Reading Public Library

Banned Books Week

2010-09-08T13:23:00.004-04:00

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.
Intellectual freedom—the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular—provides the foundation for Banned Books Week. BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.

Some excerpts from the 2010 list:

Ehrenreich, Barbara
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting
by in America
Holt
Challenged at the Easton, Penn. School District
(2010), but retained despite a parent’s claim the
book promotes “economic fallacies” and socialist
ideas, as well as advocating the use of illegal drugs
and belittling Christians. Source: May 2010, p. 107.

Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Merriam-Webster Collegiate
Dictionary
Merriam-Webster
Pulled from the Menifee, Calif. Union School District
(2010) because a parent complained when a child
came across the term “oral sex.” Offi cials said
the district is forming a committee to consider
a permanent classroom ban of the dictionary.
Source: Mar. 2010, p. 55.

Meyer, Stephenie H.
Twilight series
Little
Banned in Australia (2009) for primary school students
because the series is too racy. Librarians have stripped
the books from shelves in some junior schools because
they believe the content is too sexual and goes against
religious beliefs. They even have asked parents not to
let kids bring their own copies of Stephenie Meyer’s
smash hit novels — which explore the stormy love
affair between a teenage girl and a vampire — to
school. Source: Nov. 2009, pp. 207–8.

Check out the document for the complete banned book list and ways to stay informed, protect your right to read and challenge censorship.

Adult Summer Reading Program Prizes

2010-07-24T11:04:00.000-04:00

Forgotten Garden Book Discussion

2010-07-24T11:00:00.001-04:00

They've already taken away so much...

2010-06-23T14:38:00.002-04:00

A letter from the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Library Association:

No More Cuts to Libraries; Speak Up Now!

The deadline to pass a state budget is just days away. The effects of the recession have created a hole in the state budget in the range of $1.2 billion. If we are to avoid a repeat of last year’s 101-day late budget, Governor Rendell and legislators must pass a new state budget by June 30, one that fills this revenue gap either through increased taxes and fees, or more cuts to state programs—or both.

Raising taxes and fees in an election year with the recession lingering is a tall order. This reality increases the chances that the next budget might be balanced primarily through budget cuts, a possibility that could threaten library funding once again. No specific library funding cuts have been mentioned but library supporters need to stay informed and engaged.

Now is a key moment to speak up and urge all your friends to do likewise. Tell Governor Rendell, your State Senator, and your State Representative this one simple message: No More Cuts to Libraries. Tell them that cutting libraries again is unacceptable, especially during this recession when libraries are busier and more needed than ever. Remind them that in this year’s state budget, the four library line items already were cut this year by 3%, 21%, 51%, and 73% respectively.

Send the Governor and your legislators an email here: http://www.capwiz.com/ala/pa/issues/alert/?alertid=15111281

Join PaLA’s facebook page, “5.6 Million Pennsylvania Library Card Holders Can’t Be Wrong,” here:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=123050057708453. Please share the link and invite your friends, too.

Here’s a chart detailing all library funding categories in the state budget: http://palibraries.org/associations/9291/files/State%20budg%20chart%20for%20website.pdf

Thank you for speaking out for libraries, and for spreading the word far and wide. Stay tuned for more updates as events change.

Glenn

Glenn R. Miller
Executive Director
Pennsylvania Library Association
220 Cumberland Parkway, Suite 10
Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania 17055
phone: 717-766-7663
fax: 717-766-5440
e-mail: glenn@palibraries.org

There's still time to make your voice heard...

2009-10-02T11:33:00.004-04:00

This is a letter that I wrote to Governor Rendell, Mayor McMahon and my local representatives, Michael O'Pake and Thomas Caltagirone. It's not too late to express your opinions (outrage? horror? disgust? at the very least righteous indignation?) regarding the situation.
The Pennsylvania Library Association has a Legislative Action Center that includes some helpful tools to expedite your letter writing, including several sample letters and an elected official finder.
Regarding the city's budget, the next council meeting will be held October 12; I'm sure the council members would love to hear what you have to say.

As a Reference Librarian at the Reading Public Library, I am seeing first hand every day the importance that libraries have in this uncertain economy. Our Internet computers are busier than ever with people filling out unemployment forms, creating resumes, searching for jobs, filing their tax returns or continuing their education. These people do not have the means to buy a computer and maintain an Internet connection, yet many employers require an online application to be completed, and I've heard horror stories from patrons who have tried to file for unemployment compensation by phone or by mail. These people come to us for help; I can’t count the number of times a patron has told me that they were referred to the library by businesses or other government and social service agencies because we would help them.
Now, the Reading Public Library is facing the closure of its three branches and bookmobile. This is the article from the Reading Eagle 9/25/2009 entitled "Funding cuts force Reading library to close three branches, shelve bookmobile," http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=158634. Only the Main Library will remain open; however staff cuts will force patrons to accept severely curtailed services even there.
The libraries are lifelines to citizens in need; we are not just purveyors of the latest Danielle Steel or James Patterson novel. In a depressed economy where so many other state services are being compromised, we are a place where people are able to exercise control over their lives, whether it be by applying for a job (and if you have never used a computer in your life, filling out an application online is a monumental feat in itself), or by learning how to use a computer, or by getting homework help, or by checking out a book on healthy diets or investment advice, or by engaging in a myriad of other constructive programs we offer.
As Carl Sagan in Cosmos said most eloquently, “the library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species. I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.
By forcing our libraries into this position, we are turning our backs on the health and future of our community.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Balas Bressler

IMPERILED

2009-09-25T11:23:00.006-04:00

It's been a long time since I have contributed to the Reading Public Library's blog, principally due to the volume of other tasks that have piled up over the months, which kept me from making entries. I am making one today because the Reading Public Library as our patrons and staff have known it is about to be severely abrogated--perhaps permanently.

The recession (and I staunchly maintain we are in a national recession, despite whatever edicts come floating out of Washington and Wall Street that claim we are on the road to recovery) has ravaged economies across the board. Funding for public libraries from the national, state, county, and local level has been slashed. It's the same for many libraries across the nation, but Pennsylvania has particularly endangered the status quo of every public library due to the ineptitude of our lawmakers in Harrisburg and their futility in striking an adequate budget deal.

I use the word "imperiled"as this blog's entry because 1) it's not a term one hears at all and 2) it is foreboding enough to match the tone of what horrific circumstances are afoot.

The Reading Public Library staff met this morning and were informed by the Director and the President of the Library Board just what measures will be taken in the very near future to attempt safeguarding some reduced kind of future existence for our institution. We are already in a position where we are not procuring any new material--or at least with extremely limited exceptions, like blockbuster bestelling authors. Staff has been reduced--and before the end of the year, we will likely be cut to such bare bones that a multitude of our services will be terminated.

It's gloomy. It's depressing. It is, however, also reality.

***

During World War II, the British War Office created and disseminated propaganda posters to try and raise the morale of the English people as they faced brutal invasion by the Nazis. One such poster stated the following:

KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON

A staff member from the Children's Department actually made copies of this sign and shared them; I think it's brilliant. I take this as my personal motto as the Reading Public Library staff endeavors to face a future fraught with uncertainty and dread. I believe most of us will be facing the unemployment line due to the budgetary nightmare our library is facing. And our public--who have needed us this year more than I've ever seen, with people arriving in droves to utilize internet stations for job searching, drafting resumes on our word processors, and checking out books, music CDs, and DVDs by the thousands--shall have to contend with a library hobbled by reduced circumstances. As for my colleagues and co-workers who are still here, we will stand shoulder to shoulder and try--bravely--to execute our duties until we are no longer able to be retained.

+++++++++++++++++++

UPDATE. An official press release to the Reading Eagle was made this afternoon (09/25/09) by the library's Director. The three branch libraries--Northeast, Northwest, and Southeast--as well as the City Bookmobile will be shut down by the end of the year.

And this is only the beginning...

We Need Your Help

2009-07-31T14:11:00.004-04:00

The following letter is from Glenn Miller, the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Library Association. Between the ongoing budget debate in Harrisburg and the City of Reading's budget dilemma, the Reading Public Library is in extremely dire straits. Any of the existing proposed budgets would be devastating to Pennsylvania libraries, eliminating core services and crippling our ability to serve our patrons in a time when it is most needed.
Please write or call your representatives; your efforts can make a difference.

Good morning library supporters.

Thank you for your great work last week during PaLA Call-In Week. Without question, our message is being heard and it is your determination and commitment that makes the difference. Our challenge now is keep up the pressure for as long as it takes.

As you probably know, face-to-face budget negotiations are underway. Unfortunately all signs point toward an extended process before agreement will be reached. More on those details a bit later. For now, please know this: The library message IS GETTING THROUGH.
Just today, library funding was one of only three education topics discussed at
the House-Senate Conference Committee. Over the last two weeks, libraries
were frequently mentioned during floor debate in both the House and
Senate. What’s more, in an interview that aired yesterday (July 30) on the
cable channel, PCN, Governor Rendell discussed libraries at length describing
them as “lifelines for our communities” and “lifelines for our kids.” It seems now that libraries are a frequent topic in budget meetings, news accounts, and on TV. This is a very positive and encouraging sign and it’s all because YOU are doing a magnificent job making the case for our libraries.

Action Needed:
(1) Message
(2) Budget Deal Makers
(3) Q&A Background

MESSAGE
Keep the pressure on. Recruit any and every library supporter, young and old, to write a note, place a call, attend a town meeting, or send an email. Even if you’ve written before, this process is so long that a second or third message is A-OK. From this point forward, our basic message—asking that libraries be a priority for level funding in any final budget deal—remains in place but the delivery strategy
changes just a bit.
1. Thank your Senator, Representative and the Governor for her/his past support of public libraries.
2. Because libraries are a lifeline for the unemployed and their families, urge her/him to support library funding as one of the priorities for level funding in the negotiations for a new state budget.
3. Tell her/him that public libraries all across Pennsylvania are busier than ever during this recession serving those looking for work, many without Internet access at home, and hundreds more of their constituents and families who need the library open more hours not fewer. (If you can, offer some specifics about just how
much the library means to you in these tough times.)
4. Remind her/him that the drastic, steep cuts (55%) included in the Senate amendments to the budget bill will force library closings and service cutbacks at a time when their constituents need libraries to be fully open and equipped to serve.
5. Inform her/him that Pennsylvania stands to lose between $1.9 million and $4.3 million in federal money if any of the budget plans currently under consideration pass with deep cuts in library funding.
6. If your State Senator or State Representative is on the list below (“Top 10 State Budget Deal Makers”), urge her/him to support libraries as a priority for level funding in the conference committee budget negotiations.
7. For everyone else whose Senator and State Representative is not on the Top 10 list below, the message is slightly different. You should urge your Senator and Representative to contact the budget negotiators from their caucus and urge them, in turn, to make libraries a priority for level funding in any final budget deal.
8. When you contact the Governor, urge him to make level funding for library services a priority in keeping with his strong commitment to education, to the unemployed, and to Pennsylvania’s children.

STATE BUDGET DEAL MAKERS
Here are the Top 10 State
Budget Deal Makers:
1. Representative Dwight Evans (D) Philadelphia—Budget Conference Committee member
2. Representative Todd Eachus (D) Luzerne Co. —Budget Conference Committee member
3. Representative Sam Smith (R) Jefferson Co. —Budget Conference Committee
member
4. Senator Dominic Pileggi (R) Delaware Co. —Budget Conference Committee
member
5. Senator Jake Corman (R) Centre Co. —Budget Conference Committee
member
6. Senator Jay Costa (D) Allegheny Co.—Budget Conference Committee member
7. Senator Joseph Scarnati (R) Jefferson Co—President of the
Senate
8. Representative Keith McCall, (D) Carbon—Speaker of the House of
Representatives
9. Senator Robert Mellow (D) Lackawanna—Senate Minority (D) Floor Leader
10. Representative Mario Civera (R) Delaware—House Minority (R) Appropriations chair

If your Senator or Representative is on this list, urge her/him to make libraries a priority for level funding in the next state budget.

If not on this list, urge them to support libraries and ask them to contact the negotiators from their own caucus to urge for level funding for libraries.

If you’re not sure who represents you, following this link and type in your zip code in the upper right-hand corner: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/index.cfm.

Q&A
BACKGROUND
Here’s some additional Q&A that you should know for advocacy
in the immediate future:
Q. Since the budget debate is now in a small committee, what’s the point of contacting my State Senator and Representative?
A. The six main budget negotiators will listen to the priorities advocated by their colleagues. The more such pressure we can garner for libraries, the better.
Q. What is the difference in approach between the two sides?
A. In brief, the Governor and Democrats first want to establish priorities and needs for the state and then figure out how much money is needed. The Republicans prefer first to establish how much money is likely to be available in the next year and then fit spending priorities within that revenue total.
Q. What is the difference in dollars between the two sides?
A. Most analysts believe that the sides are between $800 million and $1.6 billion apart, a sizable gap.
Q. Regardless of what happens in the budget conference committee, aren’t we going to be stuck with either the 15% cut in the Democratic plan or the 55% cut in the Republican plan?
A. No! Absolutely, positively, not. The budget conference committee can choose any amounts in the final budget. That’s why keeping up the pressure on behalf of libraries is so crucial.
Q. What is all this talk about a stopgap or “bridge” budget?
A. On Tuesday, August 4, the House will OK the Senate-passed budget bill (S.B. 850) and send it to the Governor but only as a stopgap/bridge vehicle NOT as a state budget. When the bill hits the Governor’s desk, he then promises to use his line-item veto authority to eliminate all program amounts leaving only the budget lines needed to keep state government open and insure that state workers get paid.

As always, thank you so much for your amazing resilience and great energy. Our chances for a better outcome increase if we can keep the consistent message coming from all directions from many people for as long as it takes.

And one last thing to remember throughout—a cut of 55% is not “sharing the pain” but, in fact, shouldering the burden. Why libraries, which represent three-tenths
of one percent (0.3%) of the entire state budget, face cuts of 55 percent is beyond comprehension. But more to the point, libraries are the emergency room for the unemployed and their families, and we are busier than ever. Forcing libraries to close during these hard times simply slams the door of opportunity shut in the faces of thousands and thousands of Pennsylvanians who need open libraries to find work, apply for work, and gain professional advice and training for their job search. And this is why level funding is needed and justified, even in a bad economy.

We’ll do our best to keep you updated through email and our website, and we expect to add some new advocacy tools very soon. Stay tuned.

Glenn

Glenn R. Miller
Executive
Director
Pennsylvania Library Association
220 Cumberland Parkway, Suite
10
Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania 17055
phone:
717-766-7663
fax: 717-766-5440
e-mail: glenn@palibraries.org

Sovereign Center presents the Lipizzaner Stallions

2009-07-07T09:08:00.006-04:00

Once again, the Sovereign Center has expressed their generosity toward the library and the community by providing the grand prize for our Adult Summer Reading Program.

One lucky reader in August will win 4 tickets to see the World Famous Lipizzaner Stallions perform at the Sovereign Center!

Weekly prizes are being given out as well, so start reading and filling out those entry forms!

Big Thanks to our weekly prize sponsors:

Reading Phillies Baseball Club

Adult Summer Reading Program 2009

2009-06-24T14:42:00.001-04:00

NAMES FOR THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW HAD ONE!

2009-06-09T18:18:00.005-04:00

The Whatchamacallit: Those Everyday Objects You Just Can't Name (And Things You Think You Know About, But Don't) by Danny Danzinger and Mark McCrum, Hyperion, 2009
NEW 422 Dan

After such an exhaustive title there's no need for me to explain what this book covers. Faithful readers of my entries already know I am mad keen on English vocabulary, and this little treasure has proven most illustrative.

I first gazed over the table of contents, which is a list of the terms explored, and tried finding some which I already knew. I was pleasantly surprised at recognizing several of them:

aglet, the plastic casing which seals off the end of a shoelace

borborygmus, gurgling sounds emitted from the stomach

crozier, the ceremonial shepherd's crook bourne by bishops, cardinals, and the Pope

fontanelle, the soft spot on a baby's head

interrobang, a double-duty punctuation mark that looks like this ?!

philtrum, the small indentation between the upper lip and nose

Of course I was terribly interested in the many other words I'd never learned. Some of the more interesting ones include:

caruncula, the tiny pink corner of the eyeball (and the medical term for "sleepy dust" is rheum, which accumulates in the caruncula)

drupelets, the little globules that compose a raspberry or blackberry

grawlix, a string of symbols used to represent a spoken obscenity in a cartoon

muselet, the small wire cage used to keep the cork in place on a champagne bottle

purlicue, the span of measurement made between the extension of the index finger and thumb
rowel, the spiked, revolving wheel located at the tip of a spur on a cowboy boot

tmesis, the deliberate hyphenation of a word for effect (i.e., un-freaking-fair)

The authors not only elaborate as to what each word describes, but many articles list similar terms as well. An example is the entry for tmesis, which also elucidates the reader on other lesser-heard figures of speech, such as antonomasia (using a proper name to describe someone, such as "She's such a Martha Stewart" for a woman who is freakishly obsessed with crafting overdone dinner parties) and metonymy (using the name of a facet of something to describe the thing in it's entirety, such as referring to Harrisburg when one really means the state government of the Commonwealth).

Each entry’s language of origin and, where applicable, inventor (grawlix is apparently but one of a lexicon of cartoon terms coined by Mort Walker, author of the venerated strip Beetle Bailey) are very capably discussed as well.

The Whatchamacallit is certain to entertain and edify the vocabularean in all of us.

Wolfram Alpha

2009-05-30T13:40:00.015-04:00

“Today's WolframAlpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone. You enter your question or calculation, and WolframAlpha uses its built-in algorithms and growing collection of data to compute the answer. Based on a new kind of knowledge-based computing…”

This is more significant than just a new search engine; this is the first computation engine widely and freely available. You submit queries and computation requests and WolframAlpha returns an answer. Unlike search engines you may be used to WolframAlpha does not return web pages matching your keywords but instead offers discrete answers and supplementary data. You input "$250 + 15%" Wolfram anwsers $287.50. You ask Wolfram “How old was Queen Elizabeth II in 1974?" it simply tells you 47 years old.

For better or worse we are entering into a new phase of internet use.

Try the following queries in Wolfram for fun:
* Flux Capacitor
* How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
* How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
* What is the meaning of life?
Here are some more fun queries to try.

Main Site: http://www.wolframalpha.com/
See Also: Example Searches
See Also: Overview Video
See Also: Wikipedia Entry

Keep Searching,
Librarian Carl

PS – Keep your eye out for Google’s answer to WolframAlpha called Google Squared which should be launching by the end of the month.
See Also: Tech Crunch, What is Google Squared?
See Also: Wikipedia Entry

GATEWAY TO SUMMER

2009-05-30T12:27:00.011-04:00

Earlier this week we marked the observance of Memorial Day. Customarily a solemn remembrance in honor of the many armed servicemen and –women who valiantly made the supreme sacrifice for our nation, Memorial Day is also considered the unofficial gateway to the summer season.

In celebration of the arrival of summer, I’ve collected a few titles on subjects pertinent to the season most people anticipate with glee:

The American Amusement Park by Dale Samuelson (with Wendy Yegoiants), 2001
791.068 Sam

A visit to an amusement park is a vital part of enjoying the summertime in America. Pennsylvania has a healthy number of such fun and frolicsome venues: Hersheypark, Dorney Park, and Dutch Wonderland are all geographically close to Reading. My personal favorite is Knoebels Amusement Resort in Elysburg, PA, if for no other reason than parking and admission are both free. Knoebels has a special place in my family as well. My grandparents met at the roller skating rink there in the 1930s. As a matter of fact, if Pap-Pap were still with us, he and Mam-Mam would be celebrating their 73rd wedding anniversary this very day. My mother and her siblings have their memories of youthful merriment at Knoebels, as do my sister, our numerous cousins, and myself. Now the fourth generation of our clan are making their own happy recollections of having visited there. I recommend a visit to Knoebels to anyone who’s never been there, it’s well worth the drive!

American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn by Ted Steinberg,

2006
635.9647 Ste

Author Steinberg takes on a singularly unique American phenomenon: the relentless pursuit of a flawless greensward. I read this text when it first arrived on our library’s shelves and was flabbergasted at the financial statistics the author reported as to how much many Americans lay out annually on things such as weed killer, lawn feed, watering, and maintenance. I felt the message (which was rather heavy handed at points) that yard turf shouldn’t be quite such a monumental national priority was fully justified. American Green is a verdant gem of a book on a topic most people wouldn’t imagine could take up two hundred and ninety five pages.

Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America by Jeff Wiltse,
2007
306.481 Wil

When the canicular days of soaring temperatures and oppressive humidity descend, nothing beats a cool dip in the pool. Wiltse details the history of the swimming pool in American society, focusing much of the book on the roles of the municipal natatorium (to be honest, a natatorium is an enclosed, indoor pool, but it’s pleasant to use a synonym and that’s close enough) in community life. The emphasis on children’s physical fitness, which was born in part due to the frightening polio outbreaks of the years before Salk’s vaccine, played a key role in the pool becoming a mainstay of many cities and towns. The author also addresses the injustice of racial segregation and its affect on access to such pools.

Iced Tea : 50 Recipes for Refreshing Tisanes, Infusions, Coolers, and Spiked Teas
by Fred Thompson, 2002
641.6372 Tho

I am always happy when a book title brings a new vocabulary word into my personal lexicon. Before landing upon this book about iced tea, if someone had asked me to identify tisane I would likely have answered, “Isn’t that the capitol of some nation in Africa?” Apparently a tisane is a beverage, hot or cold, made by infusing parts of any plant except that of the tea bush. “Tisane” and “herbal tea” are not interchangeable because a tisane is not really a tea…fascinating! In any event, I am partial to iced tea, and this book provides many curious and delightful twists on an old summertime favorite.

Whether your estival pastimes include mowing a lawn, taking a swim, visiting an amusement park, or sipping an iced tea: Happy Summer!

