I love Mondays...

...because that is when my New York magazine is delivered! This week's issue contained the culture awards for 2008 .... movies, art and .... BOOKS! They have their top 10 lists on the website. Here are the best books of 2008 and here are the best graphic novels.

Zelda, Benjamin and Olaf van Schuler

I keep stumbling onto tiny, hardcover books that pique my interest. Of course, I have to take them home immediately because they are so cute and bite sized ... surely I have time for just one more. Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain is a collection of related short stories by Kirsten Menger-Anderson. It begins with Doctor van Schuler coming to New Amsterdam (New York) in 1664 with a bag of medical instruments and a mad mother. Each story then follows a different van Schuler physician - from phrenologists to psychosurgeons. Menger-Anderson writes: "We are all limited by the sophistication of our tools and the generally accepted theories of our times."



The next book I grabbed is actually a short story, but it has also been released as a tiny, 54 page book. It is the Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald and it is the basis for the new movie of the same title. This is the story of a man who was born old and became younger as time passed. Everyone around him ages normally and he requires assistance as an old man (just born) and an infant (at the end of his life). We shall see how the movie adapts this concept, but I'll put my money on Fitzgerald doing a better job in 54 pages than Hollywood does in 2 hours.



Finally, my small pile of books is topped with Once Again to Zelda by Marlene Wagman-Geller. This is a groovy collection of the stories behind 50 famous book dedications from Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland and Peyten Place to Eat, Pray, Love, The Bell Jar and The Satanic Verses. Not only is this an adorably small book, but each story is short and concise. You can leave this on your coffee table or in your car and read it bit by bit.



All of these books are at your local library, but if you are looking for stocking stuffers, these mini books are surely at your local independent bookstore, too!

Forget Rolling Stones ... this is the Times!

Amazing review - bordering on retrospective - of Alison Bechdel's Essential Dykes to Watch Out For in the New York Times.

I love when the authors come to me!

Not only did I get to meet Paula Uruburu yesterday, but it was in my beautiful library! Mrs. Uruburu is professor and writer, the author of American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, The Birth of the "It" Girl and the Crime of the Century. It is what we call "nonfiction that reads like fiction", meaning it is pure fact but still a fun, fast read because it is written like a bestselling novel. This is a book for anyone interested in New York City history, sensational trials, architecture, crime, rags-to-riches stories, pop culture and society during the turn of the century or well written books.

Needless to say, I was a bit excited about the author visit. I was able to sit with Mrs. Uruburu beforehand and I asked her about what she was working on now. She is writing a book on Lizzie Borden (and recently stayed in the house where the murder took place) and a book on Emily Dickinson. I can't wait to meet Lizzie and Emily through Mrs. Uruburu's thorough research and skillful writing. Her talk on Evelyn Nesbit was fascinating and patrons really enjoyed it - asking questions, buying copies of the book and lining up to talk to Mrs. Uruburu after. She is a brilliant woman; I wish I had brought a paper and pen because she was mentioning so many books and people and events! From Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow to Shakespeare's Sister by Virginia Wolfe. And of course I got my book signed! It is a lovely inscription.

Here is an interview with Mrs. Uruburu from May 2008 New York Magazine.

I'm sorry I still have no author horror stories. One of these days I'll meet a real jerk!

Alison Bechdel

Last night I had the pleasure of meeting Alison Bechdel at a Barnes & Noble in New York City. Alison's autobiography, Fun Home, is a full-length graphic novel memoir. The packaging is brilliant, as it looks like any hardcover book. But when you open the pages, you see the pen and ink art and witty, intelligent dialog that Alison is known for. In The New York Times Sunday Book Review, Sean Wilsey called it "a pioneering work, pushing two genres (comics and memoir) in multiple new directions." It was also nominated for many awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award and three Eisner Awards.

But most importantly, I was so very curious to see how a graphic novelist would do a reading. Would she just read from the comics? Would she act out the parts? Would she skip the reading and just talk about the process of creating graphic novels? I was happy to discover a multi-media presentation. Alison projected panels from various publications on a screen, let the audience read the talk bubbles, then made comments. After, she did an extensive question and answer period.

Of course I got my book signed, and while I was at it I questioned her on her next book. She is working on another graphic novel autobiography, which will pick up where Fun Home ended (around the college years). She was so sweet (thanking us for coming and waiting in line) and nice - some day I'll meet a mean author and blog all about how horrible they are, but so far I've only had great author interactions.

After the talk, we drove home through Central Park and down 5th Avenue. All of the stores had people working in the windows, setting up the elaborate Christmas displays. Some of the trees in Central Park were covered in lights already and lit-up snowflakes lined 5th Avenue. The tree was shipped in and set up at Rockefeller Center yesterday too. I guess the Holiday season is upon us!

LIREADS 2009

It is official, we have chosen Pulitzer Prize winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin and her book, Wait Till Next Year, as 2009's Long Island Reads. This means that libraries across Long Island will read the book, discuss the book, take part in programs and events related to the book (growing up on Long Island, the Brooklyn Dodgers, life in the 1950s) and come together in April to hear Mrs. Goodwin speak! It is all very exciting, especially when I opened my newspaper this morning to see our President elect quoting our Long Island Reads pick!

"Obama hinted broadly during the primaries that he would reach out to political rivals and even Republicans to fill his cabinet, at one point noting he was studying Lincoln's approach, reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's book "Team of Rivals."
'She talks about Lincoln's capacity to bring opponents of his and people who have run against him in his cabinet,' Obama told CBS' Katie Couric in a January interview. 'And he was confident enough to be willing to have these dissenting voices and confident enough to listen to the American people and push them outside of their comfort zone. And I think that part of what I want to do as president is push Americans a little bit outside of their comfort zone. It's a remarkable study in leadership.'"

