Patron Spotlight

Patron Spotlight: Gwendolyn Watson

Librarians are not supposed to have favorites, but if we did, Gwendolyn Watson would be high on our list. Mrs. Watson has been a patron of the Freeport Memorial Library since moving to Freeport in 1986.

Mrs. Watson is a retiree of the Westbury Public Schools where for 28 years she was a secretary to the principal in one of the district schools. Before that she worked at Adelphi University for 10 years, serving as secretary in the religious center, and later as a secretary in the physical education department.

Being retired allows Mrs. Watson the opportunity to visit the Library frequently. Besides having the opportunity to read numerous books, she finds the many sources of reference materials and programs available to the community outstanding.

Mrs. Watson, who has a strong interest in travel, has been around the globe; highlights include her visits to the United Kingdom and China. Before she books a trip, she plans her itinerary at the Library by taking advantage of our travel books, magazines, DVDs, and monthly travel lectures.

When not visiting exotic places, Mrs. Watson enjoys taking her grandchildren to local museums and botanical gardens with the Library’s free museum passes. She is also a regular at the Library’s Sunday concerts and enjoys the Library’s monthly art exhibits and art receptions.

Mrs. Watson believes that education is a life-long experience that includes reading books, visiting museums, and traveling to new places. When not keeping her mind fit, she keeps physically fit by taking various exercise classes including aquacize, tai-chi, yoga, and zumba.

Mrs. Watson is a longtime member of the Friends of the Freeport Memorial Library. She is also the proud mother of three children and eight grandchildren.

eBooks

Publishers Refusing to Sell eBook to Libraries

The following publishers will no longer make available their eBooks to libraries via Nassau Digital Doorway (OverDrive):

Brilliance Audio
Hachette Book Group
Macmillan Publisher
Penguin Group
Simon & Schuster

If you stop seeing your favorite author's books in OverDrive, that author may be published by one of these companies. We hope that this situation changes in the future.

Book Recommendation

Book Recommendations:
Happy Birthday President Lincoln

Fiction

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith (2010)
This book reveals the hidden life of the sixteenth U.S. president, who was actually a vampire-hunter obsessed with the complete elimination of the undead, and uncovers the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of the nation.

Lincoln by Gore Vidal (1984)
The character of President Lincoln, unremittingly tested by the trials of the war years, is reflected through the eyes of the diverse and colorful denizens of Washington, including his wife Mary and his political rivals and disciples.

Nonfiction

Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness by Joshua Wolf Shenk (2006)
Lincoln's Melancholy reveals how Lincoln’s depression influenced both the president's character and his leadership. Lincoln forged a hard path toward mental health from the time he was a young man. Shenk draws from historical record, interviews with Lincoln scholars, and contemporary research on depression to understand the nature of his unhappiness.

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2006)
Team of Rivals doesn't just tell the story of Abraham Lincoln. It is a multiple biography of the entire team of personal and political competitors that he put together to lead the country through its greatest crisis. Here, Doris Kearns Goodwin profiles five of the key players in her book, four of whom contended for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination and all of whom later worked together in Lincoln's cabinet.

Book Recommendations

Book Recommendations

19th Wife by David Ebershoff (2008)
It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. Yet soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second narrative unfolds–a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death.

Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg (2008)
After she returns to her hometown to learn that her friend was found in an ice-cold bath with her wrists slashed, biographer Erica Falck researches her friend's past in hopes of writing a book. She joins forces with Detective Patrik Hedstrom, who has his own suspicions about the case. This is Camilla Lackberg's first book in a series of Swedish mysteries. Her books are a combination of Bridget Jones meets Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but without the gratuitous violence.