books Archives - Page 12 of 25 - Ramblin' with Roger

The library meme

I don’t think there’s a book EVERYONE should read.

Per Chuck Miller, my fellow Times Union blogger:

“The System”: In the main, the books on music, movies, television are on the shelf in front of me. Behind me: almanacs/trivia; church/faith/religion, including hymnals; the recently acquired unread; bio/autobio; classics (Shakespeare, Grimm, Twain); politics; Beatles. Off to the right, and also upstairs, comic book/comic strip stuff (Marvel Masterworks, Doonesbury collections, Elfquest collections, Life Is Hell). This is imperfect, and I’m much less fussy than I used to be.

Favorite female writer: Rachel Carson. She changed my life.

Favorite male writer: Nelson George.

Bought on location (where the writer lived, the book takes place, the movie adaptation was shot): I often buy a book at the museum shop: some book on FDR, e.g., though I don’t always READ them. Of course, I own some books about Albany: O Albany! by William Kennedy, Old Albany, Mayor Corning by Paul Grondahl, Ed Dague’s autobiography (he was a local newscaster).

The largest and the smallest book you own: Some Beatles coffee table thing is the largest. Perhaps, Baseball: Our Game by John Thorn is the smallest, though I used to have a tinier one that is MIA.

Complete works of one author: At one point, it was Russell Baker. All I have now are books cited as complete works, Billy Shakes, Twain, Grimm.

Favorite poetry collection: This series of periodicals called Washout, co-edited by an ex-girlfriend.

Favorite biography: I’ve read so many Beatles bios, they’ve blended together. I’ll say Gandhi, An Autobiography.

Favorite cookbook: Some Betty Crocker thing from c. 1964.

Favorite graphic novel: Maus. I used to know Art Spiegelman when he’d come up to Albany to promote his publication RAW.

A book you didn’t understand at all: Some science fiction book I gave up on, no doubt.

“One of these things is not like the others” (inconsistent editions within a series): There are features in some reference books, Top Pop Singles, Top Pop Albums, and The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, for three, that I’ve had to hold onto earlier editions because they had info that subsequent versions did not. For instance, Top Pop Albums used to have the songs of the albums, but now, for space reasons, it does not.

Best bargain: I’ve gotten a lot of free or cheap books. Somehow, I got a review copy of Freddie & Me by Mike Dawson, and I really liked it.

Most recent purchase: The Opposite of Everything by David Kalish; I went to a reading at the Book House in Stuyvesant Plaza.

Favorite layout design: probably The Dark Knight graphic novel.

Book you bought because of the title: The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, which I knew The Daughter would appreciate.

Book you bought because of the cover design. Probably happened, but no example comes to mind.

Multiple translations of the same work: The Bible.

Multiple copies of the same work: I have a Complete Shakespeare, and my wife does. That count?

The funniest book you own: probably some Dave Berry book about music.

The most expensive book you own: It may be that coffee-table Beatles book. It’s also the heaviest.

A recurring interest/theme. Anything about the music of the 1940s until the end of the century: musician bios, Billboard charts.

A book you read so many times that it fell apart: Some I Spy novelization I had as a kid.

A book you think everyone should read: I don’t, actually, mostly because I wouldn’t want to be likewise dictated to. One reads a book when ready, or does not.

A book that made you cry: Diary of Anne Frank. Unoriginal choice, I suppose.

A book you would prescribe for an aspiring author: Life Itself by Roger Ebert.

A cover design you hate: Those from most romance novels.

A book that was a waste of your time. I don’t think that’s happened. I read a book, I don’t get engaged, I put it down. There are other books.

Favorite book from your childhood: Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss. Speaking truth to power.

The book with the most pages in your collection: Maybe The People’s Almanac, which has 1400 pages or so.

And there you have it. Feel free to take this list and add your own library to it.

Book review: The New Jim Crow

Law professor Michelle Alexander wrote a book called The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, which has become not only a surprise best seller since its paperback version came out in January 2012, but arguably THE definitive book on mass incarceration, particularly of men of color.

From the New York Times: “The book marshals pages of statistics and legal citations to argue that the get-tough approach to crime that began in the Nixon administration and intensified with Ronald Reagan’s declaration of the war on drugs has devastated black America.

“Today… nearly one-third of black men are likely to spend time in prison at some point, only to find themselves falling into permanent second-class citizenship after they get out… Professor Alexander’s book [asserts] that the crackdown was less a response to the actual explosion of violent crime than a deliberate effort to push back the gains of the civil rights movement.”

Our church studied the book in February during the Adult Education hour. In brief, Alexander shows an imperfect, but palpable, link from slavery to the Jim Crow laws that took effect, from after the American Civil War to perhaps a half-century ago. That was followed by a NEW Jim Crow of mass incarceration, where the number of people in prison in the United States grew from about 300,000 in 1970 to over 2 million by 2000.

Check out Uneven Justice: State Rates of Incarceration By Race and Ethnicity and Breaking Down Mass Incarceration in the 2010 Census: State-by-State Incarceration Rates by Race/Ethnicity.