You can see Mrs. Goodwin's website HERE.

Her books:

Fitzgeralds & the Kennedys: An American Saga, 1991

Lyndon Johnson & the American Dream, 1991

No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt -- The Home Front in World War II, 1994

Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir, 1997

Leader to Leader: Enduring Insights on Leadership from the Drucker Foundation's Award-Winning Journal. Editors: Paul M. Cohen, Frances Hesselbein, 1999. Includes an essay by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Bethany, in the Library, with a Hardcover book

Ever play Clue?

As I read The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale I feel like I'm playing a game of Clue. This is a true-crime nonfiction book. In 1860, a 3 year-old boy was snatched from his bed and murdered at a large country estate outside of London. A detective - Mr. Whicher - is sent to investigate the parents, step-siblings, maids, gardener, cook and other household staff. The book comes complete with a map of the home and grounds. You can follow the investigation through the carriage drive, into the drawing room, library, pantry, passages and spare rooms.

This book does what all good nonfiction should do: it teaches while it entertains. Summerscale does a admirable job of explaining currency in 1880's England, the origins of detective work, what work was like for policemen; and brings in Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Edgar Allen Poe and other writers of the time. There are a number of suspects: family members, townspeople, servants as well as other players: police, detectives, other villagers. Summerscale writes clearly and keeps the many names easy to remember. There is also a family tree and list of characters if you forget someone.

I have not finished the book yet but I cannot wait to find out who committed this dastardly deed!

As this rainy fall weather turns to snow, don't pull out the board games - take a book out of your local library!

Brrr

CNN.com has a great interview with Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked, Son of a Witch and the brand new Lion Among Men (and other books). In the third Wicked installment, the main character is Brrr (the Cowardly Lion). Check out the interview to see where he got the name Brrr from!

Maguire on Brrr:

"His character arises in the hollow space in our perceptions between that giant roaring lion at the MGM logo ... the ideal lion, and the kind of sad, sacked, out of work, vaudeville performer in lion pajamas that we see when Dorothy actually runs into the lion on the Yellow Brick Road.

In other words, there's a huge disconnect between the image we project of ourselves -- the best we might ever hope to possibly be -- and the way we feel about ourselves at our absolute worst -- when we're the most down in the dumps. There's a huge space in between there. So the novel's really in some ways about character and taking control of the destiny of your own character."

Michael Crichton

We were all shocked to learn, just a minute ago, that author Michael Crichton passed away at 66. Crichton was involved in TV, movies, directing, producing and was a doctor ... as well as a writer. I love him best for Jurassic Park. The movie was fun but the book was spectacular. It gives you chills and makes you think about the effects humans can have when they start tinkering with nature.

The New York Times has a family statement here.

I'm glad I made a difference....

Well, it's been a month since I gave a lecture and tour of our local history collection. We had 8 patrons attend (as many as the room will comfortably hold). I went over resources, how to search them, and how to use them in genealogy or local history research. I created a handout with quotes and search tips. I felt I did a good job.

Today an older, stooping gentleman with grey hair and glasses came up to the Reference Desk. He looked familiar.

Gent: "Hello!"

Bethany the Librarian: "Hi!"

Gent: "That class in the Long Island room was really great."

Bethany the Librarian: "Oh! I'm glad you liked it. I had a lot of fun."

Gent: "And you had really great shoes on. They were kinda pink .... and pointy."

Bethany the Librarian: (Surprised). "Oh. Um. Yes, pink and pointy. Those are good shoes."

Gent: "Yeah!! They were really nice! I like nice shoes!"

Bethany the Librarian: (Getting up from behind the Reference Desk) "Did you see THESE? I got them in London!"

I voted today! I hope you did too!

Lobsters and Songs

My daily email with book stuff arrived today with a mini interview with Stewart O'Nan. I love Last Night at the Lobster and I can't wait to read his new book, Songs For the Missing. The interview is from Shelf Awareness Daily News.



Book Brahmin: Stewart O'Nan
Stewart O'Nan was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pa., and worked as an aerospace engineer before turning to writing. He is the author of a dozen novels, including Snow Angels, A Prayer for the Dying, The Good Wife and Last Night at the Lobster. His latest novel, Songs for the Missing, is being published this month by Viking and has been praised by Dennis Lehane as the "best novel I've read all year."

On my nightstand now:

Alice Munro's Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. Next up, Woolf's To the Lighthouse, then Evan S. Connell's Mrs. Bridge. And then Alice Munro's Selected Stories, because you can't have enough Alice Munro.

Favorite book when you were a child:

Alfred Hitchcock's The Three Investigators and the Mystery of the Green Ghost. Three boys, led by the roly-poly Jupiter Jones, run a makeshift detective agency out of an old trailer buried in a scrapyard.

Your top five authors:

Shakespeare, Chekhov, Tolstoy, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King.

Book you've faked reading:

Does skimming count? In that case, Pynchon's Mason & Dixon.

Book you're an evangelist for:

The True Detective by Theodore Weesner. An unsettling yet moving story of a kidnapping in Portsmouth, N.H.

Book you've bought for the cover:

The movie tie-in paperback of Breakfast at Tiffany's with Audrey Hepburn on it.

Book that changed your life:

So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell.

Favorite line from a book:

"The reason life is so strange is that so often people have no choice."--William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

The Stand by Stephen King.

