As we move into April, it's time for the annual One Book, One Community event here in Allegheny County. The committee responsible for selecting the title works hard and long on the process - I attended several of the meetings and can vouch for how seriously the members take their responsibility for selecting a title that is readable, interesting to a broad audience, yet has literary merit.
Using the 250th anniversary of Pittsburgh as a basis for considering titles, I believe the committee made a perfect selection. The title celebrates one of our finest residents, Fred Rogers. Mr. Rogers was and continues to be respected and beloved not only locally, but nationally and even internationally for the sincerity and caring he demonstrated at all times. A wonderful embodiment of what locals always reference when talking about Pittsburghers - we are friendly and good neighbors. That is one the of the first things I heard about when I moved here more than 25 years ago, and by celebrating this man, we celebrate ourselves.
So, read the book: I'm Proud of You, by Tim Madigan. It is a quick read and makes us consider the meaning of neighbor and mentor. The purpose of the One Book program is to try to get as many people in the community thinking about and discussing the same book. Being a bookmobile program, we are limited in how we can bring together you and our other users to discuss the book. I hope that many of you will go to As the Wheels Turn, our Book Discussion Forum, to do just that - talk about this book with others in your community. There will be various topics as starting points for a discussion, and you can always start your own discussion point for others to comment on. After all, it is the neighborly thing to do!
Book: Pay it forward
Movie: Pay it forward
Monday, March 31, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Stepping outside of your comfort zone
At one of our stops is a delightful, older woman who lives in an old mill town. She seems to be someone who has lived there her whole life, just like so many in Western Pennsylvania. But there is one way she is unlike the expected stereotype - she is a foreign film fanatic. She takes out 5 - 10 each week, bringing in a list for next week with her. She watches films from all around the world, not just the classic directors - Fellini, Bergman - or the famous sources - France and Italy. I have ordered Iranian, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and yes, Icelandic.
Now, I have dipped here and there into foreign films over the years. I loved Farewell My Concubine, watched the Virgin Spring in college. As a classics major I watched many foreign films that dealt with classic myths: Black Orpheus, Orphee, Oedipus the King. But in general, I didn't take any risks. After reserving these films for this woman for several years now, I decided to take the plunge and try a few that sounded particularly off-beat and interesting. If you have been reading this blog, you can guess I started with the Icelandic film Noi. What a fabulous film. It was interesting to hear the language - not at all what I expected, not similar at all to other Scandinavian languages. Seeing the local scenery and the way people live in Iceland was fascinating, but the story was so moving, funny and yet sad. I was glad I tried it. I then moved on to Tokyo Story. Another lovely film, very minimalistic, but a fascinating look at Japanese culture. Since then I have jumped headlong into it - just this past weekend I watched another Icelandic film The Seagull's Laughter.
Similarly, I have stepped further outside my comfort zone in reading books, taking a chance on biographies, fiction that isn't mysteries. There are far more hits than misses, and the best part of reading a book borrowed from the library is that if you don't like it you haven't wasted anything but a few minutes of your time. More often you have opened new worlds, discovered new ideas, and fresh or different ways of looking at life. I was desperate for an audiobook for my communte home a couple of years ago, and finally took a risk on what ended up one of the best books I have ever read - My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult, now a favorite author of mine. I never imagined I would enjoy such unsettling stories that never really tie up the story in a neat bundle.
So take a risk or two - close your eyes and just grab a book. We librarians take care in selecting books, and you will be hard pressed to find a title that either isn't by a tried and true author, or didn't get good reviews. Will every risky choice result in a book you like? No of course not, but you will like the book most of the time. Along the way you will find new favorite authors or genres. Your outlook will broaden, you will become more understanding of the people and world around us, you will enrich your life and find new ways to enjoy a quiet moment with a book or movie.