Impact

Moreover, that mass incarceration has had a devastating effect on communities. From the book:

What has changed since the collapse of Jim Crow has less to do with the basic structure of our society than with the language we use to justify it. In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don’t. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color “criminals” and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind.

Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you’re labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination—employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service—are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.

The problem with having read this book is that, once you’ve done that, you know the basic premise to be self-evidently true, and don’t understand why EVERYONE doesn’t know this. The one saving grace is that, when Alexander first started investigating the issue early in this century, SHE hadn’t connected the dots either.

I will note that the author occasionally repeats the narrative, I reckon, so that she’s certain the reader gets the point she’s making. But these are important points. Moreover, the issues are still taking place. Read Jails: Time to Wake Up to Mass Incarceration in Your Neighborhood.

The professional challenges of being a librarian

EVERYTHING I have read suggests that books, paper books are generally preferable.

Near-twin Gordon, whose birthday is the day before mine, only a few decades later, says:

OK, here’s a question:
Working in the librarian/information field, what do you see are your key professional challenges?

On March 14, 2015, I attended this workshop primarily of the board of the Albany Public Library. I was invited as the president of the Friends of the APL. One of the issues was that very subject.

One of the challenges is that some people associate the library with only books, not realizing that libraries do so much more than lend tomes. Almost every librarian I know have asked whether the library will be defunct in X number of years, AND that, because of Google, there will be no need for librarians.

Frankly, it used to irritate me, but now I laugh, LAUGH, I do. Because one of my primary responses is that a lot of the things found on Google is, to put it mildly, CRAP. Part of our job is not to find the first answer that shows up on an online search but to discern what is the USEFUL and USABLE information.

Statistics show that about 90% of all people in the US are in support of libraries, conceptually, but most people don’t quite know what they DO. This is both a challenge and an opportunity.

The Albany Public Library, specifically, engages in online database use, has developed local history expertise, lends eBooks and audiobooks, has a 3D printer and other skill tools.

The library is often the only free Internet some folks have, which people use to look for and apply for jobs. There’s this myth that young people magically understand the newer technology, but that’s only true if they have ACCESS to it. Lots of kids use the computer rooms at APL, and undoubtedly, most libraries.

For me, as a business librarian, the wonder that is the Internet means two specific challenges.

1) People see information out there that comes from some expensive research consortium and want that research.
2) People see information out there that is bogus and want us to verify it, or find out more about it.

Information has gotten expensive. We have access to some databases, and that helps our counselors assist their clients. One of the great advantages of using some resources, whether they be free or fee, is that you understand the nuances of what’s available.

I use freely available Census data a lot because most people can’t figure out how to use it. Heck, sometimes, I need help from people with greater expertise.

One of the things that is true of the vast majority of librarians is that they display collegiality by nature, rather than competitiveness. I noticed that even back at library school in the 1990s, a refreshing change from my failed attempt at getting a Master’s in Public Administration a decade earlier.

Fillyjonk reflects:

Riffing on Gordon’s question: What do you see as the future of libraries?

I think the answer depends on how well the supports for libraries tell the story. If they allow the narrative to be “libraries were useful once upon a time, but they’re so 20th century,” and this is not challenged, then libraries will suffer.

The New York State Library took some massive cuts in years past, which meant a reduction in public hours, and a slashing of staff. I knew people who worked there. Librarians, by their very nature, want to find the answer, but if you limit their ability to do so, it is very discouraging. I think the NYSL took a hit that it’s only starting to recover from.

Libraries nationally have suffered. The number of library workers is clearly down. Friends’ groups and others have to advocate for libraries, ESPECIALLY when politicians act inanely.

I participated in my very first Library Advocacy Day at the state legislature in February 2015. Staff can share their own narrative, but taxpayers think that they are just worried about their own jobs. USERS who tell the tale are much more powerful ambassadors for libraries.

What do you think about the college (can’t remember if it was a 2-year or 4-year) that decided to go 100% digital with its library?

I assume you are referring to this San Antonio library, which came up in our meeting. It’s a branch of a larger library/ Per public demand, it’s needed to be at least a drop-off and pickup point for actual books.

Follow up question: are those of us who prefer paper books going to be like dragons with hoards of inky treasure?

EVERYTHING I have read suggests that books, paper books are generally preferable. Better absorption of the information, less interference with sleep patterns, reduces stress.

This is not to say that books WILL win out. There are plenty of examples where the lesser technology (VCR over Betamax, e.g.) won out. But I have hope. Children, in particular, need books, which require the tactile adventure that electronics simply cannot provide.

Pictured T-shirt is available HERE.

New Dr. Seuss v. new Harper Lee

Many of my friends expressed great anticipation at finally reading new words from Harper Lee.

JEOPARDY! episode #7008, aired 2015-02-18. Category: SEUSSIAN KEYWORDS

“Oom-pahs and boom-pahs” help this title elephant save folks from “Beezle-Nut oil”

“A ten-foot beard” & “a sleigh and an elephant” are said to be on this street

Sylvester McMonkey McBean dealt with “Star-Belly” & “Plain-Belly” these, who hung out “on the beaches”

“Flupp Flupp Flupp” & “the Father of the Father of Nadd” are found within his “500 Hats”

“Truffula Fruits”, “bar-ba-loot suits” & “Humming-Fish” are in the world of this title fella

Answers at the end.
***
I was delighted to discover that there were more Dr. Seuss stories, released in 2014, that had never been published in book form before.