Ghosts of Southampton

The New York Times article that Lily Koppel researched at the library and at the Southampton Historical Society is here. It is very well done and perfectly spooky!

Motherhood

I cannot read two books at once for the same reasons I could not have two children.

I always have a book on CD going in my car, but for some reason that doesn't count. I do make sure that my CD book and my "real" book are very different genres or topics but I think reading a "real" book invades my mind more completely than listening to someone else read to me. Whatever bound pages I am carrying around is what I consider the "book" I am reading.

Well, I thought I would reread The Grapes of Wrath (in preparation for the first Winter Discussion Group of 2008) while also reading Obscene In The Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Both books are fabulous. That is the problem.

Whenever I am reading one book, I am wondering about the other. Have I read both equally today? Am I getting more ahead in one? Does the other book feel neglected? Am I paying attention to what I am reading right now? My god, imagine if these were children! I would be counting hugs and timing conversations.

I only have one dog and I will only have one child and from now on I'm a one book at a time girl.

Post script: Jodi from circulation brought me a cookie in the shape of a shoe. It was beautiful and I was going to take a picture or scan it for the blog but I was hungry and I ate it. It was delicious.

I love to meet authors....

...especially at my library!

I was excited when the New York Times called the other day for help with a story. I was thrilled when I learned that I was speaking to Lily Koppel, young and amazing New York Times reporter and author of The Red Leather Diary.



I loved the book and was giddy to do some research for Ms. Koppel. We exchanged emails and today she came into the library. Of course, I asked her to sign my book.



She was very sweet and we even discussed her doing a book talk here at the library.

I can't say it enough: I have the best job in the world.

What is the article about? Check this weekend's New York Times!

Lily Koppel's website is here and an interview/reading with her is here.

Awww, shucks

I received staff recognition for November/December at my library! It was very nice and very embarrassing. Not only do I get a prime parking space, but the staff does a little write up about me for the newsletter. Being the newsletter compiler and editor, it was a little funny to edit my own blurb.

And of course they mentioned my fabulous taste in shoes. Because of this, all of the patrons who read it come up to congratulate me then go into their own shoe woes. One lady was forbidden by her family to buy any more shoes. But (she whispered) she had just gone to T.J. Maxx and bought 4 pairs.

You can see the newsletter here.

Photo contest

The Suffolk County Clerk is compiling a calendar to celebrate Long Island archives. She asked for photo submissions showcasing local collections. Terry and I took a hundred (ok, more like 10) photos today but they just didn't show how pretty our local history room really is! Finally, we decided the picture needed a person to make it come alive. I was selected for my pretty pink attire. Too bad you can't see the shoes. I'll let you know if we get in the calendar! I hope I am Miss December!

The Good, The Bad and The Disappointing

I have been listening to The Other Queen, Philippa Gregory's new historical fiction, and I have to say that I am very disappointed. The narrators are great but the book itself was not what I expected and I find my mind wandering.

I am a fan of The Other Boleyn Girl and The Constant Princess but the things I like best about these books (the dialog, the historical detail of dress and royal tradition) I do not see in The Other Queen. I think I will return the book on cd, as there are a number of holds on it, and take out something entirely different: World War Z. Maybe Halloween is getting me in the mood for zombie stories.

I am also reading The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. I cannot link this book to our catalog because it does not come out until April, 2009. Morton's first book, The House at Riverton, is a great read. It is part historical fiction, part modern fiction, and beautifully written (I have reviewed this book here). The Forgotten Garden is just as great! I am happy that Morton is not a one-book wonder. Her mysteries are complex and have satisfying endings, her books are literary genre-mixers that keep the twists coming and the pages turning.

By the Book

If you just can't get enough of my reading tastes here at BethanyTheLibrarian than you can check out a new blog I am part of. It is called By the Book and it is the Rogers Memorial Library blog, available through the library website. Book reviews, recommendations, comparisons and general book blog blabber will be posted by RML Librarians. So, it's like BethanyTheLibrarian only with less pink and fewer spelling and grammatical errors. Check it out! I'm off to blog there now ....

Ouch.

Are Americans stupid? Are our writers second rate? Would we recognize literature if it stomped on our toe?

My feathers are ruffled ... yet it has a ring of truth ...

DIC.TION.ARY

I love the dictionary. I have a big, fat, brown one at home that my mom bought me one Christmas (yes! I was excited!) and I run into my library, plop it on the floor, kneel down and put my nose against the small type as often as I can. Usually, my dog is there sniffing the book and wondering why I am crouched on the floor and not playing with him.

Anyway, I just started Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. Alison will be in NYC this November and I am very excited to finally meet her. I have only just started the book because my good friends Heidi and Sascha bought a house in Syracuse and moved away with my copy! They were good enough to mail it back to me. So in reading Fun Home, I came across a fun word that I didn't know: legerdemain. Great word, right? But in looking it up, the pages of the dictionary behind the Reference Desk fell open and the word in the upper right hand corner was floccinaucinhilipilfication. Wowzers! What a word!

The more you read, the more you have to read! And if you want to know what either of those words mean, go to you dictionary ... or your local library.

