Hot This Week: September 12

The intense new live-action adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book is this week's top movie newcomer at #2. There's plenty of hot new music to check out, with four new albums headed by the iconic Barbra Streisand's new disc. The are also four new audiobook novels this week, with Louise Penny's latest Armand Gamache tale at the top. The lone debut in non-fiction tells of a daring horse rescue effort during World War II.

DVD

1. The Boss
2. The Jungle Book
3. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
4. The Angry Birds Movie
5. Keanu
6. Barbershop: The Next Cut
7. Hardcore Henry
8. Criminal
9. The Duel
10. Mother's Day

CD

1. Barbra Streisand, Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway
2. Florida Georgia Line, Dig Your Roots
3. Britney Spears, Glory
4. Drake, Views
5. Suicide Squad: The Album 
6. Beyonce, Lemonade
7. Rihanna, ANTI
8. Twenty One Pilots, Blurryface
9. Adele, 25
10. De La Soul, And the Anonymous Nobody

Fiction

1. A Great Reckoning, Louise Penny
2. The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
3. Rushing Waters, Danielle Steel
4. The Woman in Cabin 10, Ruth Ware
5. The Nix, Nathan Hill
6. Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty
7. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
8. The Jealous Kind, James Lee Burke
9. Sting, Sandra Brown
10. The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah

Non-Fiction

1. The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy Schumer
2. Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance
3. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
4. When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
5. Armageddon, Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
6. Hamilton: The Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter
7. The Perfect Horse, Elizabeth Letts 
8. Grit, Angela Duckworth
9. White Trash, Nancy Isenberg
10. Crisis of Character, Gary J. Byrne

Hot This Week: September 6

We hope you had a wonderful Labor Day weekend! Fittingly, a movie titled The Boss is this week's hottest, with four other new ones debuting as well. Drake retakes the top spot on the music chart, with three varied newcomers making it behind him. A couple of familiar favorites climb back onto the list in both fiction and non-fiction.

DVD

1. The Boss
2. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
3. The Angry Birds Movie
4. Barbershop: The Next Cut
5. Hardcore Henry
6. The Duel
7. Mother's Day
8. Criminal
9. The Man Who Knew Infinity
10. Meet the Blacks

CD

1. Drake, Views
2. Suicide Squad: The Album 
3. Tory Lanez, I Told You
4. Lindsey Stirling, Brave Enough
5. Twenty One Pilots, Blurryface
6. Adele, 25
7. Rihanna, ANTI
8. DJ Khaled, Major Key
9. Hamilton Original Broadway Cast Recording
10. Dolly Parton, Pure & Simple

Fiction

1. The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
2. Sting, Sandra Brown
3. Curious Minds, Janet Evanovich and Phoef Sutton
4. The Woman in Cabin 10, Ruth Ware
5. Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty
6. Damaged, Lisa Scottoline
7. Bullseye, James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
8. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
9. The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah 
10. The Girls, Emma Cline

Non-Fiction

1. The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy Schumer
2. Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance
3. Armageddon, Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
4. When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
5. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
6. Hamilton: The Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter
7. Crisis of Character, Gary J. Byrne
8. White Trash, Nancy Isenberg 
9. Grit, Angela Duckworth
10. American Heiress, Jeffrey Toobin

Hot This Week: August 29

The summer blockbuster pitting two superheroes against one another makes its debut atop this week's movie listing. Country singer Justin Moore makes the top musical debut, placing his new album at #3. Heavy hitters Sandra Brown, Janet Evanovich, and Lisa Scottoline break onto the fiction list, while comedian Amy Schumer's hilarious new book takes over in non-fiction.

DVD

1. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
2. The Angry Birds Movie
3. Mother's Day
4. Criminal
5. Meet the Blacks
6. London Has Fallen
7. Demolition
8. Miracles from Heaven
9. Kung Fu Panda 3
10. Zootopia

CD

1. Suicide Squad: The Album 
2. Drake, Views
3. Justin Moore, Kinda Don't Care
4. Twenty One Pilots, Blurryface
5. DJ Khaled, Major Key
6. Rae Sremmurd, Sremmlife 2
7. Adele, 25
8. Rihanna, ANTI
9. NOW That's What I Call Music 59
10. Hamilton Original Broadway Cast Recording

Fiction

1. The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
2. Sting, Sandra Brown
3. Curious Minds, Janet Evanovich and Phoef Sutton
4. The Woman in Cabin 10, Ruth Ware
5. Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty
6. Damaged, Lisa Scottoline
7. Bullseye, James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
8. Insidious, Catherine Coulter
9. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
10. The Black Widow, Daniel Silva

Non-Fiction

1. The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy Schumer
2. Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance
3. Armageddon, Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
4. When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
5. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
6. Hamilton: The Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter
7. Crisis of Character, Gary J. Byrne
8. Liars, Glenn Beck
9. Hillary's America, Dinesh D'Souza
10. White Trash, Nancy Isenberg

Star Trek Turns 50

Written by Jon Williams

Space.

The final frontier.

These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.

Its five-year mission:

To explore strange new worlds.

To seek out new life and new civilizations.

To boldly go where no man has gone before.

Those now-familiar words were first heard on September 8, 1956, when the very first episode of the original Star Trek television show made its debut. In the fifty years since, Star Trek has become a true touchstone, with phrases like “live long and prosper” and “beam me up, Scotty” making their way into the cultural lexicon. The show made stars of its primary cast members (William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, and Walter Koenig), and has spawned numerous spinoffs, a movie franchise (including a reboot), and much more.