Movies: Adam's Apple
The Cuckoo
Book: Standing Still, by Kelly Simmons
Now, I have dipped here and there into foreign films over the years. I loved Farewell My Concubine, watched the Virgin Spring in college. As a classics major I watched many foreign films that dealt with classic myths: Black Orpheus, Orphee, Oedipus the King. But in general, I didn't take any risks. After reserving these films for this woman for several years now, I decided to take the plunge and try a few that sounded particularly off-beat and interesting. If you have been reading this blog, you can guess I started with the Icelandic film Noi. What a fabulous film. It was interesting to hear the language - not at all what I expected, not similar at all to other Scandinavian languages. Seeing the local scenery and the way people live in Iceland was fascinating, but the story was so moving, funny and yet sad. I was glad I tried it. I then moved on to Tokyo Story. Another lovely film, very minimalistic, but a fascinating look at Japanese culture. Since then I have jumped headlong into it - just this past weekend I watched another Icelandic film The Seagull's Laughter.
Similarly, I have stepped further outside my comfort zone in reading books, taking a chance on biographies, fiction that isn't mysteries. There are far more hits than misses, and the best part of reading a book borrowed from the library is that if you don't like it you haven't wasted anything but a few minutes of your time. More often you have opened new worlds, discovered new ideas, and fresh or different ways of looking at life. I was desperate for an audiobook for my communte home a couple of years ago, and finally took a risk on what ended up one of the best books I have ever read - My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult, now a favorite author of mine. I never imagined I would enjoy such unsettling stories that never really tie up the story in a neat bundle.
So take a risk or two - close your eyes and just grab a book. We librarians take care in selecting books, and you will be hard pressed to find a title that either isn't by a tried and true author, or didn't get good reviews. Will every risky choice result in a book you like? No of course not, but you will like the book most of the time. Along the way you will find new favorite authors or genres. Your outlook will broaden, you will become more understanding of the people and world around us, you will enrich your life and find new ways to enjoy a quiet moment with a book or movie.
Movies: Adam's Apple
The Cuckoo
Book: Standing Still, by Kelly Simmons
Monday, March 3, 2008
A bit of follow-up
I thought I would take this opportunity to update some of my previous postings:
Scandivanian mysteries - particularly the Icelandic ones:
I tried a new author: Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Last rituals. It was ok but I think it suffered a bit during translation. However, it is a great way to see Icelandic life, a lot of time is spent on the main character's life. She is a single mom who is establishing a legal practice. It also provides insights into the way Europeans move around various countries like we move around the various states. It is worth a read, but it didn't wow me.
I read the next title by Arnaldur Indridason - Voices. He is my favorite and I wasn't disappointed with this one. It was lovely and dark, nicely developing the characters in this series while expanding our look at Icelandic life, and the mystery is decent too, not only keeping you guessing, but exploring themes of the risks of child stars and children growing up with absent (either physically or emotionally) parent. I really recommend it.
I also had the chance to see a travel DVD on Iceland and Greenland. Way too little about Iceland, but well worth seeing for the risks due to the sudden changes in weather. The host is traveling in April and they are stuck due to a sudden massive (to us) snowfall. It is an interesting underlining of the lost forever in storms that is a constant theme in Arnaldur's books.
The end of the book as we know it:
Once again, there has been a rash of articles predicting and mourning the end of the book, the demise of reading and even the demise of libraries. One article predicted that reading would be an arcane hobby done by a few oddballs. Another based the end of reading and the book on the 4% drop in sales at bookstores (over 5 years) - no mention of the steep rise in prices, the downturn of the economy (and the growth in library use) as possible contibutors to this. Still another in a posting about new library buildings in the US predicted that libraries would be a thing of the past by 2019. All due to the Internet. I keep this all in perspective, remembering all those weeded book predicting that all oil reserves would be exhausted by 1990. After all, the Internet has been supposedly killing libraries for the past 10 years and library use is actually booming. The face of what a library is and does is of course changing with the changing culture - just like it has forever.
I was talking to a colleague who was describing a project at her local high school where students were creating a new civilization from scratch and had to decide what services to include. When the students didn't select libraries, she reminded them that libraries are never just warehouses of books, rather libraries collect, store and distribute human knowledge, the how-to for everything. Not only instructions on how to cook, but also how to live a life. Fiction, after all, gives insight into the puzzle of human behavior. She posed the question - when you build your road, where will you keep the directions on how to build another so that future generations will know how to do it without starting all over? Apparently even the teacher had not considered this aspect.