Emma Donoghue at Oscar Wilde in NYC

On Friday I drove into the city to see a wonderful author, Emma Donoghue at Oscar Wilde Bookshop. She is the author of Slammerkin (Born to poverty in eighteenth-century London, Mary Saunders' love of fine clothes and a dream of a better life take her from the world of prostitution to life as a household seamstress in Monmouth to a search for true freedom) The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits (Donoghue finds her inspiration for these wry, robust tales in obscure scraps of historical records: an engraving of a woman giving birth to rabbits; a plague ballad; surgical case notes; theological pamphlets; an articulated skeleton. Here kings, surgeons, soldiers, and ladies of leisure rub shoulders with cross-dressers, cult leaders, poisoners, and arsonists) and the brand new Sealed Letter (Emily "Fido" Faithfull, a spinster pioneer in the British women's movement, is distracted from her cause by the details of her friend's failing marriage and affair with a young army officer, in this drama of friends, lovers, and divorce, Victorian style). She read from the Sealed Letter with a lovely Irish accent and a dramatic flair. After, the audience asked her the ususal questions: Who do you like to read? (Terry Pratchet, Sarah Waters). Are you writing something new? (Yes) What do you prefer, contemporary fiction or historical fiction? ("I have two woman in my life ... genre-wise"). Will you sign my book? (Yes!)

Other than the fact that Emma is a wonderful writer, what I love most about her is that she uses these strange little nuggets from history and creates entire books around them. The Sealed Letter is based on an actual Victorian divorce case that was in all the newspapers and was quite shocking for the time. She also sprinkles her books with fabulous words from the period (hugger-mugger, pettifoggery, chicanery) that adds an authentic feel to the drama.

Emma is back in Canada now, hopefully working hard on her next book. Until then, pick up one of her novels, short story collections, retold fairy tales, plays or literary histories and anthologies.

My favorite holiday!

It's that time of year again! Where we assert our right to choose for ourselves what we want to read! Yup, Banned Books Week is September 27 through October 4. Terry and I just put a great display together:





There is a list of banned books from 2000-2007 at ALA. Read one of these banned books and assert your fREADom!

Lucy and Anne

I love the Anne books by Lucy Maud Montgomery. For my 7th birthday my Aunt Barbara gave the full set and the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder (which I will gush about at a later date). I read Anne's story numerous times in my single and double digit years. I love them so much that, when I graduated from college, my mother and I took a road trip to Prince Edward Island to see where Lucy was born, where she lived, the inspiration for the forest and fields in the books, and her grave. I love them so much that my all-time favorite movie scene is from You've Got Mail: a customer tells Meg Ryan (owner of a children's book store) that when she bought Anne of Green Gables she was advised to read it with a box of tissues. I cry and laugh every time!

Well, 2008 is the 100th anniversary of the publication of Anne of Green Gables. There is a new book out on Lucy, called Looking for Anne of Green Gables: the Story of L.M. Montgomery and her Literary Classic as well as reprints of the books themselves. And in the September 19, 2008 Globe and Mail Lucy's granddaughter speaks out about the crippling depression Lucy suffered with her entire life. In fact, she reveals that Lucy actually died from an intentional drug overdose - suicide. It's a heartbreaking article and I think the revelations will force us to read Anne with new eyes.

I say Peeps, you say Peppys

I woke up last night around 1:30 a.m. and picked up Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self by Claire Tomalin and finished the last 3 chapters. It is a long journey, but a wonderfully done book.

There is some nonfiction out there that reads like fiction, but this book is straight up nonfiction. Tomalin doesn't hold back the dates, political details, meandering family trees or detailed medical and relationship dirt. But this is exactly what I love about her biographies. I read Jane Austen: A Life and when I finished it I had learned not only about Jane Austen's life, but also about her time. While reading about Pepys, I admit, I had to look up some events in other books. Perhaps because I bought my copy in England there were less explanations of political details that, as an American, I didn't understand (our library copy has a different - uglier - cover...perhaps there are additional footnotes or an Americanized version). Regardless, I feel that I know Pepys (incidentally, I understand the pronunciation is "peeps") and I have a much better understanding of London during the 1660s-1670s. He lived through so many major events - the plague, the great fire of 1666 that destroyed all of medieval London, the killing of Charles I and the creation of a commonwealth in London, the introduction of tea in London, and so on - his daily musings are well written and cover dramatic events.

As I was coming to the end of Samuel Pepys, I (of course) was already planning my next book. I had purchased so many anglobooks (my new word) while on vacation but I had just devoted so much time on Pepys, I felt it was time for something different. Ah-ha! I thought! The Red Leather Diary was in my "read soon!" pile in my library. This was the exact opposite of Pepys! He was 1660's London, this was 1930s New York! As I got into the book, however, I found that I managed to find a book that was a biography of a person based on their found diary. As opposite as the locations and times are the books are actually strangely similar.

Finally, as I go through my Pepys withdrawal (I feel like we are friends now) I have come across a really fabulous website. Each day it posts Pepy's diary entry for that day (revolving through, year by year). Today, September 18, for example, has Pepys' entry for September 18, 1665. You can also search the diary for terms or specific dates. How amazing! I can get my daily dose of Pepys and read his diary in "real time" ... day by day!

Sony Readers Just Don't Fill a Bookcase

"Books, as any visitor to a civilised house knows, do furnish a room. Books never look untidy, even when piled in tumbling stacks ... There is something sensuous, possibly even erotic, about the book. It appeals to both the senses and the intellect as well as to your hidden interior designer. And what curious pleasures are to be found in antiquarian bookshops - the market for used Sony Readers will perhaps never be quite so attractive."

There are those who love to predict the end of books and there are those who say, "You're crazy!" Peter Crawshaw says "You're crazy" in the BBC News Magazine. He's got lots of great reasons why books will always be here ... including the decorative reason above. And for those of you who don't want to READ about why we need books, there is a nifty 3 minute video.

While he argues that books are here to stay, my New York Magazine arrived Monday with an article predicting the end of the book publishing industry ... as we know it. You can read about that here.

