President’s Day is nearly upon us. This week a book and a DVD set on two of the men who have held the prestigious office are among the new and noteworthy presidential materials in the collection at the Mansfield Public Library. The Promise: President Obama, Year One: Newsweek columnist and Harvard graduate Jonathan Alter has considerable access to President Obama’s administration and he took advantage of such by penning a book on Obama’s first year in office. In the book the reader gets a detailed account of just how methodically the Obama White House is run, and how starkly this contrasts to…

Anthony Bourdain launched himself onto the literary landscape over a decade ago with his first culinary memoir 2000's Kitchen Confidential. He earned universal praise for his unabashed kitchen patois and deservedly so. Bourdain spent the previous 28 years sweating it out in kitchens from Provincetown to Park Avenue where he became the executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles, a rather informal joint where Idaho spuds find permanent home as some of New York City’s finest pommes frites. It was not a complete surprise to the bookish set that Bourdain had a sort of brilliance for blarney; he was up…

Despicable Me Marshfield resident Steve Carell*, best known as Michael  from the NBC television series The Office, voices the lead character in Despicable Me, a past-his-prime super villain named Gru. Carell's vocal talents are not to be underestimated; his faux-Hungarian accent provides the perfect vehicle for the witty, worldly script. Upon hearing about the theft of an Egyptian Pyramid at the onset of the film, Gru plans to steal the moon in hopes of pulling off the century’s biggest heist. Gru finds pawns, in the form of three orphaned girls to help pull off his felonious quest. …

When I reminisce about the books that I loved as a child I always come back to one, James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. Dahl the great British writer, also authored such works as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, and Fantastic Mr Fox. All of these extraordinary books are available at the Mansfield Public Library; they are certainly worth a read. James and the Giant Peach had the power to put me in a different place every time I read it. I was taken with its delicious imagery; forgive the pun. I was touched by James Henry Trotter’s tragic story, the loss of his parents, and his …

Some interesting and contemporary cookbooks grab the spotlight this week at the Mansfield Public Library. Everyone is always looking for a new recipe. Whether you want to prepare for an impending visit from the in-laws, throw a smashing dinner party for your friends, or dig yourself and your family out of the weekly ground beef rut that we all more cheerfully refer to as taco night, something new can make the night. Of course you can turn on the TV and see what Ina Garten is making on Barefoot Contessa, chances are it will lean towards French and call for garden-fresh herbs. This week however…

Both the film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World on DVD and the graphic novel Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Volume 2) from the book series of which the film is based, are newly available at the Mansfield Public Library this week.  The film stars Michael Cera, the 20-something, omnipresent, silver-screen nerd known from the films Juno, Superbad, and last year’s contemporary tribute to 1960’s French New Wave films such as, Pierrot le fou, and Breathless by Jean Luc Godard; the excellent, Youth in Revolt. He also starred in the bitingly hilarious but now defunct Fox television series Arrested …

If anyone knows the value of an up-to-date travel guide, I do. Two years ago I crossed the Canadian border into Ontario and headed northeast along the St. Lawrence River with Montreal, Quebec as my destination. In my luggage I had a copy of Fodor's Canada 1980. I learned the hard way that the Métro de Montréal fare was no longer 50 cents and that I would not be going to Olympic Stadium to root for Major League Baseball's Expos as they had left town four years earlier in 2004. Ben's Deli, an old haunt of one of my favorite musicians, Leonard Cohen, had also closed down two years earlier. …

This week at the Mansfield Public Library three new films on DVD are among the new materials in circulation just in time for the post-holiday lull. Come down to the library today and check out these and other new items available to Mansfield residents. The Town: Academy Award winner Ben Affleck's  second directorial work is adapted from Chuck Hogan's novel Prince of Thieves. The film is based on four friends from Charlestown, Massachusetts who rob a Cambridge bank and kidnap one of the tellers. Mad Men's Jon Hamm plays an FBI agent who aims to stop the crew in their tracks. The film continues…