Thursday, November 19, 2009
One of the trickier requests librarians receive from adults is "I'm looking for something light, something that will really make me laugh."
Once we've determined that the reader is not a) looking for the latest by Janet Evanovich and b) not interested in joke books, we've probably crossed over into the realm of The Humorous Essay. Humorous essay collections are great because readers can enjoy them piecemeal and skip ahead to the best bits, but they're also annoyingly adept at blending in with the rest of the essays, memoirs, and cultural criticism on our shelves.
In the interest of "fast" and "funny," here's a quick list of some the freshest, funniest books that can be found at the library. Enjoy them; share them; be sure to read them in public so that people can edge away nervously as your laugh out loud.
 More Information Than You Require by John Hodgman (818.54 HOD)
"The bestselling author of "The Areas of My Expertise," who is also the Resident Expert on "The Daily Show," compiles incredibly handy made-up facts into brief articles, overlong lists, frighteningly complex charts, and beguiling narratives on new and familiar themes."
The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro (B Notaro)
"This collection of columns, originally written for the Arizona Republic, details Notaro's daring exploits and comical mishaps as she matures from wild teenager to disheveled adult."
When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris (814.54 SED) "David Sedaris uses life's most bizarre moments to reach new heights in understanding love and fear, family and strangers. Culminates in a brilliantly funny account of his venture to Tokyo in order to quit smoking."
Mirth of a Nation edited by Michael J. Rosen (817.5408 MIR) "At last, a premier showcase of fifty-four great literary humorists and masters of the journalistic jab, the social spoof, the parodic proof, the satire, the tirade, and the send-up. Here are those "last laughs" and "wit's end" pieces everyone turns to first but then loses in back issues of favorite magazines and newspapers."
 Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman (306.097 KLO) "There is much here to entertain and illuminate, particularly passages on the psychoses and motivations of breakfast cereal mascots, the difference between Celtic fans and Laker fans, and The Empire Strikes Back."
Happy reading!
Ann Geht
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
 Working full time while taking a couple classes and moving to a new apartment does not a refreshed librarian make. A bit of learning-induced overextension combined with a hefty dose of disorganization (maybe this will help?) has led to an often tired, often muddled little me. Luckily, I’m not forgetting appointments – yet – but I am showing up for them early. (An hour early for a haircut and what would have been a week early for another appointment, had the master calendar at work not clued me in just in time.)
Yet, amid all this abstraction, all this juggling of assignment and work schedules, of writing projects and haircut appointments, I find myself drawn back to knitting, a craft I taught myself five or six years ago. I wondered why this sudden compulsion to pick up needles and yarn returned, when it occurred to me: the ordered, physical activity grounds my frenzied mental manipulation.
When I stumbled across a story on the Wired Science blog, the long history of knitting, weaving, and fabric craft washed over me. The article described the recent discovery of the oldest preserved spider web, spun nearly 140 million years ago, which researchers theorize the web became encased in sap during a wildfire.
 According to Ancient Greek myth, spiders are descendants of Arachne, a proud, boastful, insolent and incredibly talented weaver. Navajo creation myth describes Spider Woman, a yei (god) who taught the Navajo people to weave. And legend of the Ghanaian Ashanti people attributes the development of Kente cloth to the instruction of a spider. (See Margaret Musgrove’s The Spider Weaver for a wonderfully illustrated and researched version.)
 Another Wired Science entry, also about spider silk, brought all these musings full circle. In this case, dozens of people collected thousands of golden orb spiders from telephone poles in Madagascar, ultimately harvesting the spiders’ silk and making an “11-foot by 4-foot textile[,] the only large piece of cloth made from natural spider silk existing in the world today.” The mythic echoes of creating a textile from spider silk strikes me with whim enough to wish I had a loom and a roomful of spiders from which to harvest materials. As I have neither, and consider it very unlikely I will ever get that collection of spiders, I’ll content myself with my needles and wool. And just might throw a spider design in somewhere as tribute.
- Beth
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Q: What do ghosts like to read?
A: Boo-ks (Of course!)
'Tis the season for all things spooky and haunted. (And no, I didn't borrow or steal this theme from the last blog entry. It's totally coincidental.) History tells us that not all ghosts stick to haunted houses and cemeteries. Many of them didn't lose their thirst for knowledge and chose to swirl around the stacks in their favorite libraries. Perhaps someof the most well known of these (at least to those of us of a certain generation) might have been the ghoulish spectres that make their prescences known in the opening scenes of the 1984 hit film Ghostbusters. In the New York Public Library's historic main building, we meet a typically middle-aged librarian who encounters flying card catalog cards, slimed drawers, and a hideous apparition all in the library's basement (the real-life Los Angeles Public Library).
A real-life biblio-ghoul resides in the Willard Public Library in Evansville, IN. The Grey Lady was first spotted by a custodian in the 1930s and was last seen in 1997. She has inspired ghost tours and related programming at the library as well several web cams positioned throughout the building so that you too can see if you can catch a glimpse of her. Some stories say that the Grey Lady is the ghost of Louise Carpenter, the daughter of the library's founder, Willard Carpenter. Apparently when he died, he left most of his money to the new library and not to her, though she was provided for. Others don't think the ghost acts like someone who is upset and bearing a grudge (toward the library) so her true identity remains a mystery.