Pages turning like autumn leaves.

Bring on the fall!

I love pumpkin carving and cooler weather and sleeping with the windows opened and passing out Halloween candy and putting on homemade sweaters. And I especially love all the books that are being published this fall.

Bring on the sequels!
Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked (basis of the Broadway play) and the sequel Son of a Witch has written a third installment, A Lion Among Men.



John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick was published in 1984 but the sequel, The Widows of Eastwick, is being published in 2008.



Nelson DeMille is a very popular author on Long Island. The Gold Coast, published over ten years ago, is finally getting a sequel. The Gate House will be published in October.



Bring on the new books for long winter nights!
Some of my favorite authors are going to keep me busy until spring.

Julia Glass' new book, I See You Everywhere, "Follows the intertwined lives of two sisters--Louisa Jardine, the conscientious older sister who yearns for a good marriage, an artistic career, and a family, and her younger sister Clem, an iconoclastic, daring rebel--over the course of twenty-five years."



Neil Gaiman returns to YA with Graveyard Book. "Raised since he was a baby by ghosts, werewolves, and other residents of the cemetery in which he has always resided, Bod wonders how he will manage to survive amongst the living with only the lessons he has learned from the dead." Like Coraline, this will be a read-aloud Halloween book.



Another Halloween pick is Just After Sunset, a new collection of short stories by the Maine master of the macabre, Stephen King. Until its release date, check out the animated graphic novel version of one of the short stories here.



So pour a cup of apple cider and open a book. If you see the leaves piling up on my front lawn it's because I'm too busy to rake!

13 to 6

The longlist has become the shortlist.
The 2008 Man Booker Prize shortlist is as follows:

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant
The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

They cut Child 44 and A Case of Exploding Mangoes, among others. Any opinions on the above 6? I'm ashamed to say I have not read ANY of them!!

Year of Reading

One evening in London, after walking all day until my feet ached, I was lying in bed and flipping through the television channels. I came across a commercial that made me stand up (aching feet and all) and cheer. 2008 is a National Year of Reading in the UK and THIS is the fabulous ad they are running on t.v.

I know my library is beautiful...

but apparently NBC agrees.

It's my first day back at work and all day a group of people have been stamping across our lawn, looking up at our building, making strange hand gestures and running down the middle of the street with cameras. Yes, our building is being filmed as part of a pilot for a new NBC sitcom called Royal Pains. It is about a NYC doctor who somehow comes to work at a fictional Hamptons hotel (our library, with a big "West Wind Hotel" sign stuck on the front). So watch out for it, and when you see the shot of the "Hotel", look for me in the window.

The London Book Tour '08

I'm back! I had an amazing two weeks in London. I bought a pair of shoes, went to museums, took a bus to Kent but mostly I tracked down bookshops, libraries and other literary places.
We stayed right down the road from Charing Cross Road, the place where the bookstore from 84 Charing Cross Road was and still the home of many, many bookstores (both independent and not - lots of used, rare and specialized but also the home of Borders).


Needless to say, I bought a few books.


I visited the British Library,

a library in Leeds castle (Kent)

and the Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

At the Tower of London I saw words carved into stone hundreds of years ago

and at Shakespeare's Globe I saw some of his works, hundreds of years old.

In Leister Square I came across a beautiful statue

and somewhere in London I bumped into Oscar Wilde! ... well, a statue of him.

I'll have more London stories later!

I'm not here right now, but if you leave a message ...

I leave in 3 days and there is so much to do! We have our big end-of-summer and end-of-summer-reading club tea tomorrow so we are baking and shopping and calling and generally acting like headless chickens. Meanwhile, I am packing and sorting and organizing and trying to make sure I don't forget essential overseas travel things ... like face wash or passports. And to top it off, I'm trying to finish my two British-themed books before I leave.

Last night I was all cozy in bed (with the AC on and my doggie snuggled beside me) enjoying the cute, quaint, book-lovers book The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Then I turned to page 178. Oh, I won't give it away but I lay sobbing for awhile. It's a wonderful, if slightly melodramatic, book. When it is finished I will quickly read The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett (Queen Elizabeth finds she loves to read ... what could be better??) and then I'm ready to crack my crisp, new paperback copy of Jason Pinter's The Mark on the plane.

Needless to say, I'll be too busy browsing the British Library and shopping at every book store I can find in Central London to do any blogging! So until September, happy reading!

Roll Call

If you reside in or are visiting the Hamptons this week, grab a copy of Hampton Style. It is free and available wherever you can get Dan's Papers (whose cover story this week is the annual Artist and Writers Charity Softball Game - the artists won for the second year in a row). Hampton Style's cover story is writers of the Hamptons and on the cover is my favorite patron, Tom Wolfe. He is looking elegant in a (BLUE?!) blazer over his white shirt and pants. My favorite part of the story is looking closely at the photos of Mr. White in his Southampton home ... you can see titles to some of the books on his shelves.
The issue also contains a compiled list of local writers, which we at the library contributed to. In case you are not lucky enough to be on the East End of Long Island, here is the list:

