As some of you might know I serve on this committee, so please pardon a moment of self-promotion.
http://www.commonwealthclub.org/features/caBookAwards/
Basically to qualify for the award(s) the book either needed to be written in California or the author is a resident of the state. All of the winners were worthwhile, but here's my personal shortlist of highly recommended reads...
Chinese Apples by W.S. Di Piero (poetry)
What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe (nonfiction)
The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon (fiction)
Reinventing Los Angeles by Robert Gottlieb (Californiana)
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
NYPL's 25 Books to Remember from 2007
I'm going to try and get in the habit of posting "good read" lists whenever I come across them... Here's a good one to start with...
http://www.nypl.org/branch/books/index2.cfm?ListID=370
http://www.nypl.org/branch/books/index2.cfm?ListID=370
Friday, June 13, 2008
Library copy of "The Library at Night"
By the way just in case someone is interested in this book I do have it on my list of things to order as soon as the collections budget is approved. In the meantime if you're really desparate to get your hands on this you could try Link+ or ask me if my copy is available.
p.s. this blog is still a work in progress so bear with me while I get my bearings with the technology... I just noticed today that somehow I had managed to "turn off" the comments form for new posts. Hopefully it will work now.
p.s. this blog is still a work in progress so bear with me while I get my bearings with the technology... I just noticed today that somehow I had managed to "turn off" the comments form for new posts. Hopefully it will work now.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Nonfiction: The Library at Night
What to say about Alberto Manguel's delightful tome... well, let's start with a quote...
"We can imagine the books we'd like to read, even if they have not been written, and we can imagine libraries full of books we would like to possess, even if they are beyond our reach, because we enjoy dreaming up a library that reflects every one of our interests and every one of our foibles - a library that, in it's variety and complexity, fully reflects the reader we are. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that, in a similar fashion, the identity of a society, or a national identity, can be mirrored by a library, by an assembly of titles that, practically and symbolically, serves as our collective definition." (page 294)
This is one of the two best books about libraries I've read in the last ten years and both were written by non-librarians (the other was Nicholson Baker's Double Fold). It's a book I wish I had written or better yet that another librarian had written, but sadly the sort of explorative and expansive thinking involved seems beyond the grasp of our profession (we are a "science" after all and maybe as such we expect a certain dullness and orderliness to our processes; Note: I would love to see this claim contradicted and someone recommend a book about libraries written by a professional that is actually interesting to read, rather than simply interesting topically).
Manguel is a well respected novelist, essayist (he wrote the equally charming A History of Reading) and bibliophile. He starts off thinking of his own considerable personal library and uses that as a springboard to discuss the place of libraries (and books) both in society and more ethereal places (like the mind).
Chapters include... The Library as Myth... The Library as Chance... The Library as Island... and The Library as Home... and so on...
It's a wonderful meandering book the experience of reading is similar to casually browsing a library's shelves and then suddenly coming across a gem to read that you never knew was there.
If there's any weakness to this book it's that Manguel posits many more questions than answers, which oddly enough is my experience with most articles and books in the professional literature.
This is a book for anyone interested in libraries and their place in our lives.
"We can imagine the books we'd like to read, even if they have not been written, and we can imagine libraries full of books we would like to possess, even if they are beyond our reach, because we enjoy dreaming up a library that reflects every one of our interests and every one of our foibles - a library that, in it's variety and complexity, fully reflects the reader we are. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that, in a similar fashion, the identity of a society, or a national identity, can be mirrored by a library, by an assembly of titles that, practically and symbolically, serves as our collective definition." (page 294)
This is one of the two best books about libraries I've read in the last ten years and both were written by non-librarians (the other was Nicholson Baker's Double Fold). It's a book I wish I had written or better yet that another librarian had written, but sadly the sort of explorative and expansive thinking involved seems beyond the grasp of our profession (we are a "science" after all and maybe as such we expect a certain dullness and orderliness to our processes; Note: I would love to see this claim contradicted and someone recommend a book about libraries written by a professional that is actually interesting to read, rather than simply interesting topically).
Manguel is a well respected novelist, essayist (he wrote the equally charming A History of Reading) and bibliophile. He starts off thinking of his own considerable personal library and uses that as a springboard to discuss the place of libraries (and books) both in society and more ethereal places (like the mind).
Chapters include... The Library as Myth... The Library as Chance... The Library as Island... and The Library as Home... and so on...
It's a wonderful meandering book the experience of reading is similar to casually browsing a library's shelves and then suddenly coming across a gem to read that you never knew was there.
If there's any weakness to this book it's that Manguel posits many more questions than answers, which oddly enough is my experience with most articles and books in the professional literature.
This is a book for anyone interested in libraries and their place in our lives.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Recent fiction:
What have others been reading in fiction?
I just finished Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Prize winning "The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao". If not a brilliant novel it certainly has it's charms and I highly recommend it. The nerdy lovesick Oscar of the title says he wants to be the Domincan Tolkien, but what he really wants is a girlfriend. This compact work conveys a family saga of three generations ranging from victims of Trujillo's dictatorship to immigration in the distant land of New Jersey. It helps to be somewhat well versed in in the pantheon of science fiction writers and 70's/80's pop culture not to mention some experience with Spanish "street" dialect, but even if you aren't by the end I'll bet you'll find a place in your heart for this book...
Next up: The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
I just finished Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Prize winning "The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao". If not a brilliant novel it certainly has it's charms and I highly recommend it. The nerdy lovesick Oscar of the title says he wants to be the Domincan Tolkien, but what he really wants is a girlfriend. This compact work conveys a family saga of three generations ranging from victims of Trujillo's dictatorship to immigration in the distant land of New Jersey. It helps to be somewhat well versed in in the pantheon of science fiction writers and 70's/80's pop culture not to mention some experience with Spanish "street" dialect, but even if you aren't by the end I'll bet you'll find a place in your heart for this book...
Next up: The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
In the beginning... (1st post)
There was the "Word" and we read it... and then there was a book and we read it too... and of course professional articles too...
The purpose of this blog is to stimulate an exchange of ideas and interests related to the current "readings" in our lives whether or not they are directly connected to our work. So in that spirit I encourage staff, librarians, and others affiliated with San Francisco State University to share their thoughts on the pages and words that have recently passed before their eyes... It can be a recent novel (or a classic), work of nonfiction, and of course readings related to libraries, librarianship, books and publishing are especially welcome...
Coming soon: the "Blogmeister's" own thoughts on Alberto Manguel's book The Library at Night...
The purpose of this blog is to stimulate an exchange of ideas and interests related to the current "readings" in our lives whether or not they are directly connected to our work. So in that spirit I encourage staff, librarians, and others affiliated with San Francisco State University to share their thoughts on the pages and words that have recently passed before their eyes... It can be a recent novel (or a classic), work of nonfiction, and of course readings related to libraries, librarianship, books and publishing are especially welcome...
Coming soon: the "Blogmeister's" own thoughts on Alberto Manguel's book The Library at Night...
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