SCRIPT AND SCRIBBLE

2009-05-12T13:35:00.006-04:00

When I was in kindergarten I remember wandering up to the desk of my teacher, Miss Cindy (we never knew her last name), and beholding her rapidly jotting down a note in cryptic, connected shapes. “Why are you writing sloppy?”, I asked confusedly, mystified at what may as well have been Egyptian hieroglyphics from my childish vantage point.

Miss Cindy raised her eyes and indulgently replied: “It’s not sloppy, it’s cursive writing”. Unconvinced, I told my mother that afternoon how Miss Cindy couldn’t make her letters and instead slashed strange scrawlies all over her paper. Mom smiled and told me it was real writing for grownups. I promptly forgot all about it as I prepared to play with my toys, secretly convinced yet again that adults were more then slightly bonkers.

Then it was my turn to learn cursive. It was third grade and Sister Regina Eileen patiently watched twenty-some students laboriously drawing circles on practice pads. Up, down, up down--the monotony, I recall, was stupefying. The Palmer Method was rigorously applied, and while I could barely move past basic arithmetic in the afternoon, penmanship class in the morning found me a most willing and capable student. And I felt so very sophisticated: I was writing like grown-ups while block letters remained the province of little kids like my sister. I won a Palmer Method Award for the best penmanship when I was in fifth grade and am still proud of it; mostly because my overachieving sibling, who won veritably every other academic honor in both grade- and high school, never had one bestowed on her (tee hee--love ya, Heather!)

Script and Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting by Kitty Burns Florey details the history of how the art and craft of penmanship came about and its current status of rapid decline. Burns Florey was a parochial schoolchild herself, having been instructed in Palmer ways by Sister Victorine. However, Palmer Method was the most utilized instructional tool for cursive script across America’s educational frontiers for decades. The volume does more than detail Palmer Method. The very history of writing tools, from cuneiform and hieroglyphics to quills and ink are thoroughly yet engagingly addressed. Graphology, the pseudo-science of examining personal script and learning about the psyche of the writer therein, is also covered. Palmer’s immediate predecessor, Spencerian script, was something I could not have identified before reading Script and Scribble. For an example of it, consult any can of a certain soft drink—the Coca-Cola trademark is written in Spencerian script.

Not much is made of the Zaner-Bloser school of handwriting, which I’d only heard of recently. A direct descendant of Palmer, it's more truncated and, frankly, much less appealing visually (even if it supposedly easier to learn). I scoff at it. Palmer is the only way to go.

Along with Ms. Burns-Florey, I decry the inattention penmanship receives in our day, particularly where pupils of elementary school are concerned. Penmanship is the most personal tool anyone possesses as a means of communication. Our hand is as unique and special as our voice. I personally enjoy calligraphy (the art of formal script) and am thankful my parents gave me a Sheaffer fountain pen set for my birthday when I was thirteen. Keyboarding is a wonderful tool; I am typing this entry up on a computer keyboard this very moment. I can scarcely imagine not having access to word processors or email. I receive dozens of handwritten requests for genealogy every year which I strain to decipher while silently pleading with the writers of said missives to discover the wonders of Microsoft Word.

However, there’s an incomparable grace and elegance to a carefully scripted greeting, and I hope more of us pause to reflect on our handwriting habits (or lack thereof) upon considering Script and Scribble. The Main Library's copy of this delightful tome is at NEW 652.1 Flo; our collection also boasts several volumes on how to practice calligraphy as well as three actual textbooks on the Palmer Method. Austin Norman Palmer (December 22, 1860– November 16, 1927), R.I.P.

FAMILY REDEMPTION

2009-05-11T20:19:00.005-04:00

French films are a peculiar breed of cinema and I have a hit-and-miss record as to my reaction to them. Some I've found to be utterly useless: such as Amelie, the 2001 Audrey Tautou fluff piece about a young woman possessed of a relentlessly saccharine need to be cheerful and helpful (I know, I sound harsh, but watch it and most readers will agree with me). Innocence (2004) is another Franco-flop in my estimation, about a surreal school for young ladies where they are forced to learn dance (it's really much stranger than it sounds).

There have been some French triumphs, though, to offset the offal. The Chorus (2004), a historical drama reminiscent of Mr. Holland's Opus, is exceptionally moving and features an incredible soundtrack featuring a superb boys' choir. When the Sea Rises (2005) is an archetypal foreign film in that it features a very quirky duo--Irene, a peripatetic puppeteer, and Dries, a loveable vagabond--and their offbeat adventures throughout northern Gallic vistas. Incidentally, all four of these films are available at the Main Library on DVD.

My review concerns the movie I've Loved You So Long, which was released in 2008, written and directed by Philippe Claudel. Juliette Fontaine (Kristin Scott Thomas, whose admirable command of French was a facet of her talent about which I'd been ignorant before this project) has been imprisoned for a decade and a half and is being released on parole. Her crime is something I will keep to myself, because it constitutes the best part of what makes the film memorable.

Her younger sister, Lea (Elsa Zylberstein), collects her from the penitentiary; Lea is much younger then Juliette, who had been a physician before her incarceration. Lea is married to Luc; the couple have two very young adopted daughters. It is clear Luc is displeased with Juliette's arrival into their household and treats his newly-met sister-in-law with overt distrust.

Juliette gradually moves from wooden, barely-registering presence to human, engaging interaction as Luc overcomes his reservations and she is introduced to a colleague of her sister's (who is, like Lea herself, a university professor) whose kindness and gentle nature eventually disgorge Juliette from her shell.

Scott Thomas' command of this character and the carefully measured means by which the audience learns of the circumstances which brought about her imprisonment (and how she adapts to life outside prison walls) are nothing short of brilliant. The film moves slowly but the inexorably mysterious backstory of the protagonist helped retain interest.

When we finally learn the full history of Dr. Fontaine, the entire plot is turned on its head. Juliette seems to have found a path, with the redemptive power of her family (she develops a touching materteral relationship with her elder niece, Petit-Lys) and a cautious sense of hope, to inner peace. And if I can say that sincerely, it's my opinion that I've Loved So Long is worthy of viewing. (I've Loved You So Long is available on DVD from the Main Library.)

RHYME and REASON

2009-05-05T18:34:00.004-04:00

Nursery rhymes are such an indelible ingredient of childhood most people do not pause to consider their origins. Who would have imagined that "Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub" was describing "the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker" taking part in a seamy peepshow at a county fair? Or that the "three blind mice" represent a triumverate of Protestant bishops who were blinded and executed by the devoutly Roman Catholic Queen Mary Tudor of England? Or that Jack and Jill's seemingly innocuous trip up a small incline was hardly about procuring H20, but was rather an analogy for both of them succumbing to carnal desire for the first time? (seriously!)

Chris Roberts, a London-based librarian, took on the sometimes eye-popping subject of the histories of English-language nursery rhymes in his 2005 book Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme--The Seamy and Quirky Stories Behind Favorite Nursery Rhymes. I presented my brother-in-law with this title several years ago as a Christmas present and he has commented more than once how he has enjoyed the explanations and explications of childhood verses. While I'd known that "Ring Around the Rosey" referred to victims dropping dead from the Bubonic Plague, I'd never heard that "Baa Baa Black Sheep" was a denunciation of the tax laws of thirteenth century England.

The entire subject of rhyme came up today when my sister telephoned me and said that my elder nephew, Alexander, was continuing his fascination with rhyming words. He recently claimed that "flower" and "mother" were words that rhymed, which my sister declaimed as incorrect. Her husband, however, averred the tot was in the right. He said that since the last syllable of both words was the same, it is a type of rhyme. My sister was hoping her brother (who has his bachelor's degree in English literature) would validate her argument.

Sorry, sis.

In fact, the entire world of English rhyme is incredibly rich and varied. Alliteration (the first consonants sound the same), assonance (the vowel sounds are the same, within a single line of poetry), and slant rhymes (imperfect but similar sounds) are all legitimate species of rhyme. Half-rhyme, syllabic rhyme, and imperfect rhyme are other means of having words connect.
I am deeply pleased that young Alex is being instructed about them from such a young age. Expounding on his knoweldge of all things literate and linguistic has been a source of pride and joy for me; this is the same little guy who now knows the proper name for the telephone's pound key [#] (octothorpe) and this symbol: & (ampersand). Not too shabby for having just turned four!

Good Sources: World Digital Library

2009-04-21T20:21:00.002-04:00

The World Digital Library (WDL) has been officially launched today.

“The WDL makes it possible to discover, study, and enjoy cultural treasures from around the world on one site, in a variety of ways. These cultural treasures include, but are not limited to, manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, and architectural drawings.
Items on the WDL may easily be browsed by place, time, topic, type of item, and contributing institution, or can be located by an open-ended search, in several languages. Special features include interactive geographic clusters, a timeline, advanced image-viewing and interpretive capabilities. Item-level descriptions and interviews with curators about featured items provide additional information. (WDL)”

Main Site: http://www.wdl.org/en/
See also: World Digital Library Fact Sheet
See also: World Digital Library Preview Video
See also: WDL Wikipedia entry

Keep searching,
Librarian Carl

Without a DOUBT

2009-04-17T12:43:00.008-04:00

Very few films I've seen (made in the last decade or so, at least) rightly deserve the adjective compelling. So many deliver either a skillfully-crafted plot or singular performances by a certain actor or an ensemble cast, but seldom does the combination of both cinematic aspects meld to form a truly amazing movie. Doubt, written and directed by John Patrick Shanley, delivers the exception to the rule, and the result is a miracle to behold.

I won't divulge many specifics because Doubt is a creature that must be experienced without much foreknowledge in order to be fully appreciated. The setting is a Roman Catholic grade school, St. Nicholas, located in the Bronx; the year is 1964. The protagonist is a Sister of Charity, S. Aloysius, who is the school's principal as well as the superior of the convent. Rev. Brendan Flynn is the curate (assistant priest) of St. Nicholas Church.

Suffice it to say the two are at odds over most everything--but usually in a subdued, intellectual manner. Sister Aloysius is stern and old-fashioned; Father Flynn is relaxed and progressive. Meryl Streep is unforgettable as the principal; one can scarcely imagine any other actress breathing such forceful life into the role. Ms. Streep can infuse the tiniest act--the raising of an eyebrow, a murmured "hmm"--with oceans of disdain and derision as no other actress today. Philip Seymour Hoffman, a character actor who has justifiably garnered a reputation for his considerable talent, delivers a nuanced performance as the priest.

Another great talent is the fresh-faced Amy Adams, who plays Sister James, a young nun who is neatly--and regrettably--thrust between the two leads and their duelling philosophies of education and spirituality.

This is a thinking film. Based on the play which Shanley wrote, it is incredibly dialogue-driven, but the pacing is impeccable. From the first syllable of Father Flynn's homily at the outset of the storyline the viewer is drawn in as the leads contend inexorably with one another until one of them proves victorious.

One of the many questions the viewer will come away with after watching is: Who won? And at what cost?

Anyone who has seen this movie will tell you: "I believed X"; the crux of the drama evolves from suspicion and self-defense on the part of the nun and the priest toward one another. The polarization of opinion should lead to intense discussion among viewers. Be assured this film will appeal to a wide audience; it is not solely fixated on the Catholic Church, although those familiar with Catholicism will perhaps comprehend more fully some of the themes and issues raised in the plot. At its core Doubt speaks to sweeping concepts applicable to everyone: faith and faithlessness, optimism and pessimism, mercy and justice, right and wrong.

A gross travesty of the 2009 Oscars was that this phenomenal piece didn't receive a single gold statue (it was, however, nominated for five of them).

The Main Library has added two copies of this DVD (released by Miramax on April 7) and I invite the reader to borrow a copy and examine the credibility of Doubt.

APRIL IS...

2009-04-02T10:00:00.017-04:00

April is a month chock-full of various national observances; here is a sampling:

ALCOHOL AWARENESS MONTH

April is the month designated to carefully observe one's alcohol intake. And others', as well. Drink responsibly!

CELEBRATE DIVERSITY MONTH

We both embrace AND celebrate the wonder of diversity in a special way throughout the fourth month of the calendar year.

HUMOR MONTH

Laugh yourself silly as you celebrate National Humor Month this April :- ) Ha, HA HA, HA HA HA HA!!!

NATIONAL LAWN CARE MONTH

Get out there and mow that grass! Rip out those pesky dandelions! And make your neighbors GREEN with envy at your lushly manicured blades! April is National Lawn Care Month!

POETRY MONTH

Discover your inner bard while tackling iambic pentameter, or check out a book of poetry from our collection to help celebrate National Poetry Month.

NATIONAL GARDENING MONTH

With the economy still in a terrible state, many people are discovering the joy of cultivating their own food with backyard gardens. Whether edible or ornamental, plant something and watch it grow this April as we celebrate National Gardening Month! (full disclosure: it's really Landscape Architecture Month, but "Gardening Month" sounds better...)

NATIONAL PET MONTH

Walk your dog! Wash your rabbit! Or stare balefully at your goldfish! Do SOMETHING for your best non-human buddy, because April is NATIONAL PET MONTH! (kind of the same thing--April is really Pet First Aid Awareness Month, but that sounded slightly distressing to me...)

Good Sources: Search Engines & Directories (Part 1)

2009-03-31T15:34:00.008-04:00

By Librarian Carl

Online search tools cover a lot of ground these days. One type of online search tool is the Search Engine, more formally referred to as a Web Search Engine. A modern search engine allows you to input one or more keywords and primarily by use of search algorithms and indexing software, often called crawlers, it produces a list of websites relevant to your search query. For most people this means, simply, you type in some words and the search engine brings up a list of web pages on your topic. The behind the scenes “software-powered” process for this is very complicated and often kept proprietary by the various search engine companies. For a more complete explanation of how search engines work, see here.

Another type of online search tool is the Directory. Web Directories rely primarily on “human-powered results” instead of "software-powered results" for cataloging and selection. A Web Directory lists webs sites by category and while most have a search option the focus is on browsing through the list. For a summary of the main difference between a search engine and a directory, see here.

Search Engines and Directories both help you find web resources about your topic of interest but do so by different methods and have different strengths and weaknesses. Search engines are often quicker and easier to use and cover more sites online than Directories. Directories have human chosen or peer-reviewed content with the goal of offering fewer but higher quality web sites and allow for serendipitous discovery that only browsing category lists can afford.

Below I have listed some of the better and larger general Search Engines and Directories. These tools are the best of the best available today and it would benefit any Internet searcher to become familiar with all of them (not just one *cough* Google *cough*).

1) Search Engines

2) Directories

Open Directory Project (ODP) (DMoz)
Google Directory (content by ODP, organized by Google)
Librarian’s Internet Index
Yahoo Directory
InfoMine
About.com

3) Tips

It is a good idea to get in the habit of using multiple search engines and directories. No search engine is complete (not even Google searches the entire Internet) and all have different interfaces that allow for better or worse searching depending on what kinds of things you are searching for.

4) Learn More

Search Engine Watch (latest in search)
Noodle Tools (select the right search tool)
General Guides [UC Berkley] (instructions)
List of Search Engines (Wikipedia)
List of Web Directories (Wikipedia)

Keep Searching,
Librarian Carl

The next two monthly posts will continue our exploration of search tools with a more detailed examination of Search Engines and their subtypes in (Part 2) and a more detailed examination of Directories in (Part 3)

BEWITCHING UPDIKE

2009-03-27T14:42:00.005-04:00

The Reading Public Library will be hosting two book discussions of John Updike's novel, The Witches of Eastwick, both to be held on Wednesday, April 8.

The first discussion will be our Brown Bag event from 12:15 to 1:00 pm, with beverage and dessert provided by the library. The second will take place that evening, from 7:00 to 8:00 pm. Pre-registration is requested; you may visit the Reference Desk at the Main Library or call us at (610) 655-6355.

PLOT SUMMARY (from Wikipedia)

The story, set in the fictional Rhode Island town of Eastwick in the late 1960s, follows the witches Alexandra Spofford, Jane Smart, and Sukie Rougemont, who acquired their powers after leaving or being left by their husbands. Their coven is upset by the arrival of a devil-like character, Darryl Van Horne. The mysterious Darryl seduces each of the women, encouraging them to play with their powers and creating a scandal in the town.

The three women share Darryl in relative peace until he unexpectedly marries their young, innocent friend, Jenny, whom they resolve to have revenge on by giving her cancer through their magic. The witches doubt their judgment after Jenny's death when Darryl flees town with her younger brother, Chris, apparently his lover. In his wake he leaves their relationships strained and their sense of self in doubt. Eventually they each summon their ideal men and leave town.

The novel was made into a popular film in 1987, with Jack Nicholson starring as Darryl, Cher as Alexandra, Susan Sarandon as Jane, and Michelle Pfeiffer as Sukie.

FALLEN ANGELS of WINTER

2009-03-25T14:37:00.007-04:00

If you enjoy drama that does more than tear at the heartstrings--the kind that virtually eviscerates you at the very core of your soul--then you are in for an intensely emotional treat with 2007's Snow Angels.

Based on the eponymous novel by Stewart O'Nan, Snow Angels takes place in an unnamed northern state where, unsurprisingly, there is frozen precipitation aplenty. The protagonist is young Arthur Parkinson, played to clueless perfection by Michael Anganaro (whom I recognized as having played Elliott, Jack McFarland's son, on Will & Grace). Arthur is a high school student, a tuba player in the band, and an employee of his hometown's Chinese restaurant, owned by Oskar, who is decidedly not Chinese (I think he is supposed to be German).

Arthur's parents (Don, played by Griffin Dunne, and Louise, played by Jeanetta Arnette) are separating and his mother is an emotional whirlwind in the face of his professor father's egress. At work, Arthur flirts harmlessly with Annie Marchand (Kate Beckinsale in the most poignant role of her career), a waitress who spent many years babysitting young Arthur. Annie is estranged from her husband, Glenn (a blowout performance by Sam Rockwell), who has recently attempted suicide in the face of his marital woes. They have one child, four-year-old Tara, both adeptly and adorably rendered by Gracie Hudson.

New girl in school Lila Raybern takes an instant liking to Arthur; the role is handled admirably by Olivia Thirlby, who played Juno's best friend in the popular film of the same name. Lila, with her engaging chatter and delightfully retro cats'-eye glasses, waits patiently for Arthur to realize she has a significant crush on him.

A second couple, Nate and Barb Petite, find their lives hopelessly interlocked with those of Glenn and Annie. Barb, played by comedienne Amy Sedaris in an uncharacteristic dramatic role, is a fellow waitress at the Chinese eatery; Nate (played by Nicky Katt) is conducting an adulterous affair with Annie. Meanwhile, Glenn has become a rabidly born-again Christian and is busily attempting to rebuild his life by finding employment while living with his parents and aged grandfather (and let's not forget the dog, Bomber).

Suspicions fly and secrets are revealed in the ugliest possible scenarios, all of which find climax when an unthinkable tragedy befalls one of the cast and, as a result, several of the characters become lost completely.

I will advise that this movie is incredibly dark and extremely depressing, so be forewarned. Beckinsale and Rockwell, however, deliver stellar performances, and while the film may not be all sweetness and light, I would still highly recommend going out and visiting with these Snow Angels.

I HATED THIS MOVIE

2009-03-17T18:08:00.009-04:00

Ordinarily I reserve reviews for books, music, or films that I've not only enjoyed, but that I truly wish to share with other people. "Rachel Getting Married", a movie released last year, is rather the opposite. I despised this movie so intensely I simply had to vent about it on the blog.

Anne Hathaway does herself no credit whatsoever portraying the infinitely loathable Kym Buchman in "Rachel Getting Married". A lifelong junkie who's attempted to kick drug and alcohol addiction numerous times, Kym gets a brief release from a clinic in order to nearly destroy her elder sister's nuptials.

Rosemarie DeWitt brings one of the only sympathetic characters to the film as Rachel, whose life has been spent watching her self-destructive sibling's antics decmiate their family. I had not noticed Ms. DeWitt's cruelly hawklike proboscis so much in "Mad Men", but then the camera angles in "R.G.M." were rather unforgiving on just about every actor. Jonathan Demme, the director, utilized dizzying hand-held-camcorder shots so often I nearly reached for the Dramamine--the result was far from artistic, it was literally nauseating.

Due largely to a devastating incident within the family (caused, unsurprisingly, by a high-as-a-kite Kymmie), the parents of the bride are divorced and each has remarried. Effeminate father Paul (Bill Irwin, who's apparently a pioneer in contemporary American clowning---*cringe*) is the husband of Carol; delightfully distant mother, Abby (played beautifully by Debra Winger), is partnered with Andrew. Abby has little time for her children, maintaining distance in order to move on from her dysfunctional original clan to new horizons with her second spouse.

The majority of the movie is taken up by Kym's monotonous monologues as to how no one understands the plight of the recovering junkie. She makes an unlikely connection with Kieran (Mather Zickel), the best man at the wedding, although he can't rescue her from her obsessive need to destroy everything in her life. Kym, who has spent a majority of the recent past either in rehab or prison, even demands that Rachel remove her best friend, Emma (Anisa George), as her maid of honor and give that position to her [Kym]. There is also a scene of mind-numbing discomfort when Kym delivers a lengthy "toast" at the rehearsal dinner, which quickly transmogrifies into yet another patented "Kymmie Buchman Self-Pitying Soliloquy About HOW HARD IT IS TO BE ME".

Sidney Williams (Rachel's fiancee/husband) is played by Tunde Adebimpe, the lead singer of the group TV on the Radio (I liked his character, who was low-key and amusing). The music in this film, however, is abysmal, with ridiculously extended scenes of very strange, sitar-driven orchestrations being danced to by bored-looking cast members. The wedding itself is bizarre: the Buchmans are Jewish and the Williamses are African-American but with no particular (or at least obvious) connection to Hinduism. Yet the couple is married in a Hindu-esque environment (Indian music, the bride and her attendants wear saris, the wedding cake boasts a huge elephant...?!) that makes no sense on any level.