Edward Albee
Alan Alda
Arlene Alda
Julie Andrews
Marjorie Appleman
Philip Appleman
Ken Auletta
David B. Axelrod
Melissa Bank
Helen Barer
Richard Barrons
Louis Begley
Edward Bleier
James Brady
Ben Bradlee
Marie Brenner
Tina Brown
Tricia Brown
Robert Caro
Betsy Carter
Marilyn Church
Mark Ciabattari
Tom Clavin
Bob Colacello
Jennet Conant
Gwyneth Cravens
Sophie Dahl
Robert Dash
Jill A. Davis
Nelson DeMille
Morris Dickstein
E.L. Doctorow
Antony Drexel-Duke
David Ebershoff
Nora Ephron
Jason Epstein
Sir Harold Evans
Charles Ades Fishman
James Frey
Alan Furst
Steven Gaines
Philip Galanes
Danielle Ganek
Ina Garten
Stan Goldberg
Barbara Goldowsky
Barbara Goldsmith
Aaron Richard Golub
Alastair Gordon
Martin Gottfried
Gael Greene
John Jonas Gruen
Patricia Gussin
Angelica Harris
Ursula Hegi
Amy Hempel
Arthur Herzog
Barbara T. Hoffman
A.M. Homes
Robert Hughes
Bonnie Jacobson
D. Daniel Judson
Phil Keith
Pamela C. Keogh
Klaus Kertess
Chris Knopf
Jill Krementz
Alex Kuczynski
Lucette Lagnado
Denise LeFrak Calicchio
Margaret Logan
Robert Long
Mike Lupica
David Margolick
Peter Matthiessen
Renee Mauborgne
Nick McDonell
Jay McInerney
Hope McIntyre
Marijane Meaker
Sylvia Mendelman
Barbara Metzger
Danny Meyer
John Meyer
Judith Miller
James Monaco
Daniel Thomas Moran
Bob Morris
William Norwich
Josephine Nobisso
Sidney Offit
Joseph Olshan
Holly Peterson
Jean Marie Pierson
Nicholas Pileggi
Joe Pintauro
Jason Pinter
Allen Planz
Taylor Plimpton
Norman Podhoretz
Faith Popcorn
Anne Porter
Norman S. Poser
Georgette Preston
Richard Price
Sally Quinn
Nahid Rachlin
Phyllis Raphael
Dan Rattiner
Robert Reeves
Paul Reickhoff
Robert Borris Riskin
Roger Rosenblatt
Jim Rutenberg
James Salter
Lynne W. Scanlon
Karenna Schiff
Caroline Kennedy-Schlossberg
Bud Schulberg
Philip Schultz
Michael Shnayerson
Dani Shapiro
Wilfred Sheed
Julie Sheehan
Gail Sheehy
Carol Sherman
Dava Sobel
Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel
Warren St. John
Anne Surchin
Simon Van Booy
Eric Van Lustbader
Victoria Van Lustbader
Emma Walton
Kurt Wenzel
Barbara Wersba
Alexandra Wolfe
Tom Wolfe
Hilma Wolitzer

Newsflash

It seems like every few months there is some sort of expose of school or library spending. Well, it's that time again. When I grabbed my soggy Newsday from my front lawn Saturday I opened it to find an article about the different taxes charged in different Long Island communities, and how just because some people pay more it doesn't mean they have a "better" library. You can see the full article here.
I found myself yelling at my dog (the only one who listens) over the paper. Yes, Sachem Public Library serves one of the biggest communities, but just because other libraries have more books does not mean they are misspending their money. Sachem does a dizzying amount of programs, trips and classes. They do so much because that is what their community wants and needs, so more of the budget goes to that department (actually, they have an entire staff devoted to programs, whereas other libraries have their programs coordinated by "reference" librarians, which means programming is not their only job). It is actually a GOOD thing that libraries differ so much. The whole point of a library is to be a community center that caters to its individual community. And on a diverse island such as ours, that means vast differences from community to community, library to library.

This morning's soggy paper yeilded less yelling. An opinion piece by Bob Keeler reminded me that there are patrons out there who will stand up for their libraries. Those who are looking for scandal to fill a newspaper are not patrons, just like those who bellyache about library taxes are not patrons. Community members who use their libraries for books, movies, classes, entertainment and as community centers know what a great bargain they are.

Authors, authors everywhere

I missed seeing Paula Uruburu when she was at Cold Spring Harbor Library so I have decided to take it upon myself to bring her to my library ... even though we have a programming department that does an amazing job. So I have emailed Mrs. Uruburu and am anxiously awaiting her response. I figured I'd take a break from checking my email and post.

Twice now I've seen Zachary Lazar, local resident and author of Sway, here at the library typing away with a huge pile of typed pages beside his Mac. Is it totally rude to ask him what he is writing about next??

A reporter from Hampton Style contacted me yesterday because they are running a piece on all the writers who live full time or just summers in the Hamptons. She wanted to see if she missed any and between Terry and Elizabeth we thought of a number of additions. I won't post the list now (I don't want to scoop them!) but maybe after the issue is out ... it's amazing who is out here!!

I hope this is me someday!

A woman who began her work as a librarian in 1934 is still at it ... at 100!
Full article here.

Q: What's better than a great book?

A: Finding out the author is a nice guy!

Our final Summer Reading Program genre discussion group was Monday and we discussed mysteries. Thanks to Terry, our librarian/bookstore owner, we had a guest speaker. Jason Pinter, author of The Mark, The Guilty and the newly released The Stolen (all with protagonist Henry Parker) who came bearing homemade cookies and brownies. He gave our (large!) group a short biography and then took questions. We learned about what books he reads, how he constructs his mysteries and how he went about getting his books published.

Terry and I also had the pleasure of having dinner with Jason after the discussion. We got some great dirt on a big writer (he he) along with our Italian food. And Jason even let me follow him on the scary, dark back roads of the Hamptons to the highway.

