Tag: books
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When the past isn’t past
Alan Jacobs: If you step back from the endless flow of social media and the internet more generally, and sit down with a book from the past that appears to have absolutely nothing to do with the affairs of the moment, something curious and rather wonderful can happen. Unexpectedly and randomly — stochastically — you…
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Refer Madness: Various Vignettes
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy stories from the library reference desk. Since transitioning to a new position at work last year, I’m no longer on the reference desk. (Also the library is currently closed due to COVID-19, so there’s that.) But I didn’t want to let my list of ideas for this…
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Ideology and ‘Information Hunters’
When I first heard of the new book Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe by Kathy Peiss, I thought it was so far up my alley it should have just moved in. The book tells two primary, interweaving stories: how the information-collecting missions of the Library of…
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Media of the moment
An ongoing series on books, movies, and music I’ve encountered recently. May It Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers. Heard about this documentary from the Armchair Expert episode with the Avett Brothers. Made me appreciate them anew. Closer Than Together by The Avett Brothers. “We Americans” should be the new national anthem. The Feather…
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Refer Madness: Buyers and Borrowers
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. A patron walked into the library and approached the desk. “I was just at a bookstore but I didn’t want to buy too many,” she told me. She had a list of books she wanted, some of which she got at the bookstore but…
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My son’s media of the moment
Based on the ongoing series on books, movies, and music I’ve encountered recently. The Best of Raffi. The man is famous for a reason. I’ll bet even the mere mention of “Baby Beluga”, “Down By the Bay”, or “Bananaphone” has you singing along in your head. Dance for the Sun by Kira Willey. It’s kinda…
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Get Thee Back to the Future
Whether it’s my podcast-heavy diet or baby-induced reduction in mental bandwidth for extended concentration, I haven’t been doing much book-readin’ lately. Which is OK, as not reading is fine too. That doesn’t stop me from trying. While browsing the new releases at a neighboring library I spotted Ian Doescher’s Get Thee Back to the Future,…
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Library ebooks are not free
Those of you not in the library world probably don’t know about the contretemps currently roiling the industry. Library users don’t see how much ebooks cost for libraries. I order them as part of my job, and I’ve never quite gotten over the sticker shock of some costing as much as $90 each. And that’s…
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Quotes from the Underland
I’ve only made it through the preface of Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane—an “epic exploration of the Earth’s underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself”—yet rich quotes abound: “The same three tasks recur across cultures and epochs: to shelter what is precious, to yield what is valuable, and…
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Media of the moment
An ongoing series on books, movies, and music I’ve encountered recently. Klazz Brothers & Cuba Percussion. Their Mozart Meets Cuba and Classical Meets Cuba mashups are great for people who want to get into either classical or Latin/jazz. What is the Bible? by Rob Bell. I much prefer Bell in audiobook form, where his engaging…
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Media of the moment
An ongoing series on books, movies, and music I’ve encountered recently. A Clockwork Orange. Had been putting this off based on what I’d heard of its disturbing content, but finally bit the bullet for the sake of the AFI 100. Typically impressive Kubrickian cinematography and dark satire. An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago…
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Only dopes use drugs
I love everything about this book cover, which I encountered at the Frances Willard House Museum & Archives: See more from Frances Willard.
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Media of the moment, post-baby edition
An ongoing series on books, movies, and music I’ve encountered recently. The Baby Book by William Sears. This has been helpful thus far. Though don’t think we haven’t also randomly Googled things at odd hours. The Cider House Rules. Filling in the gaps of my 1999 movie viewings. This gets less compelling once Homer leaves…
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Four quotes from ‘The Overstory’
Here are four context-free quotes I like from The Overstory by Richard Powers, a book I’ve only just started and am not sure if I’ll even finish: “Makes you think different about things, don’t it?” “Now, that next best of times, is long, and rewrites everything.” “A tree is a passage between earth and sky.”…
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Long Quotes on the ‘Prairie Fires’
Caroline Fraser’s Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder is about 150 pages too long, and spends a lot more time with Laura’s daughter Rose than I expected or desired. But the first third of the book, with the Ingalls family and Laura as a young adult, was quite illuminating. (Great Scott am…