We're deep into Summer Reading, punks

The library watched a new generation walk in their caps and gowns. Hopeful and yearning faces about to step into a new world where their decisions have consequences. May they burn bright and long and goddamn it the Turner kid was still late.

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The library played a double feature of folks that were up to no good but helped anyway. We're No Angels (1955) follows three escaped convicts headed by Humphrey Bogart as they help a small town family murder their way to financial independence. We're No Angels (1989) has Robert De Niro and Sean Penn escape from prison and pretend to be priests while trying to cross the Canadian border. Both sink deep into black comedy but even though they are based on the same idea, they are wildly different movies. 1955 leans heavily into the black comedy and the savvy of the criminals while 1989 is a fish out of water scenario watching our leads bumble around pretending to be good people. Depending on your mood, either could be a great night depending if you want slapstick with fun wordplay and looney tunes comedy or with violence and religious ponderances and Sean Penn being a weirdo.

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The library has a hiring practice based on the old premise of "catch and release." Our reference librarian came as he was passing through town and ran a red light. We got him for two more years.

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The Friends of the Banned Library helps the library continue forward on our mission statement of "preserving and growing the knowledge of the community as well as providing snacks on a weekly basis to children." If you would like to be a Friend, please subscribe to our patreon or see your future wither and die on a giving tree of rotten dreams. Patreon.com/bannedlibrary

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Reference asks that you keep your questions to the 5 W's (who, what, where, when, why, and how) rather than try to start a rap battle.

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The Furious (2025) - Directed by Kenji Tanigaki / Written by Mak Tin-shi, Lei Zhilong, Shum Kwan-sin, Frank Hui / Starring Xie Miao, Joe Taslim, Yang Enyou

Y'ALL. The whole ride home I had one thought in my head: That was violence. Balletic, kinetic, amazing violence. The whole plot starts when Wang's daughter Rainy is kidnapped by child traffickers, and Wang decides he will tear through half of whatever city they are in to get her back. Along for the ass kicking is Navin, whose estranged wife vanished while investigating the child trafficking. The next two hours are kicks, punches, flips, bites, spins, hammers, knives, arrows, pallets, steel-toe boots, and bicycles being wielded with expert precision so clean that the camera has trouble catching it all on film. Not that it's missed in frame. The actors and stunt performers are moving so fast at times they become blurs. Amazing action movie with a big heart that it keeps firmly in its chest.

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The library keeps all the yearbooks from local schools so one day your kids can come and steal your fashion sense.

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Circulation only had an apple for lunch so you best not come for the queen.

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Next week's summer reading program story time will be based on the 1997 Fincher film "The Game." When you signed up for the SRP, we gathered all your family's reading habits, financial data, and library data. The surveillance started before that time. We know you and will find you and you will play The Game until the end whether that means fortune or glory or falling from the library roof in a spectacular expression of depression.

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The library's "Please Leave the Library" fun run will start at closing time.

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Want to follow the library on social media? We're ever present on Bluesky and Letterboxd and almost never on Instagram. Follow today!

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The library fights for your right to party outside the library, preferably at home with a good book or DVD that you checked out from the library.

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Children's Corner: Summer Reading chugs along with five, count them, five story times per day this week. We have many books lined up, a different one every day! And if the children's librarian's ukulele strings break, she brought her tuba!

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Reference Nook: A new copy of Black's Law Dictionary has been purchased. The dictionary will not leave the reference area. The dictionary will not be casually tossed with an air of whimsy. The dictionary holds great truths and will not be soiled by your large venti latte with two pumps of bullshit, fake paralegal.

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Things you'll love:

The Furious (2025) - see above

The Game (1997) - Fincher classic starring Michael Douglass, Sean Penn, and Deborah Kara Unger where a rich guy gets a present from his brother to play The Game, an adventure scenario that becomes a little too real as bodies start piling up.

Equalizer 2 (2018) - Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington team up as director and star in this second outing of one man trying to help people using his old CIA tactics but gets drawn into the life again when his old partner is murdered.

Get Shorty (1995) - Based on the Elmore Leonard book of the same name starring John Travolta as a loan shark who goes to Hollywood to get some money back but ties himself to a movie producer (the late great Gene Hackman), the producer's ex who wants the movie money as well (Rene Russo) with various mobsters in tow (shout out to Delroy Lindo).