The best part is that this nice, young guy is getting crazy buzz! From Publishers Weekly, "Parker's first-person voice dominates: it lists between Parker as gritty, desensitized journalist and young romantic who wants little more than to spend the rest of his life with one woman. The emotional dichotomy makes Parker a captivating and complex protagonist, one whose pithy observations about New York are dead on." Jason has also been nominated for a string of various awards.

I have a long flight in 17 days and I am a nervous flier. I need some good distractions so I purchased Jason's three books (from my local independent bookstore :) ). After meeting him and hearing so many good things about the character he has created I am anxious to start ... but I will hide the books from myself until the day I leave for London. And I'll finally get to meet Henry Parker high above the Atlantic Ocean.

The saddest thing I could think of

A library in Maine was hit by lightening and burned to the ground. The entire collection of books and local history materials were destroyed.
Full article here.

Man Booker Prize 2008!

The longlist for the 2008 Man Booker Prize:

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold
The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
From A to X by John Berger
The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant
A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

The shortlist will be announced on September 9, and the £50,000 winner will be announced on October 14 at an awards ceremony in London.

A surprisingly good book; A surprisingly bad book

I just finished two books. One of the books had me excited for months and turned out to be completely mediocre. The other book I picked up assuming I would put it right down but it has surpassed my expectations to the point of enthralling me.
Let me say before I give a bad review - I own every one of David Sedaris' books and most of them are signed. I have travelled to hear him give a reading and when I read his essays I usually end up squirting milk through my nose or choking on salad (I like to eat while I read). So clearly, I was very excited to hear about his new collection, When You Are Engulfed In Flames. Others were excited, too. There are hundreds of reserves in the Suffolk County Library System alone and the book remains #1 on the New York Times hardcover nonfiction bestseller list.
A few weeks ago I found myself at Penn Station with nothing to read (scariest thing I can imagine other than the giant spiders in Harry Potter). Browsing the Penn Station book store, I picked up Sedaris' book. I was one of the hundreds waiting for a library copy and figured I might as well purchase a copy. At the last minute I changed my mind (and picked up the latest issue of New York Magazine, which had a cover story by Tom Wolfe that was absolutely fabulous). Now that I have waited my turn and read the book I am sorry to say that I am happy I didn't purchase the hardcover at full price. It's just not that funny.
As a fan, I would say that the book is worth reading. The first essay had me giggling and the last (and lengthiest) essay on his attempts to quit smoking in Tokyo were interesting in an armchair travel sort of way, but not so much in a humorous story kind of way. But Sedaris' life is interesting, nonetheless. Who else gets to live in Normandy, Paris, and NYC while travelling to countless other countries large and small.

A librarian from another library had mentioned the book Three Junes in passing. I picked it up recently and it has taken me by surprise. I feel like this book is at a level beyond everyday fiction for three reasons:
1. This is a well-built book. I don't know if I have ever said that of any other novel, but the way this book is designed adds to the story. It is in three parts: the first through the eyes of Paul, an older Scottish man who has just lost his wife and is travelling through Greece. He finds himself attracted to a young female artist and through the conversations they have you learn of his three sons.
In the second part, Paul has passed away and the story is through the eyes of his oldest son, Fenno, who has left Scotland to open a bookstore in New York City. The final part takes place on Long Island when Fenno comes across the young artist his father had met in Greece.
2. The words. Yes, all books are made of words. But which words? Some are full of cliches and overly used adverbs, other are pretentious in their vocabulary but Three Junes is neither. Her descriptions are unique and efficient enough to be noticeable but are never show-offy.
3. Characters. This book is brimming with interesting, 3-D characters who are both everyday and extraordinary.

It's no wonder Three Junes, Julia Glass' first book, won the National Book Award.

What classic literary character are you?

Make me a classic character!

This is a fun, short quiz that tells you what classic character you are. It's also an impressive website! Click on the link above, watch the nifty intro, than click on Which Character Are You? on the upper right hand side.

American Eve

I have just finished a book so good that it has left me in mourning. I mourn the death of Evelyn Nesbit and the end of the book. I also mourn the fact that I missed meeting the author, Paula Uruburu, a week ago. She is a professor at Hofstra University here on Long Island and I look forward to another opportunity to meet her and get a copy of American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the "It" Girl and the Crime of the Century signed!
This book was an amazing read for many reasons. First, the story of Evelyn Nesbit and Stanford White has all the ingredients of a classic, tragic love story but could still satisfy today's gossip lovers (a la tmz.com). The fact that this story is told by Professor Uruburu makes it all the more enjoyable. She is an expert on the time period (1899-1900 turn of the century), the pop culture of the period and feminist history. This could all equal a big bore of a book in the wrong hands, but it is the definition of nonfiction that reads like fiction. I could not put this book down. The many photos of Evelyn and other "characters" throughout the text perfectly illustrate the narrative.



This book is HIGHLY recommended for anyone who enjoys reading about the history of Manhattan, architecture, gossipy and scandalous murder trials, rags to riches bildungsromans, or pop culture during the turn of the century.

So Many Books, So Much Eyestrain....

