Clearwater War of the Worlds Book Talk

Don't forget to attend the Nov. 2 Book Talk to be given by Donarita Vocca in the Multipurpose Room of the Clearwater Library on War of the Worlds. There will be three door prizes for those with a winning ticket, and you must be present to win!

St. Petersburg College Library Blog

ALIENS INVADE CLEARWATER!!!

Wilma whacked the Clearwater Campus War of the Worlds presentations, but they have been re-scheduled.

Monday, 10/31, 12:30 p.m., Student Activities-Clearwater, join us to view the 1953 film version of this classic. Immediately following, Nick Manias of the Ethics Department will lead a discussion on ethical issues within the book/movie.

Wednesday, 11/2, 12:45 p.m., Clearwater Campus Multi Purpose Room, Donarita Vocca of the St. Petersburg Campus West Community Library will lead a book discussion of this masterpiece.

Please join us!

Mars Attacks!

MARS ATTACKS!


When: Monday, October 31st, 2005 – 2:00 p.m.
Where: Tarpon Springs Campus, Fine Arts Auditorium

Witness a live re-enactment of Orson Welles’
1938 radio broadcast of
War of the Worlds!

Orson Welles will be portrayed by our very own Ned Johnson
with special guest, David Day.

A book discussion of War of the Worlds, hosted by Donarita Vocca (librarian, Gibbs Campus), will immediately follow this program.

Students, faculty and staff are all invited.

Cake and punch will be provided by Student Activities.

(be there and be scared!)

Poetry Reading with Dr. Greg Byrd in Clearwater's Crossroads Gallery

The Clearwater Campus Library invites you to enjoy a POETRY READING with Dr. Greg Byrd, Professor, Letters, in the Crossroads Gallery.

Times: Thursday, November 3 from 7:15 p.m.-8:45 p.m. and Monday, November 7, from 12:45 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Greg is the winner of Yellowjacket Press's 2005 Chapbook Competiition for Florida Poets. His poems have appeared in many journals such as Cortland Review, Apalachee Review, and Tampa Review , which nominated him for a 1998 Pushcart Prize. A fourth generation Floridian, Greg grew up in the Florida Keys, where many of his poems are set. Since 1990, he has taught English, Creative Writing, and Humanities at SPC in Clearwater. He will sign chapbooks after the reading.

Light refreshments will be served.

Audio Interview: H.G. Wells and Orson Welles on KTSA radio, San Antonio, Texas, October 29th 1940.

On the eve of Halloween, 1938, Orson Welles (also known as the man who created Citizen Kane) and the Mercury Theatre on the Air program broadcasted a fake Martian invasion inspired by H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. America was terrified!

On October 29th 1940, H.G. Wells and Orson Welles met on KTSA radio in San Antonio, Texas. Click here for a brief audio excerpt of that meeting.


Chad Mairn -- Librarian, Clearwater campus.

Prepare for the invasion ... The martians have landed and SPC is reading all about it!

Win a $20.00 Barnes & Noble Gift card and have your paragraph published on the SPC Library Blog!

This month, SPC Libraries are promoting War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. Near the Reference Desk of the Clearwater campus library, we have 7 book covers displayed. In 150 words or less, we invite SPC students to tell us which is the best cover for this novel and why. Submit your essay to the Reference Desk by October 25th 2005 at 9:00 PM.

National Public Radio's Book Podcast.

What is a podcast? Basically, it is a radio program found on the Web. Booklovers should try the National Public Radio's Book podcast and listen to book reviews, author interviews, and other book-related news. You can also subscribe, for free, to this podcast and never miss it: the program will automatically come to you!

Some free podcasting software to help organize your shows:

Odeo
iPodder
iTunes

Please note: you do not need an MP3 player (e.g. iPod) to listen to podcasts. Podcasts can be downloaded directly to your computer and organized via Odeo, iPodder, iTunes et al.

Enjoy!

Chad Mairn -- Librarian, Clearwater campus.

The War of the Worlds - Book Discussion - Something to Think About...

By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain. – H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds

Something to think about…

Then - H. G. Wells wrote The War of the Worlds at a time when military buildup was increasing in Germany prior to World War I.
Now – The Merriam Webster Online Dictionary defines war as (1) a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations (2) a period of such armed conflict. The United Nations defines "major wars" as military conflicts inflicting 1,000 battlefield deaths per year. (www.globalsecurity.org/military/worldwar/) At the mid way point of 2005 there were eight major wars being waged around the world.

Then - During this time period several fictionalized accounts of war in Europe were published. Wells borrowed the narrative format of these novels, bringing an interplanetary war to the familiar geography of England.
Now – In Fall of 2003 Michael Brown, Chad Trujillo and David L. Rabinowitz discovered a “tenth planet”. 2003 UB313 is a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) which California astronomers at Mount Palomar observatory describe as "definitely bigger" than the planet Pluto. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_UB313)

Then - In 1883, less than 10 years before the publication of The War of the Worlds, Mount Krakatoa on the island of Java, exploded, killing 500,000. This natural disaster altered the Earth’s climate for a year.
Now – Last year Florida had the worst hurricane season on record, with four named storms hitting the state. In 2005, the Gulf Coast of the United States saw Hurricane Katrina hit, resulting in the worst natural disaster the country has experienced.



Is The War of the Worlds relevant today?

In what ways is the world situation today similar to that of Wells’ era? In what ways is the world different?

What are some of the broad themes of The War of the Worlds?

If you were to write a sequel to The War of the Worlds what issues would you address? In what ways would your sequel be similar to the original and in what ways would your sequel be different?