It seems hard to believe now, but that first Star Trek show ran for just three seasons, as it didn’t become a true hit until it was syndicated and shown in reruns. At that point, the original 79 episodes just weren’t quite enough, so, in 1973, the show was revived for an animated series that brought back all the original actors to voice their roles. Although it was also short-lived (spanning 22 episodes), it was well-received, even winning a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children’s Series.

As the animated series wound down, Star Trek was at something of a crossroads. There was a demand for more, but it was unclear exactly what form it would take. Plans went into motion for a new television series, to be titled Phase II, but numerous problems eventually forced those plans to be scrapped. Instead, encouraged by the success that science fiction films were finding at the box office, Star Trek producers instead revived earlier plans to bring the Enterprise crew to the big screen. Those efforts paid off with 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture, again reuniting all the original cast members in their familiar roles.

The success of that movie spawned a franchise that would run for five more films featuring the beloved original cast. They were: The Wrath of Khan (1982), The Search for Spock (1984), The Voyage Home (1986), The Final Frontier (1989), and The Undiscovered Country (1991). It was with this last movie that Captain Kirk’s iconic line of “where no man has gone before” was updated to “where no one has gone before,” eliminating the gender-biased and (in a galaxy filled with aliens) species-biased language in keeping with the franchise’s ideals of equality.

That was when Captain Kirk first spoke those words, but it was not the first time Star Trek fans had heard them that way. In September of 1987, Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered on television, set 100 years after the adventures of the original series and bringing a new cast (Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Gates McFadden, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Denise Crosby, and Wil Wheaton) to the bridge of the Enterprise. Highly popular, this series ran for seven seasons and made its own eventual jump to the big screen. 1994’s Generations bridged the gap, starring the entire Next Generation cast and featuring several members of the original cast as well, in a story that saw Patrick Stewart’s Captain Picard team up with William Shatner’s Captain Kirk. The Next Generation cast then stayed in theaters for three more movies on their own: First Contact (1996), Insurrection (1998), and Nemesis (2002).

The final season of The Next Generation aired in 1994, but that was far from the end of Star Trek on television. Before it ended, in 1993, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine featured an ensemble cast as the crew of a space station in a contested region. Then, beginning in 1995, came Star Trek: Voyager, which followed a new ship and crew helmed by Kate Mulgrew’s Captain Janeway, trying to make their way home to Earth after being stranded on the other side of the galaxy. Like The Next Generation, both of these series ran for seven seasons. In 2001, after Voyager’s conclusion, Star Trek: Enterprise made its debut, starring Scott Bakula as the captain of the very first Federation starship to be named Enterprise, in a prequel to everything that had some before.

And of course there is the new movie series. In 2009, after a 7-year absence from theaters following Nemesis, Star Trek returned to the big screen in a reboot from J.J. Abrams starring a new cast (Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, John Cho, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, and the late Anton Yelchin) in the roles of the original crew, with Leonard Nimoy appearing as an older Spock in a nod to the alternate timelines the different casts now occupy. That was followed up in 2013 with Star Trek Into Darkness, and earlier this year with Star Trek Beyond.

All of this, and still Star Trek fans have plenty to look forward to. In addition to a fourth film with the new cast, there is also a new TV series in the works. Slated to debut in January, Star Trek: Discovery will detail the adventures of a new ship and crew in the ten years previous to the events of the original series. And of course, the TV series and movies are just a part of what the Star Trek franchise has to offer. SmartBrowse on our website for music scores and audiobooks, and you can also direct patrons to hoopla digital for Star Trek comics, audiobooks, and other novelties. Also, keep an eye out for a special Star Trek 50th anniversary flyer along with our September catalog mailing.

Hot This Week: August 22

A new outing for perennial favorite Tom Hanks is this week's top movie debut. The soundtrack from the DC Comics hit movie Suicide Squad takes over the music chart. Colson Whitehead jumps up to #1 in fiction, just ahead of the latest thriller from Catherine Coulter, while last week's non-fiction titles just undergo some reordering.

DVD

1. Mother's Day
2. Criminal
3. Meet the Blacks
4. A Hologram for the King
5. London Has Fallen
6. Kung Fu Panda 3
7. Miracles from Heaven
8. Zootopia
9. Allegiant
10. Fathers and Daughters

CD

1. Suicide Squad: The Album 
2. Drake, Views
3. Skillet, Unleashed
4. Blake Shelton, If I'm Honest
5. NOW That's What I Call Music 59
6. Twenty One Pilots, Blurryface
7. DJ Khaled, Major Key
8. DJ Snake, Encore
9. Rihanna, ANTI
10. Adele, 25

Fiction

1. The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead 
2. Insidious, Catherine Coulter
3. Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty
4. Bullseye, James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
5. Three Sisters, Three Queens, Philippa Gregory
6. The Woman in Cabin 10, Ruth Ware
7. Sweet Tomorrows, Debbie Macomber
8. The Black Widow, Daniel Silva
9. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
10. The Girls, Emma Cline

Non-Fiction

1. Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance
2. When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
3. Armageddon, Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
4. Hillary's America, Dinesh D'Souza
5. Crisis of Character, Gary J. Byrne
6. Liars, Glenn Beck
7. Hamilton: The Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter
8. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
9. Grit, Angela Duckworth
10. American Heiress, Jeffrey Toobin