We have been noticing here at the Reference Desk - as we peruse Publishers Weekly and Booklist - that there are tons of exciting books being published in the near future. It gets us salivating as librarians but also as readers.
Usually I have a list of MUST READs 1 or 2 long, but lately the list is getting longer and longer. Some have already been published and some won't be released for another month or two. Here are the books I am drooling to read (in no particular order):
The Film Club by David Gilmour
Documents the author's efforts to impart key life lessons to his high-school-dropout son by showing him three movies every week, in an account that describes how such films as True Romance and Rosemary's Baby enabled father-and-son dialogues about a range of life issues, from relationships and work to drugs and culture.
Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir From an Atomic Town by Kelly McMasters
An evocative memoir of growing up in working-class Long Island describes her youth in a town known as a service town for the glamorous Hamptons, a place plagued by such disasters as a UFO, a childhood cancer cluster, and the nearby Brookhaven nuclear laboratory, which leaked nuclear and chemical waste into the aquifer from which town residents got their water.
The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran
Raised an outcast in the court of ancient Egypt after the deaths of her heretical relatives, Princess Nefertari is uncertain of her future until the heir to the throne, the future Rameses the Great, falls in love with her and offers her marriage, but his reign is beset with turmoil, in a story of Egypt's Nineteenth Dynasty. By the author of Nefertiti.
More Than It Hurts You by Darin Strauss
The lives of a family and a doctor are irrevocably changed and intertwined by a possible case of Munchausen by Proxy, a situation that forces a mother to question everything from her past and the doctor's concerns about her role in tearing a distressed family apart.
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale
Traces the 1860 murder of a young child whose death launched a national obsession with detection throughout England, nearly destroyed the career of a top Scotland Yard investigator, and inspired the birth of modern detective fiction.
Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo
Determined to seek her fortune in Beijing, Fenfang Wang leaves her rural farm to travel 1,800 miles to pursue her dreams in the city where, setting out to live a modern life, she lands a job as a film extra, falls under the spell of two unsuitable young men, and finally finds her true calling in an unexpected place. By the author of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers.
The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue
Emily "Fido" Faithfull, a spinster pioneer in the British women's movement, is distracted from her cause by the details of her friend's failing marriage and affair with a young army officer, in this drama of friends, lovers, and divorce, Victorian style.

I spy .... books

During a lovely visit to NYC I saw polar bears at the Central Park zoo, a man looking at a $32,500 diamond ring at Tiffanys, and people reading books. Everywhere. My favorite thing to do in NYC (along with the zoo and Tiffanys) is to sneak peeks at what people are reading. I admit - I do it everywhere I go - but it is the most interesting in big cities. I suppose that is because of the diversity of the people and their reading tastes but also because they have nearly every book available to them. Between the Barnes and Noble on every corner, to the world famous second-hand and rare bookshops, to the department store-sized comic book stores (we checked out Cosmic Comics and Jim Hanley's Universe), not to mention the incredible New York Public Library system, New Yorkers have their pick of books.

In my travels, I saw the ticket taker at the zoo reading a V.C. Andrews, a teen on the subway reading The Sign of Four (and another teen with a book in his short's pocket - I couldn't see what it was!), and a woman on the street reading A Thousand Spledid Suns (really, standing on the street. Waiting for someone, maybe?).

Susan Nagel

My 4th of July weekend was spent spending. I stopped by Terry's bookstore The Open Book in Westhampton on Saturday to meet the author of (and purchase a copy of) Marie-Terese, Child of Terror: The Fate of Marie Antoinette's Daughter by Susan Nagel. Mrs. Nagel was friendly and clearly very passionate about her subject. She is currently looking for a third subject to write a book about and we discussed research opportunities. I look forward to reading about the fate of Marie-Terese. The New York Times reviewed the book here.

Wolfes in the library

Let me tell you - the best time to come do some quiet work in the library is the evening before a holiday. The place is a tomb. I am sitting here, ironically, reading the fabulous book In The Hamptons: My Fifty Years with Farmers, Fisherman, Artists, Billionaires, and Celebrities by Dan Rattiner. All is quiet except a patron or two taping away at a keyboard and the murmering of voices in the lobby. We have a monthly art opening, where patrons can meet the artist of that month's exhibit and snack on crackers and cheese (which is otherwise illigal!). As I pass by the gathering on my way to circulation, Mr. X from the board of trustees says, "Hello Beth!" He is speaking with a tall man dressed in a white suit. "Hello" I wave back to the men.

Back at my desk, a regualar patron stops by. "Hey! Did you know Tom Wolfe just left?" he asks me.

It's never a boring night at the library!

London Calling

The countdown begins for our trip to London! I have major homework to do. Piled next to my bed, I have all the latest travel guides as well as a collection of London-related fiction and nonfiction. Here is what I trip over when I get up to pee in the middle of the night:
London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd (800 pages of history)
London: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd (History of the greatest city through fictional characters)
Imagined London by Anna Quindlen (a tour of London's writers and their character's' haunts)
Night Watch by Sarah Waters (Well, all of Sarah Waters' books are amazing works set in London. Night Watch is set during the Blitz and it is sad and magnificent.)

Alison Weir - fiction or nonfiction, she will show you the London of Henry VIII. My favorites are The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Innocent Traitor (the story of Lady Jane Grey that the beefeaters tell) and The Lady Elizabeth.


Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens (his name is synonymous with London)
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale (a true murder mystery that took place in a great estate outside of London)

Maisie Dobbs by Jacquline Winspear (quaint and cozy mysteries from the time between World War I and II. Full of details of London's high and low society, clothes, vacations, politics and more)
Jack the Ripper: The Complete Casebook by Donald Rumbelow (we went on a nighttime Jack the Ripper tour with Rumbelow and he was very informative. You can find him in random DVD extras or TV specials on Jack the Ripper too. This book is an oldie but goodie).

I know I tend to lean towards historical fiction but it is London's history that makes it so fascinating. As Anna Quindlen wrote in Imagined London, "Behind every door in London there are stories, behind every one ghosts. The greatest writers in the history of the written word have given them substance, given them life."