Stones in His Pocket

Exciting times at the new Main Library. Our first scheduled performance in the newly finished Theater will be the Civic Theater's Stones in His Pocket. I snuck down to see the status of completion of the theater and caught the rehearsals. I encourage you to be among the first in the community to see the new theater and its inaugural performances. Go to the Civic Theater web site to get your tickets.

300 buzz

Frank Miller is a comic book artist and writer whose most well-known work includes The Dark Knight Returns (a Batman graphic novel which heavily influenced the 1989 film Batman), Sin City (a series of graphic novels, with a film released in 2005), and now 300, about the Spartans' heroic stand against the Persians at Thermopylae.

The movie 300 (just released last month) has done well, receiving more good than bad reviews (you can read some at Rotten Tomatoes, where the tomatometer rates it as 61% Fresh).

If you want to know more, try these:

• Frank Miller - an illustrated collection of interviews
• Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World by Paul Cartledge
  
• Rise and Fall of the Spartans - History Channel video of everything Sparta

And here are a few historical fiction titles that might grab you (not necessarily about Greeks and Persians):

• Gates of Fire: an epic novel of the Battle of Thermopylae by Steven Pressfield
  
• The Ten Thousand by Michael Curtis Ford
• The Archer's Tale by Bernard Cornwell
• The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
• The Sunbird by Elizabeth Wein