I couldn't have cared less about Kymmie Buchman and her angst-ridden plight of being hopelessly addicted to apparently every known amphetamine and barbituate in the world. I did feel for Rachel, though: a devoted and duty-driven daughter, yet forever cast aside in light of her sister's perpetual parade of drug-induced, self-loathing-riddled meltdowns. A part of me really hoped Kym would overdose and die before the end; unfortunately that just didn't happen...

How this particular film ended up gracing so many "Best of 2008" movie lists is thoroughly unnerving, and does nothing to hold back my final word on this drivel: spare yourself and decline the invitation to see "Rachel Getting Married".

FASTNACHTS AND PACZKI AND KING CAKES, O MY!

2009-02-24T12:40:00.017-05:00

When I first joined the staff at the Main Library many years ago, I'd been only (very) vaguely aware of fastnachts. They had certainly not been a part of my family's Fat Tuesday traditions and I didn't know anyone who ate them when I was growing up. My first Fastnacht (or Fasnacht) Day in Reading found me presented with several variations of the doughnut-like pastry by Berks Countians eager to share this Pennsylvania German cultural food staple.

Unfortunately, my first encounter with a fastnacht was without the benefit of any sweetener, such as turkey syrup (why is it called that, anyway?--it's not poultry flavored! [thank heavens]) or molasses. I was underwhelmed. I could not imagine why people became so excited to nibble on this starchy, almost tasteless dessert bread.

I've never become a fan of the fastnacht, even having eaten them flavored with something sweet. Polish-Americans look forward to consuming paczki every year on Fat Tuesday:

Paczki (pronounced POONCH-key; a single one is a paczek [POTCH-ek]) are in many ways similar to fastnachts in that they are dense, heavy, and fried. Paczki are, however, always filled; prune, cherry, and lemon are among the more customary paczki fillings.

The American South, home to the greatest Mardi Gras celebration in the country (New Orleans), has its own traditional dessert for the holiday.

A king cake is a sweetbread that is usually also filled and topped with sugary icing (Y-U-M!) Traditional king cakes have a trinket baked inside them, which are seen as portents of good fortune to the person who disgorges it. The krewes, or roving string bands that parade throughout New Orleans on Mardi Gras, often select their leader for that august day based on whoever draws the trinket.

Many king cakes have the figure of a baby secreted within them; this tradition grew from the original time of year when this confection was served. Epiphany is the feast celebrated just after Christmas when Christians remember the arrival of the Three Kings to the manger of the infant Jesus. The infant figure represents the Baby Jesus, and the cake is named for the three royal personages who followed a star to find the Christ Child.

This is an example of the Mardi Gras flag; the selection of the New Orleans Mardi Gras colors was done by a member of the Russian royal family. Grand Duke Alexis Romanov was visiting New Orleans in 1872 during the Mardi Gras festivities and was given the honor of selecting which hues would be incorporated into the official banner of the event. He chose purple to represent justice, gold to symbolize power, and green to denote faith; the purple crown in the center indicates Duke's regal bloodline.

Whether you feast on fastnachts, polish off some paczki, or consume a piece of king cake,

Happy Mardi Gras to all...

Good Sources for Online Books

2009-02-20T09:41:00.009-05:00

By Librarian Carl

The printed word has undergone a multitude of changes over its history, from papyrus scrolls and wax tablets to parchment manuscripts and paper bound books. The latest format is eBooks. Electronic Books (or eBooks) are digital versions of a traditional print book designed to be read on a personal computer or an e-book reader. Large collections of ebooks are sometimes presented by way of online digital libraries. Although eBooks have been around since the early 1980s, they did not hit the public eye until early 2000.

Many complications over standard format file types, delivery systems, and legal policies are currently plaguing the industry. The field of digital books is constantly growing and changing; thankfully, many easy and free-to-use options exist. This month’s Good Sources column will point you in the right direction.

1) Libraries

Reading Public Library
The Reading Public Library offers a whole host of databases and indexes free to all library members (databases link here and here). One such database is NetLibrary, which offers digital version of books, journals, and other database content.
Link: NetLibrary

Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LC) has both unique eText collections and offers access to a list of databases which
Databases: Databases & E-Resources (Free) (All)
Other Online content: Digital Collections & Services

New York Public Library
Like the LC the NYPL has both their own collection of digital content and offer access to a list of databases.
Databases: Databases and Indexes Online (Free) (All)
Other Online content: Digital Collections

Internet Public Library
IPL offers a list of remote links to various online eBooks and eText.
Online Text Links: http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/hum60.60.00/

2) Other Sources

Project Gutenberg
“Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.”

Internet Archive
“The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. Founded in 1996 and located in the Presidio of San Francisco, the Archive has been receiving data donations from Alexa Internet and others.”

The Online Books Page
“The Online Books Page is an index of e-text books available on the Internet. It is edited by John Mark Ockerbloom and is hosted by the library of the University of Pennsylvania. The Online Books Page lists over 30,000 books, and has several features, such as A Celebration of Women Writers and Banned Books Online.”

Bartleby.com
“Bartleby.com is an electronic text archive, headquartered in New York and named after Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener. It was founded under the name "Project Bartleby" in January 1993 by Steven H. van Leeuwen as a personal, non-profit collection of classic literature on the website of Columbia University.”

The Internet Classics Archive
“Select from a list of 441 works of classical literature by 59 different authors, including user-driven commentary and "reader's choice" Web sites. Mainly Greco-Roman works (some Chinese and Persian), all in English translation.”

Open Library
“Open Library a project designed to create a comprehensive online database of books. It is a project of the Internet Archive. Aaron Swartz is the leader of the Open Library's technical team.”

Google Books
“Google Book Search is a tool from Google that searches the full text of books that Google scans, converts to text using optical character recognition, and stores in its digital database.”

Digital Book Index
“Digital Book Index provides links to more than 145,000 full-text digital books from more than 1800 commercial and non-commercial publishers, universities, and various private sites. More than 100,000 of these books, texts, and documents are available free, while many others are available at very modest cost.”

The Universal Digital Library
“The Million Book Project (or the Universal Library), led by Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science and University Libraries currently has scanned ove 1 million books. Working with government and research partners in India and China, the project is scanning books in many languages, using OCR to enable full text searching, and providing free-to-read access to the books on the web.”

BONUS: CliffNotes
The well known student study guides are now available online and for free!

3) Searching On Your Own

There are many more options for online full text. The above list should get you started with the major general offerings. You can use the following keywords to help you search out various other collections.

Keywords: eBooks, eText, Online Full Text, eContent
Keywords: Digital Library, Electronic Library, Online Library

ORTHOGRAPHY FOR ALL!

2009-02-14T13:50:00.033-05:00

RIGHTING THE MOTHER TONGUE, FROM OLDE
ENGLISH TO EMAIL: THE TANGLED STORY OF
ENGLISH SPELLING
by David Wolman
New 421.52 Wol

Orthography is a little-known and relatively caliginous subject; its broadest definition is the investigation as to how spoken language is committed to a written format, including the symbols utilized and the process by which such characters are engendered and employed.

In other words, orthography is a synonym for spelling.

David Wolman plumbs the heady depths of English language spelling in his book Righting the Mother Tongue, etc., which was published in October 2008 by Collins. I love the English language and rejoice in its bizarre spelling traditions. I find it delightful that the letter combination ough can be pronounced in such a bewildering multiplicity of ways. Consider the following words: bough, cough, dough, enough, and through -- each corresponds with the following words, pronunciation-wise: cow, scoff, flow, puff, and zoo. Behold the glorious, mercurial inconsistency of it all!

The feckless irregularities of English are the very things which make it an extremely difficult language to learn. For centuries, English spelling has been the bane of its speakers' existence, and through the ages scores of individuals have petitioned to have its orthography radically simplified. One of the earliest pioneers of such a movement was the father of the English language dictionary: Samuel Butler (an Englishman), who authored one of the earliest lexicons in 1755.

We are perhaps more familiar with Noah Webster, an American who published the first dictionary on U.S. soil in 1806. Webster championed spelling changes not only to make orthography easier to comprehend, but also to highlight the difference between American English and its British parent. Webster's influence brought about the disappearance of the superfluous "u" in the American spelling of such words as honor, valor, and color (in England they remain honour, valour, and colour to this day). President Theodore Roosevelt, author H.G. Wells, and playwright George Bernard Shaw were all devoted disciples of spelling mediation.

I was quite surprised to find Melvil Dewey not only on this illustrious list, but that he was at one time America's most impassioned disciple of the simplified spelling movement. Melvil created the Dewey Decimal System, the numerical classification scheme used by public and school libraries to arrange non-fiction materials. At birth his first name was spelled Melville, but in college he dropped the second "l" and silent "e"--for a brief time he even spelled his surname "Dui" in an effort to prove more phonetic. Dewey was cautioned to stifle his spelling-streamline-mania by his employer at his first job as a librarian, at New York's Columbia University.

Dewey courted the philanthropic paragon Andrew Carnegie and was given a generous allottment of financial support for his spelling simplification efforts (Carnegie was himself a poor speller who was very much in sympathy with Melvil's spelling philosophy.) Clearly, however, Dewey's and his colleagues' designs to reinvent English spelling were met with a stunning paucity of success (although various organizations championing the same cause are still extant today.)

Spelling reform does have its positive points. Children would have a much easier time of things in learning the language, for one; non-English speakers would benefit greatly as well if the many contradictory, illogical, and arcane traditions of our written language were to be eradicated.

On the other hand, spelling reform initiaitves have traditionally met with incredibly robust resistance from the masses. Spelling purists (of whom I am one) find the very concept alarming (indeed!), but the majority just cannot be bothered having to re-learn the nuts and bolts of spelling. One of the reasons English has such convoluted spelling practices is because the bulk of the language is borrowed from other tongues. Wolman shares a very brief list of some examples: bungalow (Hindi), guitar (Spanish), bamboo (Malay), kiosk (Turkish), algebra (Arabic), parasite (Greek), cameo (Italian), and curry (Tamil). A huge number of English words are derived from Dutch and German, the two languages with which English shares the most common ground. Moreover, English has a substantial variety of vowel sounds but very few vowels-- re-establishing spelling rules would mean instituting tortuous letter combinations to represent the same sounds, or inventing altogether new letters.

English, like all languages, is constantly encountering alteration, moderation, permutation, and even corruption. An excellent example of this is the contemporary phenomenon of texting, where "texters" utilize all manner of abbreviation in order to save themselves time and exertion. I find this practice as annoying as I do unseemly; besides which, I end up mouthing what the bizarre alpha-numeric symbols are supposed to mean and become frustrated that I'm not reading actual words.

I laughed at myself at times while reading this book. While the American spelling of the word is catalog, I still insist on writing catalogue, which is the British style. I also append the silent "e" in the purals of words that do not actually require them ("volcanoes") and insist on doubling consonants (also a British holdover) for some words (the plural of "bus" in the U.S. is "buses", which to me looks like the second syllable of the word "abuses", and thus has me pronouncing it the same way when I see it written--I use "busses").

This book is not solely for those of us with a penchant for orthographic chronology. Wolman is a breezy writer whose infectious curiosity and self-deprecating humor make for an engaging style of prose. At the outset he bluntly confesses his spelling ineptitude and part of his interest in this subject was a desire to learn why he has always found the subject so very arduous. Both its tone and content make for a highly enjoyable read and I recommend it unreservedly!

THOSE MAGICAL MUPPETS

2009-02-10T20:10:00.020-05:00

STREET GANG: THE COMPLETE HISTORY
OF SESAME STREET
by Michael Davis
New 791.4372 Dav

This book is a comprehensive history of the vastly influential children's program, Sesame Street. The author, Michael Davis, is a resident of the Philadelphia suburb of Yardley; his father actually donated the copy of this title in the Main Library's collection. As a Gen-Xr (how I once loathed that label--until Generation Y was given its own identity, riddled with more issues and negative traits than Generation X--ha, ha!), I was constantly visiting Sesame Street throughout my childhood. I was completely enthralled with The Count (ironic, considering I developed a raging math-phobia around age nine that I've yet to shake), and wanted to live with Big Bird. I was not, however, a fan of Bert, what with his puzzling penchant for pigeons and his preposterous paper clip collection. Sesame Street will celebrate its 40th birthday this year on November 10th.

As a neat tie-in to this fun new title (I haven't gotten to read it yet but it's on my list), I read a Mental Floss article today on the back stories of many Muppet characters (please check out http://www.mentalfloss.com/ for the full article written by Stacy Conradt).

Kermit the Frog's initial incarnation took place in 1955. He was made out of Elizabeth Henson's coat (mother of Jim) and ping-pong balls.

Oscar the Grouch's raspy, angry signature voice was inspired by an irate New York City cab driver. Miss Piggy is a native of Iowa. And Telly Monster was originally supposed to fall into seizure-like paroxysms of euphoria every time he sat down in front of a television set, but his behavior was considered too scary for the young target audience. He was then transmogrified into the perpetual worry-wart best known to Sesame Street aficionados.

I always thought the two balcony-bound hecklers on the Muppet Show were simply fabulous...particularly since I've never liked Fozzie Bear and adored the excoriations the pernicious pair heaped upon the hopelessly untalented ursine comedian. I'd long believed them to be named Astor and Waldorf, having heard they were named for two famous New York City hotels. They're actually named Statler and Waldorf--Statler has gray hair and Waldorf has white hair (plus the mustache). Apparently Waldorf has a wife--appropriately named Astoria (wocka, wocka!). I've also heard that Astoria is actually Waldorf's sister (they're the exact same puppet; the female simply has more hair and no mustache) and Statler's wife, which would make them brothers-in-law.

Finally, according to Ms. Conradt's report, the long-held belief that Bert and Ernie were named after characters in the film It's A Wonderful Life is a total myth. I always thought it was a lovely idea, having the police officer (Bert) and the cab driver (Ernie) from my favorite Christmas movie immortalized in Muppet form on Sesame Street. Sometimes the truth hurts...

My nieces and nephews are now happily entranced with Sesame Street as well as the sadly-defunct Muppet Show (on DVD) and I find it heartwarming to bond with them over their favorite characters (unless someone likes Fozzie Bear...or Animal...)

NOTE: On February 11, CNN ran an article titled How Do You Get To 'Sesame Street'? by Todd Leopold detailing Street Gang, etc. by Michael Davis. It's well worth a read!

BOOK DISCUSSION

2009-01-30T15:08:00.007-05:00

Sotah
by Naomi Ragen

From Publishers Weekly:

Ragen's second novel (after Jephte's Daughter) revisits the insular world of ultrareligious Jews, focusing on the Reich family's three daughters and how they fare in the elemental rite of passage--marriage. In the Haredi community (made up of Jews who observe "the tiniest dictate of law" and have "boundless contempt" for all things secular), a matchmaker handles--and sometimes mishandles--nuptials based on dowry, piety and family ties, and only incidentally on love or compatibility. Harsh as these customs may seem, Ragen's detailed and thoughtful evocations of daily life in such an enclave offer insights into its members' beliefs. The drama centers on the Reichs' devout middle daughter, Dina, who tries to reconcile her desires and dreams within the confines of her narrow world. How she becomes a sotah (a woman suspected of adultery), her banishment from seeing her husband and young child, and the ultimate reconciliation of her strict faith with the meaningful aspects of a secular society form the heart of this very readable, but at times simplistic novel. Ragen is most successful when she tells the story from the vantage point of the haredi world, less so when her characters are secular Jews. A stronger work of fiction than Jephte's Daughter, the narrative holds the reader's attention throughout.

Please join us for a lively discussion of this novel on Wednesday, February 11. Once again there will be a Brown Bag Lunch discussion from 12:15 to 1:00 pm with dessert and beverage provided by the library. An evening discussion will begin at 7:00 and last one hour. Please register in advance by visiting the Reference Desk or calling us at (610) 655-6355.

DEATH OF A NATIVE SON

2009-01-27T13:52:00.012-05:00

JOHN UPDIKE

(March 18, 1932 -- January 27, 2009)

Berks County's pre-eminent literary son died today after having battled lung cancer for some time. John Hoyer Updike was a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, most noted for his Rabbit series. Born in Shillington, the leading light of contemporary American letters was raised in Plowville from the age of 11, and went on to graduate from Harvard University. A voluminous author, Updike penned not only novels but also volumes of poetry and short stories, many of which have been published in the renowned publication, The New Yorker.

Nor has the world heard the last of Updike's unparalleled voice on the written page. His final poetry collection, entitled Endpoint (astonishingly ironic, all things considered...), will be published in September. Two discrete short story collections will be produced in the summer: My Father's Tears and Other Stories will be released in June, and The Maple Stories will be available in August.

Updike's Endpoint includes this hauntingly visionary poem which reveals the author's consideration of his own mortality:

"Requiem"

It came to me the other day:
Were I to die, no one would say,
'Oh, what a shame! So young, so full
Of promise - depths unplumbable!'
Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes
Will greet my overdue demise;
The wide response will be, I know,
'I thought he died a while ago.'
For life's a shabby subterfuge,
And death is real, and dark, and huge.
The shock of it will register
Nowhere but where it will occur.

A bibliography of Updike's major works follows:

The Rabbit Novels

(1960) Rabbit, Run
(1971) Rabbit Redux
(1981) Rabbit Is Rich
(1990) Rabbit At Rest
(2001) Rabbit Remembered

The Bech Books

(1970) Bech, a Book
(1982) Bech Is Back
(1998) Bech at Bay

The Buchanan Books

(1974) Buchanan Dying (a play)
(1992) Memories of the Ford Administration (a novel)

The Eastwick Books

(1984) The Witches of Eastwick
(2008) The Widows of Eastwick

Novels

(1959) The Poorhouse Fair
(1963) The Centaur
(1965) Of the Farm
(1968) Couples
(1975) A Month of Sundays
(1977) Marry Me
(1978) The Coup
(1986) Roger's Version
(1988) S.
(1994) Brazil
(1996) In the Beauty of the Lilies
(1997) Toward the End of Time
(2000) Gertrude and Claudius
(2002) Seek My Face
(2004) Villages
(2006) Terrorist

Short Story Collections

(1959) The Same Door
(1961) A & P
(1962) Pigeon Feathers
(1964) Olinger Stories (a selection)
(1966) The Music School
(1972) Museums And Women
(1979) Problems
(1979) Too Far To Go (related short stories about a single family)
(1987) Trust Me
(1994) The Afterlife
(2000) The Best American Short Stories of the Century (editor)
(2001) Licks of Love
(2003) The Early Stories: 1953-1975
(2009) My Father's Tears and Other Stories

Poetry

(1957) Ex-Basketball Player
(1958) The Carpentered Hen
(1963) Telephone Poles
(1969) Midpoint
(1969) Dance of the Solids
(1977) Tossing and Turning
(1985) Facing Nature
(1993) Collected Poems 1953-1993
(2001) Americana: and Other Poems

Assorted Non-Fiction, Essays, and Criticism

(1965) Assorted Prose
(1975) Picked-Up Pieces
(1983) Hugging The Shore
(1989) Self-Consciousness: Memoirs
(1989) Just Looking
(1991) Odd Jobs
(1996) Golf Dreams: Writings on Golf
(1999) More Matter
(2005) Still Looking: Essays on American Art
(2007) Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism

ELF - keeping tabs on your library material

2009-01-23T15:45:00.002-05:00

One of my New Year resolutions was to return library books on time. I'm an impulse shopper kind of person; if a piece of reading material catches my eye (which happens quite often), I have to have it. So I'm taking books home pretty much every day. They end up on my bookshelf and a month later, I receive an email saying this material is a week overdue, that material is five days overdue, and the other new movie I checked out is also a week overdue. The fines add up!

So, not to sound like a late night infomercial, I have a solution. I am testing a service called Elf, a web based and tool that alerts the user to impending due dates by email. The preferences are customizable; they can be set up to send the notification a certain number of days before the due date, or it could be set up to send a weekly reminder on a designated day of the week. This would be convenient for those who come into the library every Wednesday, for example.

The Basic service described above is free; however, there is also a Premium service that, for a fee, compiles a summary of accounts for families with more than one card, or for those who have library cards at more than one library.

The Berks County Public Library System library cards are accessable through this service; anyone who has an RPL card or a BCPL card may sign up for an account. I will post a follow-up of my success (or failure) with ELF.

RESOURCES FOR THE JOB SEEKER

2009-01-22T13:19:00.022-05:00

The economy has been facing a tumultuous downturn for the better part of the last eighteen months or so. As information professionals, my colleagues (the Reference Librarians) and I at The Main have noticed a sharp upsurge in internet patrons--many of whom are neophytes to the online world--using the web to locate employment. The Reading Eagle newspaper carried an enlightening article this past Friday (January 16) which touched upon this trend (see "A Ready Resource", C section of that day's edition).

To that end I am sharing some resources for patrons who may need assistance tracking down places to research employment opportunities on the internet. Local, physical contact information is also shared where relevant:

BERKS & BEYOND EMPLOYMENT

926 Penn Street

Reading PA 19601

(610) 376-9675

http://www.berksandbeyond.com/

FEDERAL CIVIL SERVICE

http://www.usajobs.gov/

JOBS IN PENNSYLVANIA

http://www.jobsinpa.com/

LABOR READY
355 Penn Street

Reading PA 19601

(610) 372-5575

http://www.laborready.com/

PENNSYLVANIA CAREERLINK

501 Crescent Avenue

Reading PA 19605

(610)988-1300

http://www.pacareerlink.com/

PENNSYLVANIA CIVIL SERVICE

http://www.scsc.state.pa.us/

PENNSYLVANIA JOBS

http://www.pennsylvaniajobs.com/

READING AREA JOBS

http://www.readingberksjobs.com/

TAX FORM TIME

2009-01-19T09:35:00.021-05:00

Tax forms are the most popular government publications the Reading Main Library receives. All local, state, and federal forms and publications will be made available to the public on MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2.

