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| Why Do We Give Chocolate For Valentine's Day? Chocolate has become a standard Valentine's Day gift, right up there with flowers and jewelry, but the treat didn't develop its romantic reputation overnight. It took centuries of myths, marketing, and traditions to write chocolate into Valentine's Day history. The first people to connect love and chocolate were the Mayans. They started brewing drinks made from cocoa beans around 500 BCE-centuries before the first Feast of St. Valentine. This early hot chocolate was an important part of Mayan wedding rituals. The bride and groom would exchange sips of the beverage during the ceremony. The Aztecs had a less wholesome view of the ingredient. According to legend, the emperor Montezuma II binged huge quantities of cocoa beans to fuel his romantic affairs. Chocolate does contain small amounts of tryptophan and phenylethylamine, two chemicals associated with feelings love and desire, but scientists say there isn't enough of either substance to make chocolate a strong aphrodisiac. Stories of chocolate's effects in the bedroom persisted nonetheless, which might explain why candy-sellers embraced the sweet treats when Valentine's Day became popular. Cadbury debuted the first heart-shaped box of chocolates in 1861, and it was an instant success. Cadbury didn't patent the heart-shaped chocolate box, so the rest of the candy industry started manufacturing similar packaging of their own. It wasn't long before chocolates became synonymous with the newly-commercialized holiday. Why not add a great book with that box of chocalates. Check out these titles |
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| Books on the Air An overview of talked-about books and authors. This weekly update, published every Friday, provides descriptions of recent TV and radio appearances by authors and their recently released books. See the hot titles from the media this week. |
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| Allison Pataki Allison Pataki is a New York Times bestselling author. Allison has written for The New York Times, ABC News, The Huffington Post, USA Today, Fox News and other outlets. She has appeared on The TODAY Show, Fox & Friends, Good Day New York, Good Day Chicago and MSNBC's Morning Joe. Allison graduated Cum Laude from Yale University with a major in English and spent several years in journalism before switching to fiction writing. A member of The Historical Novel Society, Allison lives in New York with her husband and family. Check out her titles here. |
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| Library Reads February 2020 Library Reads harnesses the value of “library staff picks” into a single nation-wide discovery tool, a monthly list of ten newly released must reads. Check out the top ten books -with the addition of Hall of Fame authors-published this month that librarians across the country love. |
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| Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.-Lao Tzu
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