Most interesting to me was an article by Ursula Le Guin in this February 2008's issue of Harper's. I wish the whole article was available on line, but you can get the magazine issue from your library. The article is called "Staying Awake: Notes on the Alleged Decline of Reading" and is in response to a recent NEA report on the demise of reading entitled "To Read or Not to Read" and an AP article by Alan Fram quoting a telecommunications project manager saying ' I just get sleepy when I read". Ursula discusses that except for a brief period of history, not that many people read at all. She also argues that big corporate business getting into the publishing business is strangling the publication of interesting but not necessarily James Patterson huge titles. That the focus on ever growing returns has cut off the availability of older titles that in the past were steady sellers and the bread and butter of publishers. An interesting counterpoint to much else that is being written.
Book: Hirsch, E. D. - The Knowledge Deficit: closing the shocking education gap for American Children
Movie: Lathe of Heaven (based on an Ursula Le Guin story - for you non-readers!)
Scandivanian mysteries - particularly the Icelandic ones:
I tried a new author: Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Last rituals. It was ok but I think it suffered a bit during translation. However, it is a great way to see Icelandic life, a lot of time is spent on the main character's life. She is a single mom who is establishing a legal practice. It also provides insights into the way Europeans move around various countries like we move around the various states. It is worth a read, but it didn't wow me.
I read the next title by Arnaldur Indridason - Voices. He is my favorite and I wasn't disappointed with this one. It was lovely and dark, nicely developing the characters in this series while expanding our look at Icelandic life, and the mystery is decent too, not only keeping you guessing, but exploring themes of the risks of child stars and children growing up with absent (either physically or emotionally) parent. I really recommend it.
I also had the chance to see a travel DVD on Iceland and Greenland. Way too little about Iceland, but well worth seeing for the risks due to the sudden changes in weather. The host is traveling in April and they are stuck due to a sudden massive (to us) snowfall. It is an interesting underlining of the lost forever in storms that is a constant theme in Arnaldur's books.
The end of the book as we know it:
Once again, there has been a rash of articles predicting and mourning the end of the book, the demise of reading and even the demise of libraries. One article predicted that reading would be an arcane hobby done by a few oddballs. Another based the end of reading and the book on the 4% drop in sales at bookstores (over 5 years) - no mention of the steep rise in prices, the downturn of the economy (and the growth in library use) as possible contibutors to this. Still another in a posting about new library buildings in the US predicted that libraries would be a thing of the past by 2019. All due to the Internet. I keep this all in perspective, remembering all those weeded book predicting that all oil reserves would be exhausted by 1990. After all, the Internet has been supposedly killing libraries for the past 10 years and library use is actually booming. The face of what a library is and does is of course changing with the changing culture - just like it has forever.
I was talking to a colleague who was describing a project at her local high school where students were creating a new civilization from scratch and had to decide what services to include. When the students didn't select libraries, she reminded them that libraries are never just warehouses of books, rather libraries collect, store and distribute human knowledge, the how-to for everything. Not only instructions on how to cook, but also how to live a life. Fiction, after all, gives insight into the puzzle of human behavior. She posed the question - when you build your road, where will you keep the directions on how to build another so that future generations will know how to do it without starting all over? Apparently even the teacher had not considered this aspect.
Most interesting to me was an article by Ursula Le Guin in this February 2008's issue of Harper's. I wish the whole article was available on line, but you can get the magazine issue from your library. The article is called "Staying Awake: Notes on the Alleged Decline of Reading" and is in response to a recent NEA report on the demise of reading entitled "To Read or Not to Read" and an AP article by Alan Fram quoting a telecommunications project manager saying ' I just get sleepy when I read". Ursula discusses that except for a brief period of history, not that many people read at all. She also argues that big corporate business getting into the publishing business is strangling the publication of interesting but not necessarily James Patterson huge titles. That the focus on ever growing returns has cut off the availability of older titles that in the past were steady sellers and the bread and butter of publishers. An interesting counterpoint to much else that is being written.
Book: Hirsch, E. D. - The Knowledge Deficit: closing the shocking education gap for American Children
Movie: Lathe of Heaven (based on an Ursula Le Guin story - for you non-readers!)
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