Please note that while the library is able to provide access to these publications, the librarians are not permitted to assist patrons with any tax questions. This includes, but is not limited to, the following:

1) Which tax form should I use?

2) How do I fill out this form?

3) Can you explain or interpret this tax publication or instruction?

We are fortunate that there is an IRS Office located very close to the Main Library; it's at 201 Penn Street and we direct all tax questions there.

Here are some helpful telephone numbers for patrons with questions about tax forms:

READING CITY--TAX ADMINISTRATION OFFICE:

(610) 655-6334

BERKS COUNTY EARNED INCOME TAX OFFICE:

(610) 372-8439

PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE:
1-888-728-2937*

FEDERAL TAXES/INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE:

1-800-829-1040

* There is no option to speak to a human being (shameful, isn't it?) via this number. It does, however, provide a wealth of information that just may provide the answers one is seeking. Patrons who do wish to speak to someone directly must utilize a toll number: 717-787-8201.

HAPPY FILING...

NEW TITLES ON RELIGION

2009-01-07T09:27:00.067-05:00

At the end of last year the Reading Public Library received a generous bequest from the estate of the late William Cassidy to be utilized for the procurement of books. A portion of the money was put towards expanding the Main's spirituality and theology holdings. Here is a sampling of some new items we have acquired thanks to the late Mr. Cassidy's beneficence:

The Agnostic Reader

by S. T. Joshi, 2007

211.7 Agn

All the People in the Bible: An A-Z Guide to the Saints,

Scoundrels, and Other Characters in Scripture

by Richard R. Losch, 2008
220.9203 Los

The Aquinas Catechism: A Simple Explanation of the Catholic
Faith by the Church's Greatest Theologian

by St. Thomas Aquinas, 2006

230.2 Tho

Astrology

by Derek and Julia Parker, 2007

133.5 Par

The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology

by Tim Winter, 2008
297.209 Cam

Cultivating the Buddhist Heart: How to Find Peace

and Fulfillment in a Changing World

by Nichiko Niwano, 2008

294.3444 Niw

The Dalai Lama: Essential Writings,

by the Dalai Lama, 2008
NEW 294.3923 Bst

Decoding Mary Magdalene: Truth, Legend, and Lies

by Amy Welborn, 2006

226.092 Wel

The Delusion of Disbelief: Why the New Atheism is a Threat

to Your Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness

by David Aikman, 2008

211.8 Aik

Doing Jewish Theology: God, Torah, and Israel

in Modern Judaism

by Neil Gillman, 2008
NEW 296.3 Gil

The Druids

by Ronald Hutton, 2008

NEW 299.16 Hut

Encyclopedia of Mary
by Monica and Bill Dodds, 2007

232.9103 Dod

Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft, and Wicca

by Rosemary Guiley, 1999

133.4303 Gui

Essential Hinduism

by Steven J. Rosen, 2008

294.5 Ros

Essential Writings of the American Black Church

by John Hunt, 2008

NEW 277.3082 Ess

The Everyday Torah: Weekly Reflections and Inspirations

by Bradley Shavit Artson, 2008

222.106 Art

The Everything Wicca and Witchcraft Book: Rituals, Spells,

and Sacred Objects for Everyday Magick

by Skye Alexander, 2008

133.43 Ale

Evidence for Faith 101: Understanding Apologetics in Plain Language

by Bruce Bickel, 2008
239 Bic

Falun Gong and the Future of China

by David Ownby, 2008

299.51 Own

Head and Heart: A History of Christianity in America

by Garry Wills, 2008

277.3 Wil

History of Polish Christianity

by Jerzy Kloczowski, 2008
NEW 274.38 Klo

How to Read the Qu'ran

by Mona Siddiqui, 2007

297.12261 Sid

Introduction to Traditional Islam: Foundations, Art, and Spirituality

by Jean-Louis Michon, 2008

NEW 297 Mic

John the Baptist: Prophet and Disciple

by Alexander J. Burke, Jr., 2006

232.94 Bur

The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality

by Andre Comte-Sponville, 2008

NEW 211.8 Com

Living Without God: New Directions for Atheists,

Agnostics, Secularists, and the Undecided

by Ronald Aronson, 2008
NEW 211.6 Aro

Lutheran Identity: A Classical Understanding

by Frank C. Senn, 2008

284.1 Sen

Mothers of Promise: Women in the Book of Genesis

by Tammi J. Schneider, 2008

222.110922 Sch

New Dictionary of Saints: East and West

by Michael Walsh, 2007

270.922 Wal

New Interpreter's Study Bible

(New Revised Version), 2008

220.52043 NRS

Nuns: A History of Convent Life, 1450-1700

by Silvia Evangelisti, 2008
NEW 248.8943 Eva

Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent: Faith and Power in the New Russia
by John Garrard, 2008
281.947 Gar

Sense of the Faithful: How American Catholics Live Their Faith

by Jerome P. Baggett, 2008
NEW 282.73 Bag

Shamans of the World: Extraordinary First-Person Accounts

of Healings, Mysteries, and Miracles

by Nancy Connor, 2008
201.44 Con

Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction

by Eleanor Nesbitt, 2005
294.6 Nes

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible

by James Strong, 2007
220.5203 Str

Teach Yourself Buddhism

by Clive Erricker, 2008

NEW 294.3 Err

Understanding Intelligent Design

by William A. Dembski, 2008

213 Dem

Upanisads

translated from the Sanskrit by Patrick Olivelle, 2008
294.59218 Upa

The Vision of Mormonism: Pressing the

Boundaries of Christianity

by Robert L. Miller, 2007
289.332 Mil

Quality Online General Reference

2009-01-02T14:43:00.008-05:00

by Librarian Carl

Finding information online is so easy these days it’s almost trivial. However, finding quality information is as difficult as it has ever been. What I’d like to showcase here in this month’s entry are some of the best free (or mostly free) online general reference sites that will foster sound research. These sites, although they are online, are not simply unqualified web pages. These sites include databases and collections of web pages based upon the quality of the information and the authority of their creators. Not surprisingly libraries or library-associated projects often provide the best quality control. As always, be critical of your sources of online information but the following are sites that have a better than average chance of leading you to quality sources of information suitable for research, reports, or general interest.

1) Libraries
Reading Public Library
Virtually all public libraries have online resources associated with their homepage. The Reading Public Library helps pay for access to databases that are free to registered library users.
Databases: Web Databases, Power Library
Other Online content: Reference Department Bookmarks, Children Websites, Young Adult Websites

Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps and manuscripts in its collections. What is less well known is the depth of free online resources that the Library of Congress makes available. Some of these resources require membership, some do not.
Databases: Databases & E-Resources (Free) (All)
Other Online content: Digital Collections & Services, Virtual Reference Shelf, Alcove 9: An Annotated List of Reference Websites

New York Public Library
As one of the leading public library systems in the world the NYPL offers a wide assortment of online content. Some of these resources require membership, some do not.
Databases: Databases and Indexes Online (Free) (All)
Other Online content: Digital Collections

Internet Public Library

“The Internet Public Library is an educational, research, and service laboratory; two of its major roles are educating students at graduate schools of information and providing library services to internet users. As part of the Internet Public Library’s service, students in Internet Public Library workshops select (credential) and maintain links to web sites.”
Databases: Reading Room
Other Online content: Subject Collections, Ready Reference, Special Collections

2) Other Sources
Librarian's Internet Index - The Librarian's Internet Index (LII), brought to you by the Califa Library Group, is dedicated to providing a directory of websites that you can trust. Users can find more than 20,000 quality sites organized into more than 14 main topics and 300 subtopics.

Bartleby Reference - "Bartleby.com combines the best of both contemporary and classic reference works into the most comprehensive public reference library ever published on the web." This site is free to all, funded by Bartleby.com, Inc., and featured on Columbia University's webpage.

BUBL LINK - An Internet-based information service for the UK higher education community, developed by the Centre for Digital Library Research, which organizes sites by the Dewey decimal classification scheme.

INFOMINE — A virtual library of Internet resources relevant to university students and faculty. Built by librarians from the University of California, California State University, the University of Detroit-Mercy, and Wake Forest University.

Infoplease — A free, authoritative, and respected reference for Internet users, provides a comprehensive reference suite: encyclopedia, almanac, atlas, dictionary, and more. Infoplease is funded by Pearson, a private educational publishing firm.

Intute — A searchable database of trusted web sites, reviewed and monitored by subject specialists. Intute originates from the Resource Discovery Network which is a massive consortium of mostly European universities.

RefDesk - This Internet fact checker offers information on nearly every topic imaginable. Special features include searchable reference materials, news sources and facts at a glance. RefDesk is privately owned by Bob Drudge father of Matthew Drudge of the renowned Drudge Report.

Scholarpedia - This site looks like Wikipedia, but don't be fooled. Scholarpedia is a peer-reviewed encyclopedia that is created and maintained by scholars around the world, which means that articles can be cited in most cases. Currently scholarpedia’s content is limited but growing. Articles for Scholarpedia are generated by scholars the world over and curated by Dr. Eugene M. Izhikevich.

The Virtual Reference Desk — The Virtual Reference Desk is designed to help academic researchers find what they are looking for fast. The site has a database with more than 1,000 general references, 150,000 official government documents and a listing of government agencies. The Virtual Reference Desk is produced by Christopher C. Brown, Reference and Government Documents Librarian at the University of Denver.

MERRY EVERYTHING and HAPPY ALWAYS!!!

2008-12-20T09:31:00.008-05:00

Time for my final posting of 2008. I have greatly enjoyed contributing to the library's blog and am thrilled to know the blog has followers! Keep reading in the New Year!

OFFBEAT HOLIDAY FLICKS

2008-12-15T09:14:00.038-05:00

Most people have favorite holiday films. Personally, I enjoy the old-school standbys; It's A Wonderful Life, The Bishop's Wife, and White Christmas are right up there in my top five. Add in A Christmas Story, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and Elf, and you've got some great movies that truly convey all kinds of warm, funny, and wonderful Christmasy sentiment. There are other movies that add their own unique stamp on what the season means, some of them being relatively little-known. Here are a few examples:

WARNING---WARNING--WARNING: *MASSIVE SPOILERS*!!! So don't keep reading if you wish to be "surprised"...

ALL MINE TO GIVE, 1957

Unfortunately no local library has this DVD in their collection. The DVD cover art, which is original to the movie's release over fifty years ago, has a tagline that reads: "Six kids on a true and wonderful adventure!" This is one of the most misleading teasers in cinematic public relations history. It has the reader imagining a sextuplet of young ones perhaps sledding on particularly icy mountains or facing down some Scrooge-like, anti-Christmas archnemesis. In fact, it's about children losing both parents to highly contagious diseases and having their family rent permanently asunder.

This tale is based on a true-life story set in Wisconsin. Robert and Mamie Eunson (Cameron Mitchell and Glynis Johns) are Scots who have just landed in America (the year is 1856), having been invited there by Mamie's uncle. They arrive in the tiny logging village of Eureka, only to be informed that both uncle and his cabin have been incinerated in a house fire. The Eunsons are assisted by the friendly locals in reconstructing the house and Robert takes to tipping timber. It should be noted Mamie is heavily pregnant upon their reaching Eureka; she delivers baby Robbie soon after the cabin is completed. Robert eventually starts a successful boat building business and Mamie gives birth to five more children: Jimmy, Kirk, Annabelle, Elizabeth, and Jane. The Eunsons are prospering and happy--until little Kirk is diagnosed with diptheria. Mamie and Kirk are quarantined while Robert takes the other children away. The boy recovers, but the goodbye kiss he gave Dadda before his departure proves fatal, and Mr. Eunson succumbs.

Mamie takes to working as a seamstress and Robbie becomes the man of the house. Things stabilize, but only briefly: tired and work-worn, Mamie contracts typhoid. Knowing she won't survive, she charges her eldest with finding good homes for his siblings. After her death, Robbie does exactly that, dispatching his brothers and sisters to kindly townsfolk. Stoic and resigned during the process, he does break down when he's alone and sees the tree outside the homestead where his father had carved the names of the children into the bark. Baby Jane is the last to be handed over--Robbie stands at the door of a house and asks the woman who answers, "Will you take my sister, ma'am?" Pathos, lachrymose, mourning, and gloom! (It reminds me that in Great Britain, this movie was released under the title The Day They Gave Babies Away...*gulp*!)

He then turns and trudges, solitary and struggling, up a hill in a snowstorm. You may ask, "What does this horribly sad tale have to do with Christmas?" Robbie is breaking up the clan on Christmas Eve, wisely thinking people are more likely to accept taking in an orphan while filled with the holiday spirit.

I remember having my grade school show this film when I was a kid and half the auditorium was weeping openly by the end. While many people would avoid something this maudlin during a time of year we're enjoined to be merry and bright, I find it triumphant and warm-hearted. It was finally released to DVD just last month--I hope one local library decides to add it to their Christmas video collection.

THE GREAT RUPERT, 1950

This is a DVD the Main has in its collection. It stars Jimmy Durante as Mr. Amendola, a vaudeville performer who's come upon very hard times just before Christmas. He, his wife, and their lovely 20-something daughter, Rosalinda, are forced to take up residence in what amounts to a drafty, broken-down garage. Mr. Dingle is the tight-fisted landlord; his son, Peter, strikes up a romance with Miss Amandola.

Rupert is a talented performing squirrel (be aware he moves by very early stop-motion animation, which comes across as more than slightly bizarre--plus he smokes!) who is on hiatus with his human partner, Joe Mahoney, until a circus rolls into town with whom they'll perform. A seriously worthwhile question to pose here may be: just what IS Rupert in the film? Is he a mildly-lifelike-looking squirrel doll? Or, worst case scenario, is he---a taxidermized rodent...?! Oh, the possibilities...

Rupie discovers Mr. Dingle is hoarding bundles of cash in a wall and, brilliantly, starts throwing it down at the impoverished Amendolas, who take it to be a Christmas miracle. This movie is also known as The Christmas Wish, ostensibly because Rupert dispenses with the greenbacks on several occasions when Mr. Amendola shouts, "Rosalinda needs a new pair of shoes!" at the ceiling...oh yeah! Merry, merry!

SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS, 1964

This movie is exactly what gives science fiction a bad name. The Martians are nothing more than humans dressed in what look like pathetic third-rate Halloween costumes. The cheaply-constructed set--just check out the hysterical robot from the movie's poster, used as the DVD cover--looks as if, altogether, it cost about $500.00. And the actors are hammy and overblown beyond belief.

The storyline is that the children of Mars are collectively obsessed with watching Earth television, and are becoming deeply depressed because they don't have Santa Claus or Christmas on the Red Planet. Kimar, King of the Martians, and his wife Momar "Mom Martian", are distressed. The Grand Martian Council is convened and Kimar asks for their assistance. Voldar, a rather bellicose Martian, insists Santa Claus is a terrible influence, whose playful ways and amusing toys will only make the children of Mars "soft". Nonetheless, after seeking the counsel of Chochem, the oldest man on Mars (at 800 years), Kimar decides he and the council shall blast off to Earth and kidnap Santa Claus.

In describing this movie, I will use the phrase "special effects" with sarcastic quotation marks because they are so very, very badly done. Think of "Star Trek" and remove about 80% of the coolness of the original Trek world. The Martians arrive and meet Billy and Betty Foster, who explain that while the Martians had seen dozens of "Santas" through their telescope, the real one lives at the North Pole. The wee ones are promptly kidnapped and taken to Santa's Christmas workshop.

I should mention there is a dimwitted dolt Martian named Droppo whose bumblings help the tissue-paper-thin plot in a few instances. The actor who plays Santa makes for the oddest St. Nick ever seen: he chuckles dryly instead of ho-ho-ho-ing (f-r-e-a-k!). His overall presence may be likened to a socially backward bachelor uncle who makes everybody around him dreadfully uncomfortable; his hopelessly lame attempts at humor find Billy and Betty staring at him in disgust.

Santa and the kiddies are delivered to Mars, where Santa makes far-out space toys for the Martian children (of whom we see only Kimar's offspring, Girmar and Bomar. Wow, the effort that must have been expended in figuring out these Martian names...). One of the strangest scenes is when the four children "attack" Voldar with water pistols, foam dart guns, and wind-up toys. Santa Claus decrees Droppo the Idiot to be the official Martian version of himself and then he and the Fosters are returned to earth.

Perhaps there's only one good reason why this film needs to be visited: it's the epitome of kitschy and crazy, and the song "Hooray for Santy Claus" is certain to stick in your mind for some time (like it or not---actually, I found this jaunty little number to be the sole saving grace of this bizarre feature.)

While the Main does not possess this title, two county libraries do have it on DVD.

COME TO THE STABLE, 1949

The Sisters of the Holy Endeavor are not to be messed with, may be an apt summation of this old school Hollywood offering. Sister Margaret (Loretta Young, who also stars in The Bishop's Wife) has returned to America from France, where her religious order has its motherhouse; she'd served there in a hospital dedicated to kids during the horrors of World War II. Inspired by her order's mission, she comes to Bethlehem, Connecticut, with Sister Scholastica (Celeste Holm), intent on establishing a children's hospital there.

The nuns have nothing in their favor as they go about their way. The local bishop refuses to endorse their proposed mission. After wandering about without shelter, they are housed by Miss Amelia Potts (Elsa Lanchester), a reclusive artist who takes pity on them. Conceiving a plan to beg monies from local rich folk, they land on the doorstep of mob boss Luigi Rossi, a prototype of every mafia don known to the camera, whose reaction to being visited by nuns is amusing. Mr. Rossi lost his only son in the war, and is won over to the cause when promised that a stained glass window dedicated to his son's memory will be part of the hospital's chapel. Slowly, surely, and with a great deal of faith in their cause, the Sisters find the funds to have the hospital erected. The dedication Mass occurs on Christmas Eve, hence the tie-in to the holidays.

Based on a short story by Clare Booth Luce, this delightful tale is not yet available on DVD (very regrettable!--this is not uncommon, though; after all, All Mine to Give only made it to DVD on November 11!), although the Main does have it on videocassette.

*************************************

Brave, newly-orphaned pioneer children, enterprisingly optimistic Roman Catholic nuns, freakshow Martians converted by an extraterrestrial St. Nick, and a benevolent, nicotine-addicted rodent: quite the cinematic array for the holidays! Happy viewing!

BOOK BUZZ

2008-12-12T13:26:00.012-05:00

The Reading Public Library will be hosting two opportunities to discuss the novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. Both are scheduled for Wednesday, December 17th, at the Main Library. We will reprise our "Brown Bag Discussion" over the lunch hour, from 12:15 until 1:00 pm, with beverage and dessert provided by the Library. The second is an evening session, which will begin at 7:00 pm and last one hour. Please register ahead of time by visiting the Reference Desk or calling us at (610) 655-6355.

Set in North Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees is the story of Lily Owens, a 14-year-old girl whose quiet existence is shattered by a terrible accident. The strained race relations of the day are played out when her nanny, African-American Rosaleen, faces violence as she sallies forth to exercise her newly-won right to vote. Lily and Rosaleen then hurriedly embark on an exile-adventure which Lily uses as an opportunity to find the town she hopes will tell her about her mother's shadowy past.

CHRISTMAS: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

2008-12-09T10:58:00.022-05:00

The History of Christmas, A & E Home Video, 2008
NEW DVD 394.2663 His

The History Channel has compiled this new DVD from four previously-aired documentaries relevant to Christmas. The first is Christmas Unwrapped: The History of Christmas, which was originally released in 1997. It traces the tradition of celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ on December 25 to the fourth century and how various cultures have developed unique ways in honoring the holiday. England's traditions around Yuletide became more and more raucuous and profane with every century between the early Middle Ages and the inception of the Industrial Revolution; one of the commentators states a contemporary observer would mistake British Christmas rites of these years for our Halloween or Mardi Gras. Debauchery, dipsomania, and depravity overruled any sense of divinity or devotion. Dear oh dear...

When the Puritan separatists established themselves in the New World, they outlawed Christmas entirely--as did Oliver Cromwell in England in the years following their exodus to America. Another historian on the program muses that one of the reasons for the Restoration of the Monarchy with the enthronement of King Charles II in 1649 was that the English missed their traditional Christmas revelries, which had been brutally suppressed by the Protectorate.

Due to its Pilgrim heritage, the United States would continue to largely ignore Christmas altogether. Congress even sat in session every 25th of December from 1789 through 1856. It was not until immigrants from other parts of Europe--Germany in particular, and, later, from southern and eastern regions--began arriving in large numbers starting in the mid-19th century that Christmas observances truly took root in America.

History Channel's Biography presents the life stories of famous people, and in 2003 it focused on the most recognizable ambassador of the Christmas season: Santa Claus. From the real-life St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra (in modern Turkey; he died in 346), a patron of small children, came the modern-day elf. St. Nicholas has historically been significant during the Christmas holiday because his feast is kept on December 6. As a favorite help-mate of sailors, he found fervent fidelity among the Dutch, whose name for him--Sinter Klaus--was the forerunner of the English "Santa Claus". Another alias, Kris Kringle, comes from a German moniker--Christkindl--an idea of Martin Luther's, a patriarch of the Protestant Reformation. Luther taught that the Christ Child (Christkindl in German) was the bringer of children's Christmas gifts rather than St. Nicholas, whose Roman Catholic overtones he wished to dispel from his new church.

Descriptions of Claus varied wildly (I particularly enjoyed the sketch of a Santa looking like an inebriated vagrant being drawn in a sled...by a huge turkey...) until Clement Clarke Moore's poem, "A Visit From St. Nicholas", appeared in a New York newspaper in 1823. Most of us would recognize the most famous Christmas poem of all time by it's first line: " 'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house", etc. His appearance as jolly, portly, and merry set the tone for his personality; Moore also both introduced and named Santa's legendary flying reindeer. The clergyman also founded Santa's modus operandi for entering domiciles: down the chimney.

Weird U.S. is another History Channel program, with hosts Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman roving across America in search of odd and bizarre historical tidbits, folklore, and traditions.