Last year, Encyclopedia Britannica offered a list of haunted libraries across the U.S. and around the world on its blog. There are two in our area, the Hayden House in Ellicott City (although hauntings appear to have ceased when the building was renovated to house the Howard County Law Library) and the rooms on the west side of the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, former home of the Library of Congress.
 You can also make your own local branch haunted by appearing at your library in costume at one of our many Halloween themed events.
Have a spooktacular Halloween!
Chris
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
 My fiancé and I have been getting ready for the Halloween by watching horror movies. He isn’t into horror as much as I am, so occasionally we watch a comedy with a hint of scare. The last movie we watched was the Burbs with Tom Hanks. This movie is about a group of normal American neighbors in a cul-de-sac who have strange and unsocial neighbors move in. In the film Hanks gets spooked over an urban legend about an ice cream man.
This reminded me of how much I love urban legends. Most urban legends are cultural and develop from fear or worry in the society. Some urban myths are in smaller communities, where others myths are nation wide, for example the “Southern Fried Rat.” What I think is fun about urban myths is that it is an opportunity to tell a story and practices oral traditions. Most urban myths have a core story, and the details change slightly from person to person.
In my home town, one of our urban legends is the mysterious Dr. Crow of Wisner Rd. Along with the myth there is a teenage tradition to drive down Wisner Rd. late at night and stop somewhere on the road. Then you would get out of the car and walk down the road. Your friends would wait in the car see how long you would last without some creature of Dr. Crow’s grabbing you.
There are so many websites devoted to ghosts, ghost hunting and urban myths.  Even in the transient areas of Maryland and Northern Virginia there are two urban myths. The Northern Virginia myth is over thirty years old and consists of a crazed lunatic in a bunny suit. The Bunnyman is thought to be the idea behind the cult movie Donnie Darko. While another in Prince Georges County is called the “Goatman.” The Goatman has been developed into a tourist attraction in Riverdale Maryland called the Goatman Hollows.
If you are curious about the areas urban myth or ghost stories have a look at these books.
Spooky Maryland, Haunted Maryland, and Ghosts and Haunted Houses of Maryland.
Gale
CATEGORIES: Ghost
POSTED: 12:00:00 AM
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Wednesday, October 14, 2009
The winner of the 2009 Man Booker prize for fiction was announced this week, and a novel by Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, beat out the other 6 shortlist candidates for the prize.
 Wolf Hall, described as “ a rich, absorbingly readable historical novel” , chronicles the rise to power of Thomas Cromwell, one of King Henry VIII closest advisors. Cromwell aided Henry in ridding himself of Anne Bolyen, but unfortunately brokered Henry’s marriage to Anne of Cleves, to whom Henry referred as “the Flanders mare”. That mistake cost Cromwell his head, an all too common fate for Henry’s associates. Present day political intrigues can't hold a candle to the knife-edged balancing acts attempted by ambitious men of the Tudor era.
Our fascination with the larger than life Tudor king, his wives, mistresses, courtiers, ministers and descendents seems to be just as powerful in the 21st century as it ever was. Books, films, and websites devoted to either the whole period or various characters both great and small are ubiquitous.
Author Phillippa Gregory has had a recent string of best sellers centered around the women in Henry’s life, ranging from Katherine of Aragon (The Constant Princess) to the ambitious and striving Boleyn women (The Other Boleyn Girl and The Boleyn Inheritance) and on to Elizabeth I (The Virgin’s Lover and The Queen’s Fool). Her books bring to life the machinations of the Tudor court, and the powerful families who brokered their women like chips in a card game to win favor with the mercurial and all powerful king. 
Historical fiction often spurs readers on to find out more about the period and characters in the novel. Respected British historian Alison Weir has published several fiction titles about Elizabeth 1 recently, but also wrote two wonderful nonfiction titles about Henry and his wives. The Six Wives of Henry VIII and The Children of Henry VIII give a absorbing and readable look at the turbulent marital history of Henry, and how it affected the English church and English history to this day.
 Another fascinating nonfiction book about a rather minor character in the Tudor dramas is Jane Boleyn, by Julia Fox. Jane was the sister in law of Anne and Mary Boleyn, and has been viewed for centuries as the person who sealed the fate of Anne and George by testifying to their incestuous relationship. Jane's friendship with Catherine Howard, Henry's second beheaded wife, led to her eventual execution.
 Henry and his court have been the subject of plays and films since the time of Shakespeare. He has been portrayed by actors ranging from the portly Charles Laughton in The Private Life of Henry VIII, to the more believable Keith Mitchell in the BBC drama The Six Wives of Henry VIII, to the smoldering Jonathan Rhys-Myers in the current Showtime series “The Tudors”. The accuracy of some of these portrayals can be, shall we say, debatable, but again the story line is endlessly engrossing even though everyone knows how it all turned out.
It all comes back in the end to the great central figure of Henry (who even has his own Facebook Fan Page). And without Henry, we wouldn't have this.
anita
CATEGORIES: history
POSTED: 12:05:00 AM
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