Algonquin Area Public Library notes

To register or for information, call the Algonquin Area Public Library at (847) 658-6060 or visit Web site aapld.org.

Let the New Book section of the Algonquin Area Public Library help you sort out what happens when different cultures bump or merge.

• Editor Cecil Kuhne's "Wish You Weren't Here" is an uproarious collection of 21 traveling tales designed to keep you laughing about people, transportation and trip plans running amok on journeys around the world.

• If you dream of a villa in Italy and wonderful food to enjoy with new friends, you might dream of "Living in a Foreign Language" by Michael Tucker. Readers will learn about the culture of actors, the Italian region of Umbria, California and people who want to slow the speed of their lives in Tucker's book.

• Combine the story of immigrant Russian Jews, Depression survivors and New York hoarders and you might begin to understand "Dough: A Memoir" by Mort Zachter. You will be amused, charmed, confused and touched by this family's mysterious secrets, and will receive Zachter's most important gift, the knowledge that a lack of communication among different generations of any family creates the most profound form of culture confusion.

• The world of science, philosophy and the arts was made richer by Islamic culture, but these gifts have been forgotten by the Western world. While not a comprehensive study of this "Lost History," Michael Hamilton Morgan offers readers an opportunity to recapture this knowledge.