"It's A Wonderful Time to Be Weird" (aired in 2005) focuses on sundry off-kilter Christmas activities seen across the land. They visit NORAD (the national aerospace defense system) in Denver, Colorado, where Santa's celestial progress is monitored and reported annually. The federal agency's place in the national Xmas schema dates to the mid 1950s. Denver-area children began calling a local telephone number advertised as a direct line to Santa Claus, but due to a misprint, the newspaper had advertised NORAD's emergency line instead. The staff, delighted to be given the opportunity to play Father Christmas' go-between with the youngsters, have charted his global positions every year since, and now incorporate it into their official website on Christmas Eve.

Mark and Mark also embark on a pilgrimage to Minnesota to explore the traditional Yuletide dish of lutefisk among Norwegian Americans. Translated literally, the dish means "lye fish"--truth in advertising, as the jellied end product is indeed whitefish treated with the harsh chemical (a key ingredient in drain cleaners--good heavens!). Humorist Garrison Keillor, a native Minnesotan, recalls this pungent dish in an excerpt from his famous Lake Wobegon Days:

"Every Advent we entered the purgatory of lutefisk, a repulsive gelatinous fishlike dish that tasted of soap and gave off an odor that would gag a goat. We did this in honor of Norwegian ancestors, much as if survivors of a famine might celebrate their deliverance by feasting on elm bark. I always felt the cold creeps as Advent approached, knowing that this dread delicacy would be put before me and I’d be told, 'Just have a little.' Eating a little was like vomiting a little, just as bad as a lot."

Their peregrinations take a local turn when the duo interviews Pastor Harry Walther, a radio personality and minister from Media, a suburb of Philadelphia. Pastor Harry enthusiastically decries the very mention of Santa Claus in any manner, claiming he is an incarnation of evil (and yes, he is in earnest, although I found him and his lunatic-fringe creed impossible to take seriously). He even sells burnable effigy Santa dolls on his website, encouraging people to light poor Santa's likeness aflame in revolt against "the Satanic lie of Santa" (and I'm quoting him directly!). Mark and Mark react with great indignation and amusement upon leaving Harry and his Santa-driven tirades behind them.

The final selection, Christmas Tech, checks out the nuts-and-bolts backstories to some of the season's outward manifestations. It explains how the massive evergreen found each year in Rockefeller Center is selected, acquired, moved, and erected. The much-touted street-level windows of the great Macy's Department Store of Manhattan are graphically described, from idea conception to final implementation. And the processes used to create such ordinary Christmas festoons as tree lights, glass ornaments, and fruitcake (I know--most people recoil when faced with the prospect of this traditional Yuletide confection, but I happily anticipate nibbling on some every December) are exhaustively researched.

All in all a very thorough, entertaining, and erudite (the Marks from Weird U.S. even visit a Columbia University Professor of Physics, who calculates how Santa Claus gets around the world in time to deliver hundreds of millions of Christmas treats--a segment I walked out of the room during because I break out in a rash if exposed to anything mathematical...) treatment of all things Yule, and one I think most would enjoy.

EYE SPY

2008-12-06T14:02:00.019-05:00

We recently added a clever new tome to our nonfiction: A Natural History of Seeing: The Art and Science of Vision, by Simon Ings (W.W. Norton, 2008)--catalogued NEW 612.84 Ing. It arrived on our shelves in mid-October and is a broadly painted survey of all things related to human sight.

I haven't read this book through but did pick through it and found it illuminating. The cover is a tad creepy--all these variegated orbs peering out of the dust jacket--but the subject matter is one with a paucity of coverage in our collection. I have relatively poor vision and cannot function without my glasses. I know a lot of people who find it odd I've never considered contact lenses, but since age nine I've had spectacles, and I have never wanted to relinquish them. I am quite eager to hear that my newest frames are ready for me to collect, as they should be any day now.

I had my eye exam last weekend at a place I'd never used before, which meant filling out requisite paperwork assuring the establishment that yes, indeed, I have insurance coverage. I got to the question inquiring as to my last checkup and filled in 2004. The optometrist was concerned. "You know you should be coming in every two or, at the most, three years to have your eyes examined", she pronounced solemnly.

Then I told her about my last experience in the clutches of an optometrist.

Over four years ago I merrily strolled into the eye exam room (is it just me, or are they always a shade claustrophobic? And what do eye doctors have against windows? Oh, of course. "It interferes with our testing procedures", etc. Still, most of them could certainly use some light...and fresh air) of an eye-care chain and subjected myself to the typical barrage of ocular ministrations. After several tests, the doctor ogled directly into my left cornea, daintily harrumphed, and then made several mysterious notations in my chart. Wondering what was going on, I asked if anything was wrong.

She looked slightly bemused as she informed me there was an abnormality in my left eye. I considered that I hadn't encountered any aberrant vision in that eye. I'd not felt any pain or discomfort in it, either. And, after having shared as much with the doctor, I asked what the problem might be. She looked mystified as she explained she didn't really know. "It could be anything from a minor ruptured capillary to an advanced retinoblastoma!", she chirped. Smilingly. And then rapidly made her egress. I sat there, waiting for her to reappear and perhaps lay out a plan for further examination, but she didn't come back.

Horrified, as I moved from the examination chamber to the Endless Wall of Eyewear, half-blinded with worry for my very life, I feebly attempted to select new frames. Rather than focusing on which style I might prefer, I instead envisioned myself first going completely blind, then succumbing to a particularly gruesome death involving an enormous eye-tumor.

Besides having dealt with an eye doctor with apparently little-to-no medical skill (or much of a bedside manner, to be sure), there was no follow-up---whatsoever. When I returned two weeks later for my glasses I had to specifically ask for her, then inquire as to whether or not anything more was learned about my poor eyeball .

"It was nothing!", she cheerfully enthused as she pirouetted swiftly away from me, ushering her next victim into her tiny eyeball closet. I dubiously made my way to the counter to retrieve my spectacles, wondering whether or not this woman's medical diplomas were all self-generated while simultaneously refusing to consider seeking a second opinion. I'd resign myself to a caulifloweresque tumor rupturing behind my eye socket before falling prey to another optometrist anytime soon.

So, when I recently made the acquaintance of a different optometrist at a department store who conducted the exact same tests, I was hardly surprised when she quietly murmured, "Well isn't that neat" as she stared into my dilated sinister eye. Bracing myself for something awful, she went on to ask if she could photograph my eyes. Considering this might actually illuminate what was so unique about Lefty, I readily agreed. The results were explained easily (some overlapping of my optic nerve, an anomaly that is, amusingly, not that unusual) and I was jubilant that I had a knowledgable professional who actually bothered explaining things.

I also got to keep a photo of Freaky Left. I am delighted, and am considering integrating it into a Christmas card and sending it to Former Optometrist, perhaps with the lyrics to the carol "Do You Hear What I Hear?" (highlighting the line: "DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE???") making up the seasonal message...

SOUNDS OF THE SEASON

2008-12-02T20:01:00.010-05:00

One's Thanksgiving dinner has scarcely been digested when one realizes that Christmas is a scant twenty-odd days off, faithful blog reader! Over the weekend I brought out my collection of Yuletide CDs and realized that several of the albums I possess are also holdings in the Main Library's music offerings. I enthusiastically recommend each and every one of these CDs to anyone who wishes to be surrounded by joyful seasonal melodies...

A Christmas Gift For You by Phil Spector, 1963
R COLL CGY P 05

Phil Spector is more infamous as a murder suspect than recording artist in recent history, but his highly original "Wall of Sound" production technique with girl groups and other artists in the early 1960s led to an American music revolution. His ex-wife, Ronnie Bennett, was the original lead singer of the Ronettes, who feature prominently on this album.

Their rendition of "Sleigh Ride" completely revamped the seasonal favorite; their takes on "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and "Frosty the Snowman" are similarly upbeat. Darlene Love lends her passionate style to one of my favorite recordings of "Marshmallow World"; she also covers "White Christmas" and was the original artist to perform "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", which was, sadly, a failure at the time (Bono and U2 would do much better with this maudlin ditty many years later).

The Christmas Gift's release date disastrously transpired on November 22, 1963--the day President Kennedy was assassinated. Due to that unfortunate coincidence the album originally had very sluggish sales; since then, however, the songs it shares have become American Christmas classics.

50 Most Loved Christmas Carols, 2005
The Sheridan Ball Singers with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra
R SHER FML S 28

The sheer volume of carols this compendium offers makes it an ideal selection for Christmas listening. The fifty recordings cover all the standards--"Joy to the World", "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing", and "The First Nowell", among many others--but, at least for me, also opened my ears to several tunes before which I'd never heard. Among them are the "Gloucestershire Wassail", whose lyrics are a bit difficult to grasp (I had to do some research on them before I learned their meaning), but the gist of its final verses are that if the butler of the house where the carolers have come doesn't bring them something to drink, they'll resort to stampeding down the door. Ah, the holiday traditions of merry Olde England...

"Break Forth, O Beauteous, Heavenly Light", played with a resounding pipe organ's accompaniment, was another treasure I delighted in discovering. "O Sing a Song of Bethlehem", whose verses relay the stages of the life of Christ from Bethlehem to Calvary, was a third, and I enjoy this collection especially because these two lovely carols are part of it.

Christmas Around the World with Andre Rieu, 2006
R RIEU CW R 19

Andre Rieu has revitalized interest in classical music like no other artist in recent decades, and his holiday musical performances are perennial hits. Rieu, his orchestra, and various vocalists lean heavily on German-derived carols on this album ("Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht", "Sah Ein Knab Ein Roslein Stehen", and "Abends Will Ich Schlafen Gehen"), but other nationalities (The United States, Italy, France, England, and the Netherlands among them) are indeed represented. A rollicking, sprightly performance, the likes of which Rieu fans have come to know and adore.

A Nostalgic Merry Christmas to You, various artists, original recordings from 1915-1949 (released 1999)
R COLL NMC A 15

Nat "King" Cole toodling "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." (the first line of "The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You"), 1946. Pennsylvania's native son, Perry Como, extolling a "Winter Wonderland" (also from 1946). And for anyone who grew up among Americans of Eastern European descent (as did I), the galloping gleefulness of "The Merry Christmas Polka"--sung by Dinah Shore in 1949 on this album--most certainly inspires sentimental nostalgia.

However, it's the arcane tunes on this CD which I found of even greater interest. Arthur Tracy, a British baritone of lengthy career, recalls "The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot"--a reminder that many children experience the same hardship and suffering on Christmas Day as they do the rest of the year, even if the aspersions cast on the jolly old elf seem rather gratuitous (who can imagine Santa actually overlooking one of his little devotees?). One of Ireland's premiere opera stars, John McCormack, gives a stirring (if static-ridden--but then, it was recorded in 1915) rendition of "Adeste Fideles" (the original Latin of "O Come, All Ye Faithful"). And Peter Dawson recounts "The Miner's Dream of Home", telling of a lonely miner whose unconscious mental meanderings find him back at his homestead at New Year's, reuinted with his long-since-seen mother and dad (recorded in 1930).

Bing Crosby's Christmas Classics by Bing Crosby, recorded from 1950 through 1977 (released 2006)
R CROS BCC C 20

Mr. Bing Crosby may well be referred to as "Mr. Christmas", so ubiquitous has his vocal presence been among holiday music since the 1930s. The first track is, appropriately, "White Christmas", Bing's signature Christmas offering, made wildly popular by the sentiments of American servicemen and women serving abroad in World War II; it also featured prominently in the film of the same name in which he starred in 1954.

Other wonderful ditties include "Do You Hear What I Hear", "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", and "What Child Is This?". His now-classic duet with David Bowie, "Peace on Earth/The Little Drummer Boy", was recorded in September of 1977, a few short months before Crosby's death. Generations have happily welcomed Bing Crosby's crooning style into their lives at Christmastime, and if you haven't, I invite you to do the same!

HAPPY LISTENING!

BABES IN TOYLAND as presented by THE MAIN!

2008-11-19T16:59:00.008-05:00

The City of Reading's annual Holiday Parade is set for this Saturday, November 22. The Reading Public Library will once again reveal its most creative side with a sizeable float, which ties into the parade's theme: "Sharing Our Holiday Traditions". Our presentation this year is "BABES IN TOYLAND" -- childlike adventure meets every conceivable character out of Mother Goose in our effort for this year's project! Little Boy Blue, Bo Peep, Humpty-Dumpty, and scores of others will brave the elements and distribute holiday confections! Frolic and gambol with our enthusiastic staff as we drum up heaps of frenetic holiday cheer!

I won't reveal any more details at the present in order to keep our crowds of fans in suspense, but I know we shall delight thousands with this year's

(SURE-TO-BE-AWARD-WINNING) float!

UPDATE: RPL did come in 3rd PLACE, which is better than nothing! Yay "Team Babes 2008"

for our great effort! (and to plotting with all our might to recapture 1st Prize in 2009...)

THANKFUL LIBRARY HOLDINGS

2008-11-17T09:48:00.044-05:00

One of my favorite holidays is just around the corner. The Main has any number of books and films that may well inspire spontaneous moments of deep gratitude in our faithful patrons as we prepare to celebrate America's "second national holiday": THANKSGIVING!

BOOKS

America's Parade: A Celebration of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade by Time/ Life, 2001
394.2649 Ame
An annual ritual not to be missed, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has entertained the masses since 1924. Read about this grand celebration's colorful history and impact on how Americans have come to look anxiously forward to it every year on Thanksgiving Day.

Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving Recipes and History from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie

by Kathleen Curtin, 2005

394.2649 Giv

Author Kathleen Curtin is the official food historian at the Plimoth Plantation (not a misspell--the "Plymouth" we're more accustomed to came later) in Massachusetts, and imbues this book with a delightful combination of culinary backstory and pragmatic recipes. Learn about the authentic feast the Puritans prepared (there were no utensils available, and there wasn't any cranberry sauce, either).

A Great and Godly Adventure: The Pilgrims and the Myth of the First Thanksgiving
by Godrey Hodgson, 2006
974.402 Hod
The dramatic tale of the English Puritans' search for religious freedom that led them to establishing Plimoth Colony is steeped in legend, fabrication, and misinterpretation. Historian Hodgson delivers a balanced, thoroughly-researched account of the Puritans' peregrinations, the cruel hardships they suffered upon landing on North American soil, and their ultimate end of founding what has long been considered "the" original settlement of Europeans in the United States (be aware there is also plenty of controversy regarding that statement as well...)

How to Cook a Turkey: *And All the Other Trimmings by Fine Cooking Magazine, 2007

641.665 How
What would Thanksgiving be without the beautifully succulent, artistically-trussed Tom Turkey reposing on the dining room table? This volume explores how to serve up this patriotic poultry in a vast panorama of forms, and promises to offer something new and original for even the most seasoned turkey chef.

The Thanksgiving Book: An Illustrated Treasury of Lore, Tales, Poems, Prayers, and the Best in Holiday Feasting by Jerome Agel and Jason Shulman, 1987
394.2649 Tha

This compendium of delightful prose features every aspect of what this holiday is really about: remembering in gratitude all the good things life has to offer. The thankful and thought-inspiring pieces in this volume serve up something every reader can find meaningful.

Thanksgiving Entertaining by Chuck Williams, 2005
641.568 Pap
Published by Williams-Sonoma, this book guarantees exquisite gastronomic concepts for anyone's Thanksgiving get-together. Hors d'oeuvres, entrees, and desserts are presented with accompanying tasteful, full-color photos--a fantastic resource for hosts who might want to bring something nouveau to the holiday table.

FILMS

Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower, A & E Home Video, 2006

DVD 974.402 Des
Over two hours of documentary, replete with actors playing the Pilgrims from the Shakespeare Repetory Theatre in Great Britain as well as actual Native American descendants of the tribes the Pilgrims originally encountered (thus making this, more accurately, a docu-drama), this DVD vividly brings to life the struggle of the early colonists as they began life in Plymoth Plantation.

Hannah and Her Sisters, MGM, 1986

VHS Han

Woody Allen's films are cornerstones of cinematic history, and many believe Hannah and Her Sisters is his crowning achievement. Mia Farrow stars as the title character, who provides emotional strength and stability not only to her own family (husband Elliott is played by Michael Caine), but also to her siblings, Lee (Barbara Hershey) and Holly (Dianne Wiest). Tenderly investigating the ties that bind and the ramifications of family bonds placed under stress, this Thanksgiving-centered jewel is well worth watching.

Home For the Holidays, PolyGram Entertainment, 1995

DVD Hom
This comedic project was directed by Hollywood living legend Jodie Foster. Holly Hunter stars as Claudia Larson, a single mother of teenage Claire Danes, who treks from Chicago to Baltimore to join her obstreporous clan for Thanksgiving. Charles Durning and the late, great Anne Bancroft co-star as her parents; Robert Downey, Jr., memorably plays her trickster brother. While hardly an original plotline, this tale of family feuds, fidelity, fractiousness, and forgiveness will resonate with all of us who've endured a trying holiday visit with the relations.

Home for the Holidays: The History of Thanksgiving A & E Home Video, 1997
VHS 394.2649 Hom
I am a big fan of the History Channel's documentaries of various holidays, and Home for the Holidays is one of my favorites. Until watching it, I did not know that there had been a significant controversy in 1940 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the American president at the time, unilaterally decided to move Thanksgiving forward a week (from the final Thursday in November to the penultimate Thursday). His idea was to prolong the holiday shopping season in face of a depressed economy (sound familiar...?) At that time, it was unthinkable to begin advertising for Christmas bargains until after Turkey Day. [ASIDE--would that this were still the case today. I cringe when witnessing stores decking out fake snow and holly around Labor Day...] The following year, Congress undertook fixing the date of Thanksgiving as we mark it today. These and many other historical tasties are yours for the reaping upon viewing this treat!

House of Yes, Miramax, 1997
DVD Hou
Parker Posey stars as a clinically insane woman who believes she's Jacqueline Kennedy. Her twin brother, Marty (played by Josh Hamilton), brings his fiancee (Leslie--Tori Spelling) home to meet his freakish clan for Thanksgiving. Genvieve Bujold plays the matriarch and younger brother Anthony is portrayed by Freddie Prinze, Jr. This film won major awards at the Sundance Film Festival upon its release; based on a play, the script is rife with deranged cleverness and black-as-coal humor.

Pieces of April, MGM, 2003
DVD NORTHWEST BRANCH ONLY**
Katie Holmes (pre-Tom Cruise) stars as April Burns, a fiercely indpendent girl-about-town whose home base is Manhattan. In a burst of familial goodwill she invites her family to her tiny apartment to celebrate Thanksgiving. Parents (played brilliantly, in particular, by Patricia Clarkson as her mother) and siblings, dimly anticipating April's cookery talents, make their way to the Big Apple. And then April's stove decides to give up the ghost. Peppered with acerbic wit as well as poignant moments, it's diverting and distressing in equal measure.

** The Main does not actually have this title on our shelves, but a hold may be placed on either our Northwest Branch's copy or another library's copy. The Reading Eagle ran an article in Saturday's (November 15) edition--on the FRONT PAGE--delineating the scourge of pilfering from which Berks County's public libraries are suffering. With a sad twist of irony, Pieces of April WAS--once upon a time--a DVD which the Main had had in its own collection. Accessioned [ibrary parlance that simply means "added"] on January 22, 2005, it stayed with us until transferred to "Lost" status on June 6, 2007. This is what happens to a library holding when it is legitimately checked out to someone who simply fails to return it. Our copy had 71 circulations before it vanished from our records.
+R.I.P.

NOVEMBER DVDs

2008-11-14T11:14:00.025-05:00

Hello, faithful blog reader. Kindly permit me to draw your attention to several new films on DVD which the Main Library will be adding to our collection in the weeks to come...

Diggers
Magnolia Pictures, 2006 -- DVD released May 1, 2007

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Diggers is not a new release per se, but the reviews for this little indie flick were stellar. Set in Long Island, 1976, it follows the lives of professional clam diggers (hence the title, right?). Hunt (Paul Rudd) and his best pals Frankie (Ken Marino), Cons (Josh Hamilton), and Jack (Ron Eldard) are salt-of-the-earth laborers whose livelihood is on the cusp of destruction. As a large seafood conglomerate seeks to push the clammers out, each of the group must confront personal issues as well, including marital dissolutions, parental demises, and run-ins with the law.

Kiss and Tell
London Weekend TV, 1996 -- DVD released January 29, 2008

************************************************

Daniel Craig--of current James Bond fame--co-stars in this thriller about duplicity and undercover investigation gone awry. Rosie Rowell plays Jade, a police officer whose latest endeavor requires her to pose as a damsel in distress in order to wrangle a confession from a man suspected of murdering his wife. Entanglements arise when she becomes emotionally involved with the target; the situation is exacerbated by the fact that she already has feelings for Craig, who plays Matt Kearney--her commanding officer.

Tropic Thunder
Dreamworks Pictures, 2008 -- DVD released November 18, 2008

***********************************************

Heavily parodying the Rambo franchise, this comedy (starring Jack Black, Robert Downey, and Ben Stiller) centers on a crew of clueless actors in the jungle primeval of Southeast Asia. What they don't comprehend is that when the gunfire begins, it's not studio-set squibs, but actual weaponry: the Hollywood honchos have unwittingly become embroiled in a turf war with an all-too-real drug cartel. Hilarity ensues.

Green Solutions: Simple Steps to a Greener Home

Gaiam Americas, 2006 -- DVD released September 2, 2008

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"Greenify Thyself" could best sum up one of the most popular social movements of our day. Sustainable living, reduction of one's personal carbon footprint, recycling, and earth-friendliness are all addressed in this step-by-step how-to film. Ecologically sensible tips are dispensed with glee and viewers everywhere will learn how to make their lifestyles more verdant. Save Mother Earth by embracing a greener lifestyle! Danny Seo, a Reading native currently residing in Bucks County, is the program's creator and host.

