:30 pm so be on time or lose valuable points.

Be a part of a 2-3 person team - order levitra. Come in with your team intact, or come by yourself and join one when you get here.

This is a team event, so don’t worry about being put on the spot individually; order levitra. You can expect a multimedia quiz with questions on books, movies, music, television, and cultural events from the 80s to 2009.

First place is a gift certificate for $75, second place is $50, and third place is $25 - order levitra. There will also be some covert surprises along the way so prepare your creativity.

We’re serving refreshments - order levitra. Yum.

Keep watching the genre X blog for more details on this event - order levitra. See you there, SmartyPants!

If you’re enjoying February’s selection as much as I am, you may want to head out to Unity Temple in Oak Park on Monday, February 16 at 7 pm to listen to T.C.Boyle read and discuss his latest book buying viagra online without prescription, The Women. Buying viagra online without prescription: the Women is a fictional biography about Frank Lloyd Wright and the many women in his life.Boyle will be signing books and refreshments will be served following his talk - buying viagra online without prescription. Buying viagra online without prescription: this event is free and co-sponsored by the Oak Park Public Library.

Cheap viagra online without prescription: once again thanks to everyone who at least attempted to take on the behemoth that is House of Leaves and subsequently came out to talk about it last night.We could’ve never predicted that Danielewski would draw an unprecendented 23 genre Xers - and on a snowy night too! Clearly everyone has something to say about postmodernism (and it isn’t always pretty)!

Since many of you referred to the act of reading House of Leaves as work, February’s selection should come as refreshing change.Drop City by T.C - cheap viagra online without prescription.Boyle serves up an entertaining look into a hippie commune.Here is the Amazon.com review:

With Drop City, T; cheap viagra online without prescription. Cheap viagra online without prescription: coraghessan Boyle offers proof that he has become one of America’s most prolific, gifted storytellers.Set in the 1970s, Boyle entertains readers with the denizens of “Drop City,” a counterculture California commune that welcomes anyone wanting to live off the grid, use drugs, and practice free love.Boyle sublimely captures the sociology of its rebellious members cheap viagra online without prescription, who doubt the sincerity or beliefs of newcomers, express some insecurity about nonconformity, and chastise outsiders while remaining oblivious to their own hypocrisy.Marco cheap viagra online without prescription, Pan, Star, and other “cats” and “chicks” live hassle-free until dissention and cries of racism mount amid increasing run-ins with the local government (a young girl is raped, installation of a sewage system is mandated, a mother lets her toddlers drink LSD-laced juice).Seeking refuge, the citizens move north, to Alaska, to reinvent their utopia, but soon learn the natural environment is more unforgiving of a lackadaisical lifestyle.

Drop City is funny, evocative, and well-paced, shifting between the hippies and the Alaskan locals–primarily Sess and his new bride Pamela (a city dweller who arranged stays with several trappers over a few weeks to determine whom she would marry)–until the two cultures collide.Balanced between plot and character, Boyle excels at describing the physical world and his characters’ interaction with it, whether portraying the harshness (or sheer beauty) of the Alaskan wilderness, the simple survival routines of its grizzled inhabitants, or the sounds wafting through Drop City: “the goats bleating to be milked or fed, the single sharp ringing note of a dog surprised by its own hunger, the regular slap of the screen door at the back of the house–and underneath it all, like the soundtrack to a movie, the dull hum of rock and roll leaking out the kitchen windows.” Truly American in spirit, Drop City is a strong novel of freedom and those in pursuit of lives of liberty.–Michael Ferch

I hope we see just as many of you at our next discussion on Tuesday, February 24 at 8pm at Molly Malone’s (The Snug) in Forest Park! Remember, if you haven’t picked up your copy yet, stop by the Oak Park Public Library’s Main Library second floor Adult and Teen Services desk with your OPPL library card to grab one - cheap viagra online without prescription.