Encounters at the End of the World

Image Entertainment, 2007 -- DVD released November 18, 2008

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German film maverick Werner Herzog's project is a detour from the usual entertainment films he directs. Encounters is a travelogue/documentary based on his exploration of the icy continent of Antarctica. From deeply probing the lives of the scientists who reside on the bleak permafrost landscape to delighting in the antics of playful pengiuns, this piece will be sure to interest many of our patrons.

Real Tomb Hunters: Snakes, Curses, and Booby Traps

A & E Home Video, 2005 -- DVD released October 14, 2008

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Archaeologists sometimes encounter real-life adventures not dissimilar from those seen in the Indiana Jones movies: trawling through creepy catacombs, facing enraged locals who view the researchers as a threat (and react violently to their presence), endemic wildlife that's far from friendly (read: snakes--just like the title promises!), and much more. Who says science is boring?

TO PAUSE AND REFLECT

2008-11-11T18:26:00.010-05:00

Today is dedicated to all our servicemen and women,
to pause and reflect on the highest price so many of
them have paid for our freedom, and to commend the
service of the thousands who continue to protect us
in the present.

Vets Under Siege: How America Deceives and Dishonors Those Who Fight Our Battles by Martin Schram, 2008

NEW 362.86 Sch

Voices of War: Stories of Service from the Homefront and the Front Lines by the Library of Congress, 2004

355.00922 Vol

Wages of War: When America's Soldiers Came Home, From Valley Forge to Vietnam by Richard Severo, 1989

355.115 S498w

WELCOME TO THE GRAND

2008-11-08T15:23:00.022-05:00

Unfortunately, there is no abatement to the city's howling for the Reading Public Library's closure. Along the same line of dreary news, Philadelphia is in the middle of having at least eleven of its public library's doors closed due to that metropolis' budget crisis. Overall, our public libraries are being cut down at the knee, and the future looks disheartening and bleak.

Rather than brood on the exceptionally unpleasant strain of current events, I've discovered (yet another) British period piece drama and have been happily losing myself in the heartrending traumas sustained by other (albeit fictitious) people who lived in the era of my grandparents' childhood. Escapist television programming, in my humble opinion, is vastly underrated...

**WARNING, WARNING** SPOILERS__SPOILERS__ SPOILERS__!!!

The Grand was produced by Granada Television in 1997 and 1998. For anyone familiar with the venerable series The Duchess of Duke Street, The Grand endeavors to follow the same general idea of showcasing the lives of a large, fashionable hotel's owners, staff, and guests.

(Please know that this series is not actually a Main Library holding, it's on the City Bookmobile--but placing a hold on the series will have it brought to the Main for your convenience!)

The series transpires in the Roaring Twenties during the years before the onset of the Great Depression.

The Grand is a family-run enterprise. Brothers John Bannerman (Michael Siberry) and Marcus Bannerman (Mark McGann) have inherited the massive, Manchester, England-based hotel from their deceased father. Infrequent appearances are made by their imperious mother, Mary (Louie Ramsay), who muddles about without making much impact.

John is married--at first, happily--to Sarah (Julia St. John). Marcus has his lady friend (and later, wife), Ruth, although the two seem to hate one another. The issue is Marcus' undying love for his brother's wife. Poor John is a total sucker and, in truth, a cuckold I found deeply unsympathetic.

John and Sarah have two children: Stephen (played by Stephen Moyer of current True Blood fame in the first season, then repalced by the less charistmatic Ifan Meredith in the second series) and Adele (Camilla Power). At the beginning of the program Stephen has just returned from the British Army, having been stationed in France since the close of World War I. Adele is a petulant teenager whose presence is generally unnecessary.

The Bannermans have plenty of infighting and Knots-Landing-esque slapdowns (literally) to keep the viewer entertained. But it's the rest of the hotel staff that makes The Grand great.

Miss Esme Harkness is an elegant, upper-middle-aged woman who has made The Grand her permanent home. Mrs. Mary Bannerman, dimly remembering the lady's name but unable to pin down the context, badgers her for clues as to how she came into her money. Miss Harkness drops hints but never divulges anything outright--rather flimsily, it is soon established that she is a former prostitute and madame (who occasionally entertains clients in her rooms). Mary finally gets to the truth and confronts Miss Harkness, who brutally rebuffs her attacker's threats of eviction with a cool statement, "Perhaps I'll tell the papers about me and Charlie". Charles was, of course, Mary's late husband, the founder of the hotel, and a well-respected pillar of Mancunian society.

Miss Harkness stays.

Esme is played by veteran actress Susan Hampshire, a lifelong treasure of the BBC set, who starred in such epics as The Pallisers and The Barchester Chronicles (both well worth watching--also, incidentally, both available at The Main).

The hotel staff are governed by avuncular (if stoic) Jacob Collins (Tim Healy), the porter, and Miss Sylvie Harvey (Christine Mackie), head of housekeeping, who is quick-witted (if vinegar-tongued.) Mr. Collins' only child was executed for having gone A.W.O.L. from the British Army in France. Miss Harvey constantly refers to her husband, whom her subordinates sometimes doubt actually exists.

One of the longest-serving maids is Kate Morris (Rebecca Callard), whose spritely adorableness is belied by her knowing nature. Monica Jones (Jane Danson) is brought on board early in the series and Kate trains her; Monica is soon the darling of Miss Harkness, who attempts to instruct the teenager in the ways of ladylike behavior (nothing seamy, mind). Daft Monica believes a visiting businessman has fallen in love with her and will take her away from her filthy job as a maid, only to have three of his associates attack her. Monica kills one of the men and is peremptorily sentenced to death for his murder.

Appropriately enough, she is hanged on the very morning of Marcus' doomed nuptials to Ruth.

Clive Evans (Paul Warriner) is head waiter and bartender at The Grand's restaurant and fights his same-sex inclinations as he succumbs to the seduction of a renowned theatrical guest. Poor Clive conceives a plan to try and romance the indomitable Kate in an effort to "overcome" his gayness. Lynne Milligan (Naomi Radcliffe) gives vaudeville a try before learning the show manager is only allowing her to sing onstage in the hopes of manipulating her to his own illicit ends. And all poor Brenda Potter (Maria Mescki) can seem to talk about is her mother and chocolate cookies.

The drama of this series originates in much besides the sometimes down-and-dirty dealings among the Bannermans, the staff, and the guests. Raging social issues, such as class conflict, sexual education, incest, murder, unwed mothers, workers' rights, and adutlery (but to name a few!) erupt in every episode.

I read a critic's harsh words for this series on the Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com/), who claims that: "they [the producers of the series] insist on applying modern cultural and societal mores to a time period which was much more conservative than our own, and which kept these issues - if they even came up at all - private and between families".

I find that logic to be entirely specious.

Of course women conceived out of wedlock in the 1920s. Married couples cheated on one another. Unskilled workers were dismissed without a thought. And families were torn asunder by disloyalty, selfishness, and cruelty.

But the cast of The Grand also rises above the horrors of inhumanity: Mr. Collins is enfolded in the warm support of the staff when he reaches a crisis of existence in facing his son's death. Kate tries--in vain--to steer Monica from the path of self-destruction on which she is bent. For all her shrill shrieking, Mrs. Harvey genuinely cares for the welfare of her girls, and often takes on the role of maternal surrogate in their lives. And reigning over them all is the piteous but benign Esme Harkness, whose faded beauty and gracious manners enchant (almost) everyone she meets.

So if, for whatever reason, you're in the mood to lose yourself completely in superbly-crafted escapist entertainment, check into The Grand.

DON'T LET THEM CLOSE OUR DOORS

2008-10-28T13:47:00.020-04:00

From the Reading Eagle, October 28, 2008:

[This is an excerpt from today's article covering the city council's discussions of how to eliminate administrative costs:]

"Council also had some ideas, such as cutting management raises and even possibly closing the Reading Public Library to save $500,000. The city has to cut back to its core services, and the library isn't one of them, several council members said."

(I have emboldened and reddened the text in two areas to indicate the severity of what our city's government--or at least several members of its council--is proposing.)

Clearly I have a vested interest in having the Reading Public Library remain open: this is my place of employment and how I make my living. However challenging the library's closure would be to me personally, my real grievance is how much would be senselessly taken from the community with our library's suppression, even temporarily (and council is not speaking in terms of transience when they mention shuttering Reading Public Library's doors.)

The current economic crisis has caused scores of hardworking citizens to lose their employment. Every day, my colleagues and I encounter men and women who are looking for work, and assist them in navigating the internet for jobs, helping them learn how to draft a resume, or how to connect with local employers. We do it because it is part of our mission to help anyone who comes to us to the best of our ability, and we are happy to do so. We are proud to serve our patrons in whatever manner we are able.

We help students seeking materials to prepare for exams, and others with various academic pursuits, ranging from science fair project development to compiling research papers on a myriad of topics. We perform readers' advisory service, meaning when a patron shares that he or she has just finished a particular book and found it enjoyable but doesn't know what to read next, we are informed professionals who can point them to another title. The blog entries before today's detail books and films we will soon see on the Main Library's shelves: these, and hundreds of thousands of other library holdings, are available to be borrowed---FOR FREE--by anyone with a valid library card.

Apparently city council does not find this eminently noble enterprise to be anything worthwhile. Shame on them.

I am only describing what the professional reference staff does, and at that am hardly sharing an exhaustive list of our department's services. I dare not attempt to list all the benefits of our children's and young adults' departments, who host hundreds of programs annually, reaching out to the youngest in our community in ways no other organization can: through the wonder of the printed word. Our interlibrary loan services guarantee--with hardly any exception--that patrons can request almost any book in the world and have it delivered for them to our library. It is mind-boggling how very dedicated our ILL department is, and I know dozens of our regular patrons who utilize their services regularly.

Our technical services department annually processes thousands of items--well beyond books--including DVDs, music CDs, books on CD, and even toys, all for the edification or enjoyment of the public. The circulation staff not only checks out items to the public, they also shelve (and keep shelving--there's never an end to shelving in the library!) and retrieve items which people have requested to be pulled. We are an organization whose departments are entirely interdependent on one another, but all with one goal in mind and one task at hand:
TO BEST SERVE THE PUBLIC IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE.

Now imagine this is all swept aside simply because city council is facing a budget crunch.

The injustice of it is staggering, its ramifications deplorable, and yet several council members are hastening the Reading Public Library's termination. In the advent of any library's closure, far more serious consequences than its staff's unemployment shall follow:

It means depriving citizens of all ages and backgrounds access to information and knowledge.

It means denying ways for people to improve themselves.

It means closing the doors of opportunity.

Please contact the mayor's office and the city council and tell them that you do not want the closure of the Reading Public Library to be considered as a viable means of resolving Reading's budget woes.

IMMINENT SUSPENSE FICTION

2008-10-24T09:44:00.026-04:00

The upcoming weeks will provide a bounteous cornucopia of fiction releases from some of my favorite mystery and suspense authors. Look for these new titles at the Main Library:

Bones
Jonathan Kellerman
Release date: October 21

The remains of murdered prostitutes are found in an environmentally protected marshland just outside Los Angeles. Detective Milo Sturgis, Kellerman's recurring, crafty sleuth, is called to the case. He discovers that the latest victim dredged from the swamp isn't a streetwalker at all, but rather a young lady who'd served as a music tutor to the scion of a vastly wealthy family. Milo turns to his tried-and-true friend, psychiatrist Alex Delaware, to assist him in tracking down a frenzied killer.

Just After Sunset
Stephen King
Release date: November 11

Renowned horror storyteller King is praised for his chilling novels, but he is also an acclaimed master of short fiction. This anthology of stories probes the bizarre and macabre in the Kingliest fashion: a Port-A-Potty becomes one hapless man's prison, a stationary bike takes its passenger on a wildly nightmarish ride, and a woman who innocuously peeps into a neighbor's driveway, only to suddenly become the would-be victim of a maniacal serial killer.

Cross Country
James Patterson
Release date: November 17

Patterson's beloved hero Alex Cross discovers his old friend Ellie Cox has been brutally murdered in her Washington, D.C., residence (the same metropolis Cross and his family call home) . His investigation leads him and girlfriend Brianna Stone into the seamy underworld of the Nigerian mob. Alex must eventually voyage to Africa to track down, and vanquish, a demonic criminal mastermind.

Private Patient
P. D. James
Release date: November 18

Commander Adam Dalgliesh returns to the printed page to probe the death of journalist Rhoda Gradwyn, who is murdered at an upscale private plastic surgery clinic housed on a sumptuous estate in the English countryside. James' reputation for highly-polished and deftly-crafted prose, married with ingenious plot devices, shines forth in her latest effort.

Your Heart Belongs To Me
Dean Koontz
Release date: November 25

Creepiness seeps from this plotline as the reader meets Ryan Perry, a young, wildly successful dot-com tycoon whose enviable existence is abruptly compromsied when he is diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition. Against the odds, he receives a transplant, and his life slowly regains its former luster. A year after the surgery he starts getting mysterious tokens, all heart-themed, each one bearing the statement "Your heart belongs to me". Apparently the cardiac donor wants the organ returned to owner...

Scarpetta
Patricia Cornwell
Release date: December 2

Kay Scarpetta has departed her private forensic practice in Charleston, South Carolina, for New York City, where she is asked to interview a psychopath named Oscar Bane in the infamous Bellevue Hospital. As has happened with other perpetrators with whom she has worked, Bane evidences an unhealthy fixation on Kay. Her husband, Benton Wesley, and her technophile niece Lucy lend their unstinting support as Scarpetta unravels a string of bloodthirsty murders that may--or may not--have been committed by Bane the clinically insane.

DOES ANYBODY REALLY KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?

2008-10-14T19:14:00.007-04:00

So runs the old tune by Chicago. I wasn't asking that question myself when I encountered a simply marvelous tome amongst our new non-fiction titles and decided it deserves a mention.

It's The History of Watches by David Thompson, with photographs by Saul Peckham. It was published earlier this year by the esteemed art house Abbeville Press of New York. The title tells it all: it's a sumptuous, revelatory waltz through the story of small timepieces.

To be honest, I actually don't like watches. I never wear one. I don't even own one. I plucked this title from the shelf simply because it's a history of a commonplace object, and books on such matters tend to interest me (I am currently engrossed in Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages by Anne Mendelson--but that's an entirely different blog entry). It is, however, hardly all-encompassing: Thompson is the Curator of Horological Collections at the British Museum, and this book presents the stories of seventy-seven (out of over 4,500!) of that particular institution's horological (when else am I going to get to utilize that adjective?) holdings.

The oldest piece dates from around 1560, originating in Germany. A particularly ornate watch, dating from 1630 by French watchmaker Louis Vautier, caught my eye: all gold and enamel, set with semi-precious stones. The watches in this collection tend to be very intricate affairs, and many of the oldest among them still function. The pieces reflect both centuries-old pieces as well as current offerings by Casio and the venerable Bulova line of extravagant wristwatches.

We were able to add both The History of Watches as well as several dozen other books on art and artists through the generous providence of the estate of Paul F. and Mary B. Tigh. Currently, a large number of these new art books are being shelved in the front of the Main Library. Come on in and check one of them out with the smARTest card in town!

IMPENDING FILM ADDITIONS

2008-10-10T10:52:00.014-04:00

The Main Library will soon be adding some new and noteworthy titles to our DVD collection. I thought I would share some of them on the blog...

ENTERTAINMENT TITLES

Deception

Starring Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman, this thriller follows mousy, Barnaby-the-Scriveneresque Jonathan McQuarry (McGregor), an accountant. He meets suave, uber-cool attorney Wyatt Bose (Jackman) and abruptly becomes hopelessly entwined with Bose's seamy secret life when their cell phones become exchanged by accident (or is it...?). Characters aren't who they appear to be and the pacing is assuredly speedy in this implausible but rollicking who's-duping-whom adventure.

Fanny Hill

Based on the novel of the same name written by John Cleland in 1748, this film adaptation aired on the BBC in October 2007. Fanny (played by Rebecca Night) is a newly-orphaned farmgirl who is forced into homelessness, shortly after which she is hoodwinked into working at a house of ill repute. She becomes involved with Charles Standing, a nobleman's son, with whom she sustains a relationship (of sorts) throughout her career as a prostitute. Cheerfully unrepentant in the face of her life choices, Fanny Hill was a tremendously controversial character at the novel's debut since she refused repentance or regret in the face of her actions, which were hardly fictitious for disenfranchised Englishwomen of the times.

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Jules Verne's fantastical, deep-terrestrial saga is vivdly brought to the big screen in this high-powered, computer-generated-effects spectacle starring Brendan Fraser. According to several reviews I have read, very free license was taken with regard to Verne's original storyline...this production serves best as a vehicle for supercool special effects (think of the Jurassic Park movies, or the Jack Black version of King Kong) rather than a literary adaptation. Still, Fraser has legions of die-hard fans, and his penchant for action flicks (he starred in the latest installment of the Mummy franchise this past summer, when J.T.t.C.o.t.E was also released) has earned him an ineradicable position in Hollywood.

Kiss of the Spider Woman

Released in 1985 (yet available on DVD only this year!) this movie stars William Hurt and Raul Julia as two cellmates consigned to permanent incarceration in a Brazilian jail. Valentin Arregui (Julia) is a passionate political activist whose activities against the dictatorship regime have landed him in jail; Luis Molina (Hurt) is a gay man who has been convicted of statutory rape charges. Unlikely as the duo is, they become friends under the harshest of conditions; their relational progress is an intent exercise in character development, and it does not leave the viewer wanting. The Spider Woman of the title is a creation of their combined imagination who serves as a ministering angel of sorts in their mutual misery. Hurt won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Luis, and the film was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay (the original plot is based on the eponymous 1976 novel by Manuel Puig). In 1993, a popular musical version of the same story made its first run on Broadway.

Willard

Willard Stiles is a socially inept bachlor played with eerie intensity by Crispin Glover. He lives with his tyrannical mother, Henrietta, and daily reports to work in a vast, impersonal office, where he is perpetually hectored and demeaned by his boss, Mr. Martin. Willard's existence is worn nearly transparent between these two overwhelmingly smothering forces...until he discovers Socrates. And not the ancient Greek philosopher, either: Socrates is the name Willard gives to a rat he takes as a pet. Socrates is soon aggressively displaced by Ben, a much larger (and nastier) rat, who creeps up from the rotting basement of the Stiles' sepulchral residence. Plus Ben brings friends. Suffice it to say the flesh-eating, vengeful shenanigans Willard directs his horde of rodent rascals to undertake will make for very atmospheric viewing as Halloween approaches. Originally released in 2003.

DOCUMENTARIES

Great American Authors Since 1650

This four-DVD set, hosted by actress Jane Kaczmarek (best known, perhaps, as the harridan mother from Malcolm in the Middle), explores three centuries of notable writers native to the United States. Described as "the college literature course you always wanted to take but didn't", it's a great instrument for both those who want to learn more about our country's most prominent authors, or for lovers of literature who would enjoy an audio-visual experience of their favorite wordsmith. I am anxious to see what treasures this highly-lauded series has to offer.

Haunted Houses

A & E, whose titles are among the best non-Hollywood DVD releases on the market, first aired this program in 1996. It presents an array of American domiciles that are supposedly possessed by restless spirits. Watch as uninhabited rooms pulse with dreary groans and inexplicable bumps transpire in the dead of night! A wickedly appropriate acquisition for the Halloween season, check it out...if you're not easily spooked. BOO!

Olympics: Highlights as well as Olympics: The Opening Ceremony

For anyone who either missed some or all of the grandiose opening ceremony in Bejing, or the most memorable moments in any of the individual events, here's your chance to catch them on two discrete DVDs.

Raise the Song: The History of Penn State

Whether due to its football prowess or its sheer size (the main campus has its own ZIP code), Pennsylvania State University is one of the Commonwealth's most renowned institutions of higher learning. This documentary follows Penn State's history, from lowly beginnings in the 1850s as a local farmers' college to its international contemporary reputation. This is a particularly relevant addition since Berks County has a Penn State campus just outside of Reading. GO PENN STATE! :-)

White House Pets

Martha Washington kept a parrot. Thomas Jefferson had bears on the White House's grounds. Andrew Johnson harbored domesticated mice. James Buchanan received elephants as a gift from the King of Siam, and John Quincy Adams was devoted to raising silkworms. While in an earlier post I held forth on presidential mothers, this wonderful documentary focuses on the vast panorama of fauna that have inhabted the White House (only a handful of presidents--Pierce, Arthur, and Fillmore--had no pets of any kind).

These titles were ordered just a few days ago, so please allow several weeks until they are received and processed. Then--happy viewing!

LOVE YA, HATE YA, SEE YA

2008-10-07T19:04:00.007-04:00

I just finished a mystery novel I found equally engaging and dissatisfying--so of course it must become part of the blog. It was recommended by one of my colleagues (thanks, Krista!) who has a keen sense of worthwhile reads--and I agree with her that this was a good book. Except for the part of me that became really aggravated by the way the book ends. Hence this post's title.

I promise there are no spoilers, so read ahead without worry.

The novel is In The Woods and was written by Tana French, published by Viking in 2007. It is set in the fictitious Dublin suburb of Knocknaree in the present day. A promising young ballerina, Katharine "Katy" Devlin, is found viciously murdered on an archeological dig very close to her home. The primary investigators are Detectives Rob Ryan and Cassandra Maddox, a pair of early thirty-somethings whose lack of years is belied by their highly laudable solve rate.

The twist in this tale is that over two decades before, three youngsters ventured into the great woods that border Knocknaree, with only one of them ever to be seen again. The sole survivor is none other than Detective Ryan (who had gone by Adam at that time); after being discovered wearing shoes saturated with blood (not his own) and suffering from significant amnesia, young Master Ryan is bundled off to boarding school and his parents move from their home.

Ryan is determined not only to remain on the Devlin case, but also to use his unique position in the contemporary investigation to help recover his own long-absent memory of what happened to him as a child. Katy's family is hauntingly memorable: Jonathan, her father, was a local teen delinquent at the time of Jamie and Peter's (Ryan's friends) vanishing (he does not, however, recognize Ryan as a grown-up). Her mother, Margaret, is a basket case. Elder sister Rosalind is a study in precociousness for her age (nearing the end of high school), and her identical twin sister Jessica is mentally imbalanced.

They sound like a fun bunch, don't they?

This novel is French's first work of fiction and I was impressed with her storytelling prowess. She develops characters I found to be both credible and sympathetic. As he probes further into Katy's death (simultaneously pulling out more and more heretofore-lost information from his own mind), he descends into a nightmarish maelstrom of trauma-related angst and, for a lengthy spell, seems poised on the brink of a complete mental breakdown. Poignantly, he can't seem to figure out what is happening to himself, or even why--and the reader's heart breaks as he unwittingly alienates himself from everyone in his life as a result.

My principle complaint is in the ending and in a thread of the storyline that never receives what I consider its proper due. I really don't think of myself as one of those readers (or film watchers, for that matter) who expect and/or demand that by the end of the plot, everything is handed over in neat, tidy little boxes, with all the loose ends beautifully brought together. Real life is certainly not like that, and most of the time I find fiction that follows the same contours to be patently acceptable.

However, In The Woods would certainly have benefited from a firmer sense of closure. At the point where I was roughly 75 pages from the ending, I commented to one of my colleagues here at the Main that I hoped that one issue raised in the book would be addressed by its conclusion. "No dice", as Charles Bronson would have stated flatly.

Not even one die.

Overall, though, I would recommend it. I also believe it would make for a great film treatment and already have the cast list assembled in my mind. I am currently perusing French's second book, The Likeness, and believe I will keep her as one of my regular mystery authors.

OCTOBER NOTABLES

2008-10-02T11:00:00.010-04:00

Every calendar month is dedicated to any number of causes, issues, or commemorations. Some of them are well-publicized, many others are seldom recognized. Any professional librarian will tell you that Chase's Calendar of Events is considered the ultimate authority on such matters. At the Main Library we keep our copy of this invaluable tool right at the Reference Desk. Chase's has been around for half a century; brothers Harrison and William chase published the first edition in December of 1957. William D. Chase was a librarian for a newspaper and understood only too well how handy it would be to have a compendium of international special days, weeks, and months at hand for reference.

Having just lauded this estimable resource, I must point out that the 2008 edition actually didn't include the fact that October is Italian-American Heritage month...or the website for the German-American Heritage Association.

Here is a (very abbreviated) list of some groups and ideas to which the month of October is dedicated:

CHURCH LIBRARY MONTH
I knew National Library Month is celebrated in April (it would be really pitiful if I was ignorant of that), but I had no idea that ecclesiastical libraries have the month of October dedicated to them. Visit their site at http://www.eclalibraries.org/

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AWARENESS MONTH

This is a very serious issue that deserves attention every month of the year.
http://www.ncadv.org/

October is an embarrassment of riches where national ethnic heritage celebrations are concerned. As a matter of fact, it's almost a shame that one month is made to represent so many popular nationalities! Although not technically the entire month, HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH runs annually from September 15 to October 15 http://www.hispanicheritage.org/.

Three major groups claim the 10th month of the year as their own:

GERMAN-AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH

http://www.ugac.org/displayboard.cfm?defaultdisplay=30528

ITALIAN-AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH

http://www.italianheritagemonth.com/

POLISH-AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH

http://www.polishamericancenter.org/

For all the rabid philatelists out there, you already know that October is NATIONAL STAMP COLLECTING MONTH! Unsurprisingly, the official site for this pastime is registered through the official U.S. Post Office's portal:

www.usps.com/communications/community/nscm.htm

Remember Popeye and his avaricious love for that particular green vegetable? If you share the same fondness for it, you may be pleased to learn that October is NATIONAL SPINACH MONTH!

http://www.ilovespinach.com/

And finally: we see them everywhere, and this is their month, too--let's hear it for that omnipresent rodent, the squirrel! October is NATIONAL SQUIRREL MONTH!
(I couldn't make this stuff up!)

http://www.thesquirrelloversclub.com/

ALL THE PRESIDENTS' MOMMIES

2008-09-27T08:50:00.017-04:00

It seems none of us can escape hearing about all things presidential these days. Working along this vein (if one cannot beat them, one must join them, I suppose), I picked up the Main Library's copy of the documentary First Mothers, detailing the lives of some of our presidents' moms, and found it revealing. Here are some intellectual tidbits I learned (although some of these facts came from other sources)...

The Father of Our Country had a mother who didn’t approve of his greatest legacy: leading our fledgling republic to independence. Mary Ball Washington considered herself a lifelong Englishwoman and severely condemned her son’s involvement with the American Revolution, which severed the colonies’ ties to Britain. She continued holding fast to her pro-British sensibilities even after such allegiances were considered treasonous. Mary lived to see George Washington elected the first president of the United States; she died four months after his inauguration in 1789.

Dwight Eisenhower, who achieved fame as a brilliant Army general in World War II before seeking the highest office in the land, had a mother who detested war. Ida Stover Eisenhower was a devoted pacifist who remained dedicated to protesting American involvement in the Second World War even as Ike was fighting in it.

Abigail Smith Adams was the first woman to be both First Lady and First Mother. Her husband, John Adams, was the second president; their son, John Quincy Adams, was the sixth. Barbara Pierce Bush would be the second woman to enjoy the same situation; unlike George W., however, John Quincy's parents did not survive to witness his election.

Maria Hoes Van Buren gave birth to the first president of the land in the United States of America. Her son, Martin, was the eighth president. While the previous seven presidents were born in what would be called the United States, the locales of their nativity were still British colonies. When Martin Van Buren entered the world on December 5, 1782, in Kinderhook, New York, it was a state of the Union and not a foreign territory.

Several presidents lost their mothers in childhood. Nancy Hanks Lincoln, mother of one of the nation’s most admirable Commanders-in-Chief, died when Abraham Lincoln was nine years old in 1818. Lincoln paid homage to his deceased mother with this moving sentiment: “God bless my mother; all I am or ever hope to be I owe to her”.

Calvin Coolidge, our thirtieth president, lost his mother, Victoria Josephine Moor Coolidge, when he was twelve. She passed away on her 39th birthday—March 14, 1885—of causes that were not recorded; the Vermont ground was frozen solid and her burial had to be postponed until several weeks after her death. Coolidge’s successor, Herbert Hoover, was orphaned at an early age when his mother, Hulda Minthorn Hoover, died in his eighth year (his father had died the year before). Although he was very young at her death, Hoover clearly remembered her spirit of political activism: she took him with her to protest in the women’s suffrage movement on several occasions.

Two presidents have their mother’s maiden names as their given names. Our thirteenth president, Millard Fillmore, was named for his mother, who was born Phoebe Millard. Although his given name was Thomas, Woodrow Wilson (President #28) was named for his mother, Jessie Janet Woodrow. He formally abandoned using his original name while a teenager.

I believe only one president had his mother survive him: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963. Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald Kennedy died in 1995 at the advanced age of 104 years. She remains the longest-lived close presidential relative. ADDITION--09/30/08
Thank you, blog reader M. Ward, who generously directed my attention to the website http://upstairsatthewhitehouse.com/, which was created by Doug Wead (see title of his below).
On this wonderfully informative site he divulges that Kennedy was not alone in having his mother survive him: James Polk and James Garfield also had mothers who outlived them.

An unusually large number of presidents (over 50%, in fact) were either the eldest in their families or were eldest sons. James Polk, Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson, John Quincy Adams, Harry Truman, Ulysses S. Grant, and George W. Bush (to name but a few) number among them.

There are also examples of sons low in the birth order taking over the White House:
Grover Cleveland was the 5th of 9 children--
Franklin Pierce was the 6th of 8 children--
...and William McKinley was the 7th of 9.

There were, less frequently, only children as well: Franklin Delano Roosevelt was an only child, as is former president Bill Clinton. His father, William Jefferson Blythe, was killed in a car accident three months before he was born. While never formally adopted by his stepfather, Roger Clinton, he did take the Clinton surname in adolescence--largely to please his mother, Virginia.

Only four presidents have been the babies in their families--Andrew Jackson and Ronald Reagan were two of them. Jackson, incidentally, was the only president born to two immigrants; Andrew and Elizabeth (Hutchison) Jackson were natives of Ireland who landed in North Carolina several years before the future president's birth there. Jackson was the only first-generation American to attain the country's highest office.

And now, here's an Almost-Local First Mother Fun Fact! Ulysses S. Grant’s (a heroic Civil War general but president during one of the most corrupt administrations in our history) mother entered this life very close to the Reading area. Hannah Simpson Grant was born in Horsham Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania on November 23, 1798. How utterly arcane!

If you wish to learn more about presidential mothers, consult these holdings, available at the Main Library:

First Mothers by Bonnie Angelo, 2000
973.099 Ang

First Mothers--DVD (based on the same-titled book),
The Hisory Channel, 2002
New 973.099 Fir

The Raising of a President by Doug Wead, 2005
973.099 Wea

COME, DISCUSS THE BONES

2008-09-25T11:10:00.005-04:00

Next month the Reading Public Library will offer two opportunities to indulge in a discussion of the novel The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. The first is a Brown-Bag Book Discussion (our first ever!) to be held on Thursday, October 23, from 12:15 to 1:00 in the afternoon. Dessert will be provided by the library; if you are within walking distance of us and want to do something literary and creative on your lunch hour, drop by and share! The second is an evening affair on Wednesday, October 29, from 7:00 to 8:00 pm. Both events will be held at the Main Library, at Fifth and Franklin Streets.

Pre-registration is requested for both events. Feel free to visit us at the Reference Desk to sign up, or call us at (610) 655-6355.

The Lovely Bones was released in 2002 and was Ms. Sebold's debut work of fiction. I've read ths novel and found it appealing, considering its relatively odd premise: the protagonist and narrator, Susie Salmon, is dead and reposing in heaven. Kidnapped, raped, and murdered at age 14 in late 1973, Bones follows Susie's supernatural supervision of her survivors as she notes their goings-on after her demise. While some of the story is, necessarily, angst-drenched and maudlin, it is, ultimately, transcendent, and Sebold's innovative use of Susie's post-corporeal perspective is nothing short of inspired.

So please check out a copy of the book and mark your calendars for one of our lively book chats on this worthwhile work!

HAPPY AUTUMNAL EQUINOX

2008-09-22T09:55:00.013-04:00

Today at 11:44 am EST we welcome autumn.

With grateful open arms do I embrace the temperate climes of fall! (I loathe heat and humidity--summers are my personal meteorological purgatory). So whether you enjoy packing your offspring off to school once again, revel in the attendance of football games, relish the glorious riot of fall foliage, or happily anticipate the celebration of Halloween and Thanksgiving, have a wonderful fall.

Here are some items at the Main Library that may be of interest or value...

Autumn: A New England Journey by Candace and Ferenc Mate, 1988
Oversized 974 A 941
This photo-essay collection presents the reader with a panoramic experience of fall in one of America's most picturesque autumnal regions.

Autumn Gatherings: Casual Food to Enjoy with Family and Friends by Rick Rodgers, 2008
New 641.564 Rod
Renowned chef Rodgers shares recipes and menus of delectable tasties to enjoy with loved ones; I was happy to note the majority of them are not too involved :-)

Charles Kuralt's Autumn by Charles Kuralt, 1997
Book on Tape 394.264 Kur
The late reporter Kuralt reads stories of his experiences "On the Road" with this collection of autumnal tales gleaned from his travels across the United States.

Thimbleberries: Autumn Accents by Lynette Jensen, 2002
747 Jen
Not feeling fall-like around your house? Check out Jensen's crafty tome to inspire you to decorate your abode with autumnal divinity!

OUR PAST RECAPTURED

2008-09-02T16:21:00.026-04:00

Confession time! I became an addict over the Labor Day holiday.

Before then, I'd heard of it, but hadn't a desire to try it. Friends of mine--more and more with every passing week, it seemed--sang its praises. I would consistently hear paeans as to how it was so fantastic, so worthwhile, and that I would be sure to love it.

And then, ultimately capitulating to peer pressure, I sampled. I refer to the tremendously popular drama Mad Men, run on the American Movie Classics channel, whose first season the library recently acquired on DVD. I took the DVDs home over the long break and have, as a result, become a full-on, ranting and raving, Mad Men lunatic.

The series revolves around the advertising firm Sterling Cooper in New York City; the year is 1960. The term "mad men" was coined to denote the Madison Avenue executives whose grand epoch of consumer-goods-pushing was achieved in the post-World War II years. The central character is Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the creative director for the company; his past is cloaked in secrecy and becomes a prominent secondary plotline. Don is a holdover from the 1950s: rugged and charming, a family man who drinks bourbon and smokes Lucky Strikes, and a veteran of the Korean War. His wife, Elizabeth (known as Betty and, less frequently, "Birdie"), is his archetypal consort: beautiful, housewifely, and devoted to their children (who sport the delectably nostalgic monikers Bobby and Sally). The luminous January Jones, with her strikingly Grace Kelly-esque loveliness, makes for a breathtaking Mrs. Draper.

There are myriad flies in this pastel ointment of halcyon family life, however: Don has a mistress, Midge Daniels (Rosemarie DeWitt), an illustrator whose fly-by-night lifestyle and Beat tendencies makes a pointed juxtaposition against the lives of Betty and most of the other women in the show. While Don is admired and respected by his colleagues and attended faithfully by his wife, he appears restive and disquieted, by both his current lifstyle as well as the demons of his umbrageous past.

The eponymous lords of the manor include Bertram "Bert" Cooper (Robert Morse, a living legend of Broadway as well as screen), the company founder, who spends most of his days holed up in a cavernous office decked out like a Tokyo tea house, offering decidedly offbeat tidbits of advice to his underlings. The other is Roger Sterling (John Slattery), who often behaves like an errant fraternity brother, drinking heavily while scoring nifty boardroom victories with well-heeled clients such as Kodak and Bethlehem Steel.

Peter Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) is a junior account manager whose runaway professional eagerness is matched only by his sheer personal unlikeability on every level. He courts Don's favor, desperate to make an ally, but Draper, whose savviness for reading people makes for a keen tool in his trade, sees Campbell for the self-loathing creep that he is. Peter becomes a newlywed very early in the series--wife Trudy (Alison Brie) is clearly more a power match (her parents are, like Pete's own, very wealthy) than a love connection. I particularly enjoy witnessing Pete getting neatly sliced down to size in various scenes involving Don.

And then there's Little Miss Peg. Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss, who was apparently the First Daughter on the West Wing, which I've never seen) arrives as a fresh-from-secretarial school tyro who proclaims her place of origin--Brooklyn--as a reason for her backwardness in the very first episode. But do not be misled by Peggy's primness, for she eventually gets into quite a steamy situation (and handles it with aplomb). Peggy represents all that will be changing for womanhood in the not-so-distant future: as things around Sterling Cooper go, female coworkers are subjected to cruelly misogynistic treatment in all forms. The execs openly leer at, comment on, and (at times) even physically accost the administrative staff; Peggy, all wide-eyed innocence, asks why she's being treated in this manner. Her answer comes from the seductively ruby-red lips of Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks), the curvaceous, flirtatious office manager. Her approach? "Get it--male attention--while you can", and she certainly does, with her figure-hugging wardrobe and air of voluptuous competence winning nakedly lusty loyalty from the male staff.

Peggy, through a combination of dogged tenacity and sheer luck, eventually moves beyond the scope of typist, but not without significant burdens. She symbolizes new doors through which her generation and those to follow would be happy to pass.

Mad Men can, on many levels, certainly prove unnerving. Women are hardly the only marginalized group (although their unjust treatment is the most commonly seen). Jews were regarded as pariahs; when told a Jewish-owned department store is coming in to consult, Sterling alarmedly asks if there are any Jews on the staff (his idea is to have at least one Jewish person present in the meeting in order to make for a more welcoming ambiance), to which Draper replies, "Not on my watch!". *Ouch*

Poor Salvatore Romano (Bryan Batt) is a ruthlessly closeted gay man who is more conspicuous for his Italian heritage than his barely-repressed flamboyance; homophobia is a well-established mindset. Besides extreme chauvenism, anti-Semitism, and anti-gay bias, there is also a strong streak of "white power" (African Americans are seen fleetingly, and then only as janitors, nightclub musicians, or elevator operators) present. Distressing as these images are, one must remember they mirror the zeitgeist of the age.

I would say glamorous is perhaps the best one-word adjective to summarize the rich visual pageantry this series has to offer: the incredible detail given to the sets, costumes, and music all make for a dizzying spectacle into what Manhattan life offered a certain class at a specific time in our national history. Characters are constantly boozing, downing snifters of brandy, whiskey, gin, and much else besides. Only Peggy and Pete seem to refrain from smoking; otherwise, every scene has men and women lighting up with flair. Even in a scene where a gynocologist is preparing to examine a patient, he asks for her to sit tight--while he sets his Parliament ablaze (!). Snappy crooner tunes ooze into various scenes and all the world's a cocktail and cigarette away from ultimate, urbane sophistication.

Mad Men blends incredible acting talent with potent plot points, a dyad I find despairingly rare on the TV dial nowadays. I invite the reader to dive into its maddening grip and take a dizzying backwards leap into our recaptured past.

RULE BRITANNIA!

2008-08-22T09:49:00.004-04:00

Whether you are a fan of the silliness of Monty Python, a discerning afficionado of all things related to tea, or somewhat obsessed with the British Royal Family, anyone who can relate to the English will enjoy The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British by Sarah Lyall (Norton & Company, August 2008).

Sarah Lyall, a native of New York City, moved to London in the early 1990s, following her career as a journalist. She met and eventually married a Briton and has remained in England for the better part of fifteen years. The Anglo Files relates her personal experiences and observations as to how the British live and how very different they are from Americans.

At some points I laughed out loud: she describes the British tendency to incessantly apologize for seemingly everything, especially in instances where such sentiments are completely unnecessary. Lyall realized she had succumbed to this practice herself when she fell against a wall in the subway (or "tube", as Brits call them) and involuntarily mumbled "Sorry". A solitary woman, several feet away, murmured a "Sorry" of her own--in commiseration with the author's own expression of regret.

Hilarious!

Many facets of quotidian British existence are explored: the usually-poor weather conditions, the sad state of (most) English teeth, the bawdy and impolitic nature of how the Houses of Parliament conduct legsilative sessions (one U.K. native remarked to the author that the proceedings of the American Congress are so somnolent in comparison that she fell asleep on a visit there), and the relentless sense of modesty so many Brits express (even in the face of great accomplishment) are but a few. Lyall shares her insights with wry humor, gently poking fun of some mannerisms while exploring her complete astonishment at others (for example, why the trains in England are almost never on time--although the rail service does provide exhaustive apologies for when inconveniences arise).

The Anglo Files provides an excellent first-person, outsider's account of all the delightful idiosyncracies, charms, and bafflements that comprise the English people. Rule, Britannia!

ONE VOCABULARIAN'S PURSUIT

2008-08-11T13:46:00.009-04:00

Ammon Shea of New York City has accomplished a feat I find as herculean as I do mystifying: he has read the entire print version of the Oxford English Dictionary. To the reader who may not know of this behemoth reference work, we are not discussing even a run-of-the-mill, six-inch-thick unabridged tome. The Oxford English Dictionary covers over twenty volumes and spans over 21,000 pages.

Shea is a quintessential vocabularian, a noun defined on page 194 of his book as "one who pays too much attention to words"--the title of his journey through the English language's flagship dictionary is Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages (Penguin, July 2008).

As soon as this title was brought to the library's main floor from the technical services department, I was keen on learning all about the author's journey. From the outset, Shea showers a word-enthusiast with the varied riches the OED offers: the introduction is labeled "Exordium", one of thousands of new terms the author collected during his perusal. Every chapter commences with a brief description of his reading adventure: apparently his eyesight all but disintegrated as he relentlessly absorbed the OED's rather merciless, small print. He also details the library basement where he spent most of his reading time, replete with visiting mice and occasionally-irksome undergraduate students (I was secretly empathetic as Shea described his inward battle to refrain from shushing them soundly).

But the crux of each chapter is a list of words starting with each letter of the alphabet which the author found noteworthy. Shea often comments on the astonishing array of words in the English language that exist for specific objects, conditions, sentiments, etc., which are virtually unknown for whatever reason.

I would be remiss not to share at least a few such entries which I found truly wonderful:

1) acnestis: the point of the lower back on an animal which cannot be scratched with the limbs (everyone's suffered through the cruelty of an itchy acnestis, but who knew the word to describe it?)

2) epizeuxis: the vehement repetition of a word (i.e., "No no no no NO!": the grammarian in me nearly swooned with joy, as I'd never known there is a term for such a construct)

3) materteral: pertaining to an aunt; aunt-like (my reaction to this word was neatly mirrored by the author's own; the word avuncular, meaning like an uncle, is widely known; why did the adjective for aunt fall into oblivion? If there's one word I learned from this book that I will be certain to use in the future, it's materteral)

4) opsigamy: marriage occurring late in life (!)

5) sialoquent: describing one who spits while speaking (honestly, we've all been subjected to this horrible practice--the next time I encounter it, I shall employ this deliciously obscure adjective to request the speaker to cease and desist)

I was very happy when I was able to recognize at least two entries before reading their definitions (hamartia and pandiculation)--others I tried hazarding a guess by looking at their roots before reading the descriptions (with very limited success).

Any lover of the English language will be caught up in the lexicographical exploits Mr. Shea details in this amazing little book, and certainly come away with more than one new word to embellish even the most advanced of vocabularies.

PARKER POSEY'S LANGUAGE LESSON

2008-08-05T20:16:00.011-04:00

Broken English is a film detailing the story of neurotic, lonely Nora Wilder, a late-30-something New Yorker whose pursuit of true love has met with consistent failure and devastation. A Magnolia Pictures project whose DVD was released on December 31, 2007, Broken English landed the Jury Award at the 2007 Philadelphia Film Festival. It was also nominated at both the Sundance Film Festival (for the Grand Jury Prize) as well as the Independent Spirit Awards of 2007

WARNING: SPOILERS LURK WITHIN, SO DO NOT READ IF YOU WANT TO BE *SURPRISED*.

The inimitable Parker Posey, the "Queen of the Indies" (as she is best known for working on off-the-beaten-track projects), strikes a distinctly authentic chord as Nora, who works at a stylish boutique hotel as a "guest coordinator": her role is to ensure that guests have every need completely met by the establishment. Her best friend, Audrey Andrews (Drea de Matteo), is feted at an anniversary party held to celebrate her fifth year of marriage to Mark (Tim Guinee). Nora, who had originally introduced the couple, is accosted by her mother, Vivien (played to insidiously-controlling perfection by Gena Rowlands, the real-life mother of the film's writer and director, Zoe Cassavetes), halfway through the party. "Why is it you've let all the good ones slip away?", Viv stage whispers, anxiously peering about at the guests for a possible match for her solitary offspring.

Nora meets the self-centered actor, Nick Gable (here, an unlikely-looking, mohawked Justin Theroux), as he registers at the hotel. Their brief involvement is not blessed with endurance. She is then set up on a blind date (by her mother, no less) with Charlie Ross (Josh Hamilton), who is only very recently divorced from a clingy wife. It is not successful. Nearing desperation, Nora accepts an invitation to a party thrown by her co-worker, Glen (Michael Panes). The festivities find her drinking heavily and chain-smoking while wallowing in self-pity. She steps onto the elevator, stating her good-byes, when Glen introduces her to his slightly goofy, sincerely charming friend Julien (Melvil Poupaud). Jules is Parisian and knows Glen from when he was living with his family in France on a student-exchange program.

A weekend romance blooms between Nora and Julien--almost against Nora's will. Feeling burdened by her rounds of courtship failure, she is loathe to submit to his wiles. In the end she surrenders to them and delights in his company--amid suffering through anxiety attacks (for which she has a prescription) and wondering at what their future will hold.

Julien springs an unhealthy surprise in telling Nora he must soon return to France because his guest visa is going to expire. He asks her to join him, but Nora relates a litany of reasons why she cannot uproot her life on the spur of the moment for him; Julien makes his egress. She descends into a maelstrom of self-destruction, obliterating her career at the hotel and wandering about in a blind funk. Audrey convinces Nora to join her on a business excursion to Paris; Nora excitedly decides to look for Julien while she is there.

Unfortunately, she misplaces the scrap of paper on which she'd written his cell phone number. Nora bravely decides to remain in France when Audrey departs for America. At the eleventh hour, she randomly encounters Julien on a subway. "You know you will miss your plane?", he asks gently at the sophisticated cafe into which he leads her in the film's final moments. Blind with grateful tears, the lovelorn Nora Wilder nods, realizing she has finally discovered true love with her adorably offbeat Frenchman.

I've long adored the quirky, fabulous Ms. Posey. Her Broken English was 96 minutes of mellifluous music to my ears.

THE CHARMING PERECTION OF CRANFORD

2008-07-24T10:20:00.014-04:00

The BBC has truly outdone itself with the wonderful production of "Cranford". The triumverate of Judi Dench, Eileen Atkins, and Imelda Staunton makes the series a sheer force of cinematic brilliance. All three of these leading lights prove incandescent, but their luminous talents do not vie for favor--rather, each actress brings her own magic to the performance, and each complements the other wonderfully.

Nor is the skill limited to this trio. The supporting cast is also well-matched, with legends Michael Gambon and Francesca Annis lending their assistance, as well as Simon Woods (whom I recognized from "Rome"), the lovely Lesley Manville ("The Cazalets", "North & South"--the 2nd being another Mrs. Gaskell adaptation), and the darling Claudie Blakely ("Gosford Park", as well as 2005's "Pride & Prejudice"), to name but a few.

Purists may squirm that this film is not a verbatim reproduction of Elizabeth Gaskell's novel of the same name, but incorporates much of that book's plotline as well as those of two of her other works , namely, "Mr. Harrison's Confessions" and "My Lady Ludlow". I found the result of this Gaskellian confluence supremely enjoyable.

Cranford's rural English society of the early 1840s is dominated by a cadre of thoroughly proper ladies, who are the self-appointed arbiters and guardians of local refinement and manners. They are governed by the imperious spinster Miss Deborah Jenkyns (Atkins). Her sister, Miss Mathilda (played by Dame Dench; also an old maid, she is popularly known as Miss Matty--one cringes to envision the result of a person daring to address her sister as "Miss Deb" or, even worse, "Miss DEBBIE") Jenkyns, is more gentle and mild; if Deborah is generally unyielding and stern, her sense of compassion and duty does ingratiate her character to the audience eventually. Miss Pole (Staunton) is easily the grande-dame of the village's gossip circuit and her near-hysterical antics in making certain she is "THE FIRST" to pass along juicy tidbits makes for several laugh-out-loud incidents.

While often lighthearted and amusing, "Cranford" does address more sobering issues, such as the rigorous class structure's inherent refusal to allow a person to better himself. This is best demonstrated by Lady Ludlow's (Annis) disgust at learning her head clerk, Mr. Carter, has taught young Harry Gregson (the son of a local squatter/poacher) to read and write. Literacy, according to Lady Ludlow, is a privilege solely reserved for the upper classes; if the lower orders were to attain it, they would not remember their place.

The imminent arrival of the railway in Cranford is another focal point of the storyline. The majority of the village's citizenry loathe the idea and are terrified of the great changes it will surely herald for them all. Romances, demises, losses of fortune, family squabbles, the bleaching of lace collars, and the manner in which to consume an orange with the greatest degree of propriety [quite seriously--and the results are most amusing!]: "Cranford" affords all this and much more, and will assuredly leave the viewer with a gleeful smile and a full heart.

"Cranford" was released on DVD in the United States May 20, 2008, with a runtime of 291 minutes--both the DVD and the novels on which the series is based are available from the Main Library.

THE WORKS OF J. A. KONRATH

2008-07-22T19:52:00.007-04:00

Not everyone enjoys a solidly crafted murder mystery--this is understandable. However, mysteries/thrillers compose a consistently high-demand genre of popular fiction, and as a librarian, I am sometimes asked who I might recommend from among the vast throng of writers from said genre. I will take this opportunity to wholeheartedly endorse J. A. Konrath.

I am a reader of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum franchise, although most of the time I simply cannot digest the credibility of a woman who is so consistently clueless about her work as a bounty hunter. Besides which, as any reader of the Plum novels will tell you, we keep coming back for the shenanigans of Grandma Mazur and Lula. I'm also a serious P. D. James fan: her tortured, completely repressed Scotland Yard Commander, Adam Dalgliesh, is as revered as Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot among devotees of British investigatory mainstays.

Joseph Andrew (who writes as J. A.) Konrath presents a variety of murder mystery titles which make for a pleasant stop-gap between Evanovich's utter fluff and James' more sober prose.

Like so many mystery authors, he has an established central character with a retinue of ancillary figures. His protagonist is Lieutenant Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels, a savvy, world-wise, but compassionate Chicagoan whose career is the driving force of her existence. In her early 40s and divorced, her partner is fifty-something Herb Benedict; her former partner, Harry McGlade, erupts into each novel in the most unwelcome fashion, as his history with Daniels is less than civilized. Phineas Troutt, a shady, quasi-rehabilitated criminal who acts as Jack's inside man on many occasions, rounds out the recurring character list.

While Lieutenant Daniels' personal life is often fraught with comic situations--whether it's her abortive attempts to find (and keep) a man in her life or successfully cope with her elderly (yet quite sexually active) mother visiting her cramped apartment from Florida--Konrath's plots also feature with some very gritty crime writing. Critics have claimed the juxtaposition of the merry, lighthearted banter and zinger-laced repartee that often occurs among the characters with the (sometimes) gore-filled depictions of the villain's atrocious crimes is irreconcilable. This reader finds the blend of the two--pardon the pun--intoxicating: the good guys are credible, heroic crimefighters and the psychopathic serial killers are evil, inhuman monsters. I consider Konrath's brief novels the written equivalent of television's much-lauded (and, at least by this reviewer, deeply revered) "Law & Order" series. Add in the fact that each title is named after a popular cocktail, and I wonder what more a mystery-loving reader could want?

All of Mr. Konrath's titles are available in hardcover and audio CD from the Main Library:

Whiskey Sour (2004)

Bloody Mary (2005)

Rusty Nail (2006)

Dirty Martini (2007)

Fuzzy Navel (2008)

VIVE LA FRANCE

2008-07-11T11:08:00.012-04:00

HAPPY BASTILLE DAY!

July 14th is Bastille Day, the national holiday of France. Its name originates from a prison in Paris that held political captives whose philosophies were found abhorrent to the sovereign. On July 14, 1789, a mob stormed the Bastille to liberate the prisoners (there were only 7 captives incarcerated at the time) and collect the large arsenal of weapons stored there. It was a bold move which left no doubt that popular support for the monarchy had all but vanished. Bastille Day is the birthdate of France's contemporary history, marking the death of the ancien regime (the established socio-political order of France that dated from the early Middle Ages), the eventual execution of the King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, and the abolition of feudalism.

The violence of which Bastille Day was born was nearly replicated in 2002, when then-President Jacques Chirac was almost assassinated by a disgruntled conservative, Maxime Brunerie. The gunshot was a narrow miss, and Bruniere would have made a second attempt had he not been overpowered by fellow spectators at the military review where it occurred.

The Fete Nationale (National Holiday) of France is referred to colloquially as Quatorze Juillet (14th of July), in much the same manner as America's Independence Day is commonly called the 4th of July. Military parades, speeches, and fireworks along the Champs-Elysees in Paris take place on Bastille Day; of note is the fact July 14 also falls in the middle of the Tour de France every year.

The celebration of Bastille Day is not limited to France. Modern nations that were once French colonies--such as Canada, French Guiana, the islands of French Polynesia, Vietnam, and numerous African states, such as Djibouti, the Ivory Coast, Benin, among others--still recognize Bastille Day with myriad forms of celebration. In the United States, the cities of New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Seattle all host large celebrations in honor of the holiday.

LEARN MORE ABOUT BASTILLE DAY WITH THESE MAIN LBRARY MATERIALS...

Blood of the Bastille, 1787-1789: From Calonne's Dismissal
to the Uprising of Paris by Claude Manceron, 1989.
944.04 M 311 b

The Oxford History of the French Revolution by William Doyle, 1989.
944.04 D 778 0

The French Revolution: Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, A & E Home Video, 2005
DVD 944.04 Fre

DAYS AMONG THE DEAD

2008-07-08T14:37:00.007-04:00

The American Resting Place: Four Hunded Years of History Through Our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds by Marilyn Yalom; published May 15, 2008, Houghton-Mifflin

What, if anything, does one feel when faced with a cemetery? To some, a burial ground of any sort evokes a shudder and a wish to remain free and clear of its environs. To others, they elicit little to no reaction at all. However, cemeteries do have their devotees, and for them, they are intriguing, interesting, and even beloved sites for any number of reasons. Marilyn Yalom takes the last approach and presents her findings in The American Resting Place.

Over the course of several years, Marilyn and her son, Reid, journeyed across land and sea to exhaustively research American burying grounds--Marilyn wrote the text, Reid took over sixty (remarkable) accompanying photographs of what they'd seen. Besides a show-&-tell of over 250 communities of the dead, The American Resting Place details the history of how and why Americans have interred their deceased for over four centuries.

The earliest European settlers, including both the Spanish in Florida as well as the English Puritans in New England, utilized deaths' heads (skulls) alone in their decoration of America's first tombstones. Besides name and date information, the rare epitaph would typically read as an indictment to the living to remember that death is the inevitable end of us all. Grim, cheerless messages were exactly what graveyards were meant to convey--as a matter of fact, any place where burials occurred was almost exclusively known as a graveyard (or perhaps churchyard) in the U.S. until the 1850s-1860s.

Graveyards typically stood next to churches, although municipal grounds were not unknown, which were placed near a civic building such as a town hall or courthouse. With the population boom of the early 19th century, American cities such as New York and Philadelphia were among the first to actively remove entire graveyards to bucolic settings. Smaller communities followed suit, freeing valuable municipal property and devising greener areas for their dead. Rather than cramped, austere lots found within city limits, rolling fields dotted with lush trees and grandiose funerary monuments rapidly gained popularity. "Cemetery" comes from a Greek word meaning "place of sleep"--the neologistic moniker clearly indicates a shift from dwelling on the severity of death to spotlighting the peaceful, verdant atmosphere of a garden. In the last century, the low-maintenance lawn cemetery made its first appearance, where there are no tombstones at all, only markers set flush with the ground (I personally find these distressingly monotonous). Cremation, which was once strictly taboo as a means of treatment for the dead, has also become a standard option for many people.

Yalom covers a wide spectrum of burial practices from the myriad groups that made their way to America. The Mexican-Americans' zealous observance of the Day of the Dead (November 2) is counterbalanced with the African-American tradition of the Jazz Funeral in New Orleans. She discusses how the deaths' heads gave way to a cherub's winged countenance on tombstones in a further effort to "lighten" cemetery art. While I'd known the urn (especially one sculpted as draped in cloth) is a typical symbol of mourning, I hadn't realized the significance of the broken tree trunk, which stands for a life that has been cut short. I'd also not been aware that, among Jews, the simple act of placing stones on grave markers is a customary way of honoring their dead. The humble Amish burial grounds of Lancaster County are extolled alongside the Roman Catholic cemeteries of the greater Chicago area, which host thousands of elaborate crucifixes and statues of the Virgin Mary and the saints.

Even if you're not particularly prone to amble through cemeteries, this book sheds new light on American burial practices with great aplomb.

Adult Summer Reading Grand Prize

2008-07-03T11:02:00.003-04:00

Once again, the Sovereign Center has most generously donated the grand prize for the Adult Summer Reading Program!

This year we are raffling two tickets to see Terry Fator on Sep 25, 2008.

Information on the Sovereign Center event
Terry Fator's Official Site

LEARN MORE ABOUT JULY 4th

2008-07-02T13:51:00.007-04:00

"Independence Day: A History of July 4th",
The History Channel, 1997

This is a one-hour program available from the Main Library in videocassette format only (although we will be adding the DVD to our collection in the future, I am certain). Hosted by Harry Smith, "Independence Day" traces the history of America's national holiday, beginning with July 4, 1776, the date when the colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence.

Many colonists at the time of the Revolution were actually against the idea of indpendence, considering themselves loyal Britons, professing complete fidelity to the Crown. Key figures such as John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, who both advocated absolute severance from England before most other Founding Fathers, helped generate support for the cause. While Northern states took to indepenence relatively quickly, the South resisted, as they identified themselves more closesly with the landed gentry of the old country than did their industrialized Yankee neighbors.

The 4th of July became integral to national morale amid the bloody years of the American Revolution, which raged from 1776 through 1781. On July 4, 1777--America's first birthday--the fledgling states witnessed a grand patriotic spectacle in Philadelphia, America's brithplace, with feasting, fireworks, and even a flotilla of ships decked out in the colors of the nation: red, white, and blue. Americans, new to their identity as a sovereign state without an overseas motherland, looked to the natal anniversary of their republic for inspiration and solidarity. In the 19th century, the holiday took on similar importance after the divisive American Civil War (1861-1865), when citizens of all states desperately needed a unifying concept to bring healing after Lee's surrender at Appomatox.

The focus of Independence Day was, for almost a century, on the veterans of the nation's wars. Eighteenth-century festivities placed Revolutionary soldiers in the forefront; the 1800s reserved the honors for Revolutionary veterans as well as those from the War of 1812, the Civil War, and other military incursions. Orations and public addresses by community leaders and politicians were the order of the day following the veterans' parades. However, it was during the 1800s that the social aspect of having Americans gather simply to revel in their position as citizens of the United States began to emerge.

Churches and civic organizations began hosting patriotism programs, with civilians taking place in choral performances featuring national songs, revues reflecting historic events, and similar activities. Families would re-unite far-flung members around July 4th and take part in picnics and campfires. And, of course, the tradition of fireworks,which remains one of the most recognized and eagerly anticipated ways the holiday is celebrated, was introduced as well.

This little program delivers these and other interesting tidbits as to how America's Independence Day has been celebrated throughout our history, and makes for both entertaining and as well as eductional viewing.

LILIES: A PERIOD PIECE OF PURE MAGIC

2008-06-26T09:46:00.006-04:00

"Lilies" (released in the U.S., September 11, 2007) is a British period drama that follows the lives of the Moss family, led by Nelson "Dadda", comprised of son William (Billy) and daughters Iris, May, and Ruby. Mrs. Mary Moss has been dead approximately 15 years and Iris, the eldest, has become the lady of the house. Dadda works as an amateur veterinarian and herbalist. Iris creates confections and sells them to a local sweets store. May is in service to the nouveau-riche Mr. and Mrs. Brazendale. Ruby, William's twin and the youngest, just starts into peddling women's corsets at the beginning of the series.

The Mosses are Liverpool natives of the 1920s, and their lives reflect the zeitgeist of the age. The influx of jazz music and the popularity of the silent films persist throughout; the beginnings of social change through contraception and women's suffrage figure into it as well. Religious differences and class distinction also play large roles. Dadda, an Ulsterman, is vigorously Protestant, and his sons were raised in his church--elder son Walter having perished in action in World War I. The Moss daughters were raised in their mother's Roman Catholic faith. On more than one occasion the division of churches causes issues within the family. Young Rev. Malachi Melia, the pastor of the girls' parish, plays a large role in many episodes.

The daughters are the central figures in this series, given its title from a toast made by Dadda honoring his female progeny while they were small children. Iris is common-sensical but harbors a yearning for her own marriage and motherhood. Gentleman caller Domingo appears the perfect match--until a secret dismantles Iris' hopes and dreams. May, who initially seems as sensible as her elder sister, ends up in the midst of high drama with her employer. Ruby, the feistiest of the trio, becomes entranced by the social movements of women's liberation and embraces vegetarianism, even as her own dreams of swimming for the British Olympic team are dashed early on in the storyline. Billy is a sad soul, having witnessed Naval action at the Battle of Jutland, only to be sent home, a victim of post-traumatic stress disorder. Dadda is a man desperate to keep his family together, although his own violent temperment makes for some of the clan's worst problems.

"Lilies" covers the vast panorama of the human condition-- its struggles, tragedies, and, ultimately, victories--with great empathy and verve, and leaves the viewer slightly exasperated that the BBC refrained from producing a second series...

ASRP Comments

2008-06-24T10:12:00.001-04:00

5 Ingredient Slow Cooker Recipes by Carrie E. Holcomb – Great and simple recipes
Ladies of Liberty by Cokie Roberts – Good book, although not as well written as her previous book.
March by Geraldine Brooks – Backstory of the father in Alcott’s Little Women. Very engaging. Brooks is a wonderful writer.
Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips – Was entertaining and I’m glad I stuck it out through the first three chapters. It got much better.
Kissing Coffins by Ellen Schreiber – The author is great! Keeps it moving.
Dark Tort by Diane Mott Davidson - Thought the heroine was an idiot moving a body, but it got interested in the book and enjoyed the cooking sequences.
Alchemist’s Daughter by Katharine McMahon – Reminded me of the Pearl Earring. A well written historical fiction.
Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd – Good book if you like unhappy endings.
Value Investing for Dummies by Peter Sander – Everybody should read.
Odd Hours by Dean Koontz – Charming sequel. Koontz is a master of this genre.
Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas P.M. Barnett – Could it be?! The Bush Administration has a plan for a new world order?
Dead Room by Heather Graham – Really interesting and intriguing. Kept me reading!
Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Weddings by Joshua Piven – Great book! Great ideas!

BOOK REVIEW: The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8 Lee, published March 3, 2008

2008-06-17T14:20:00.003-04:00

I am tremendously fond of what Americans generally accept as Chinese food. I have long heard that what Americans refer to as Chinese food is alien and unknown to residents of China (that fortune cookies aren't Chinese in origin I had known--but not that they had a direct ancestor that was popular in Japan). Jennifer 8 Lee's "Fortune Cookie Chronicles" recounts the history of Chinese food in American culture in mouth-watering detail.

I was intrigued about the voyage she made to General Tso's birthplace, only to find no Chinese there had ever heard of the famous (American-born) chicken dish named in his honor. The Kikkoman / La Choy argument of exactly what constitutes soy sauce ["There's no soy in La Choy"] was fascinating. A key hint I gleaned about evaluating the worthiness of a Chinese eatery: see if Chinese themselves patronize it. Also enlightening was the chapter that revealed the popular practice of Chinese immigrants who arrive on U.S. soil explicitly to labor in Chinese restaurants. I've often pondered that, unlike any other ethnic establishment, there always seem to be Chinese owning and operating eateries that concentrate on that cuisine. After all, one would hardly expect the local Italian place to feature Italian-American only staff, or the neighborhood Mexican restaurant to have only Mexican-American workers. The plight of one particular Chinese family, in their attempt to run a successful Chinese establishment, was particularly heartbreaking, with multiple generations divided across continents because the parents could not handle raising three offspring while investing 15 to 18 hours of each day in operating the business.

Jennifer Lee is a voice of authority on this material despite having been born to immigrant Chinese who did not themselves run a restaurant. The miles she logged across the globe for her research are significant, as is her breezily informative writing style which gets various points across (i.e., Chinese immigrants, especially the restaurant-working bound, lead exceedingly harsh lives) without dipping into preachiness. I enjoyed "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles" immensely and recommend anyone who enjoys American Chinese cuisine (which, as it turns out, has its own representative restaurants worldwide [and in some of the least likely places--like the island of Mauritius!]--despite its "inauthentic" nature!) should pick this volume up and learn more about it.