The challenge of figuring out what was true about the children’s author drove [Northampton, MA dentist Charles] Cohen to spend more than 25,000 hours studying the life and work of Ted Geisel.

Over the course of his research, he kept seeing references to Dr. Seuss stories that he’d never heard and at first thought were just more misinformation. A trip to the magazine archives of the Boston Public Library proved otherwise.

There, in Redbook issues from the 1940s and 1950s, Cohen discovered approximately 30 Dr. Seuss stories that had never made it into books.

The illustrations, though tiny, were unmistakably Seussian, as were the themes, settings, characters, morals, rhythm and rhyme of the stories.

My affection for Seuss – whose name is often misspelled as Suess, even in the URL of the Newsweek story above – comes in large part because his characters were often taking on pompous authority figures. The king in Yertle the Turtle, a book I’d only first read in the last decade, literally takes a fall from his throne of oppression. My all-time favorite Seuss book, Bartholomew and the Oobleck, shows the lad chastising the king for his foolishness.

Yes, these “new” stories were published, but lost, until fairly recently.

In July 2015, a recently discovered manuscript with illustrations called “What Pet Should I Get” will be released. Random House “plans at least two more books, based on materials found in 2013 in the author’s home in La Jolla, California, by his widow and secretary.” Good news.

I was also pleased by the announcement that the sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird was going to be published, over half a century after the original. Many of my friends expressed great anticipation at finally reading “new” words from Harper Lee.

Then the backlash came. Don’t Publish Harper Lee’s New Novel, HarperCollins. The argument is that the author is “increasingly blind and deaf.” Importantly, “Lee’s protective older sister Alice died last year at the age of 103. And now, 60 years after stashing it in a box and stowing it away, the notoriously shy author decides to send an apparently unedited novel into the world?” Moreover, many of her neighbors are quoted as saying that they “believe her wishes for her career are not being respected.”

I’m feeling quite ambivalent about this. If Go Set a Watchman had come out posthumously, as some of the Seuss material is, would that have been a better outcome for Ms. Lee and/or her fans?

Not incidentally, today would have been Dr. Seuss’ 111th birthday.
***
I took one of those online quiz things, Which Dr. Seuss Character Are You?

Kind, curious, sweet, and small
You are easily the cutest of them all!

With eyes full of wonder
And dreams ne’r too big
Your heart lives to love
and your hands itch to dig

You care deeply for others
And take them as your own
Your heart is enormous
This you have surely shown

Our official results
peg you and Cindy Lou
As one and the same
Tis nothing but true!

This is SO wrong…
***
Oh, the Places You’ll Go

JEOPARDY! responses: Horton; Mulberry Street; the Sneetches; Bartholomew (Cubbins); the Lorax.

Book review: The Gospel According to the Beatles

The Beatles hadn’t set out to be gurus, but in their very public quest for a spiritual…something, they became just that.

In March 2015, the youth director of our church is putting on a musical review based on The Gospel According to the Beatles, which will feature The Daughter. This compelled me to buy and read the book. Author Steve Turner, as the book sleeve, informs me, has been writing about pop music for over three decades. This is, and I don’t want it to come off as a pejorative, a scholarly book, well-researched; I’ve read enough Beatles-related tomes to have read more than a few useless ramblings.

The general premise that they all grew up in the church, particularly John. Indeed, his description of the “flaming pie” man that gave the group its name – “From this day on, you are Beatles with an A” – was a mock Biblical story, possibly borrowing from Acts 10 or another story.

The group moved away from the “rather stuffy Christianity of their childhoods.” Initially, it was the attraction to nihilism, where the goal was not to have a job like their fathers had and to attract female attention, that motivated them.

When they first made it big, they did not hide their agnostic sentiments. Soon, though, it was as though they asked themselves, with all the “wealth, fame, sex, and acclaim,” is that it? “George and John were the most disappointed by fame.” One can see this in the title, and on the dour cover picture of the Beatles for Sale album.

From Rubber Soul, a pot-driven album, I thought nearly 50 years ago that The Word [LISTEN] was at least reminiscent of New Testament scripture. Nowhere Man [LISTEN] had clear elements of philosophy. But I hadn’t realized that Girl [LISTEN], at least the section about pain and pleasure, came from a book John read about Christianity, a notion he thought was rubbish.

Revolver was full of LSD references. I find it interesting that’s long been my favorite album, and Tomorrow Never Knows my favorite song. It was acid, and its ultimate lack of fulfillment, that led George to look to the East for enlightenment. The Catholicism he grew up with seemed too compartmentalized in most people’s lives.

It is unsurprising that John is in the foreground on the cover. The book goes into great detail about the 1966 Lennon quote about the popularity of the Beatles vis a vis Jesus, which was almost certainly true in Britain at that time, and even more so now, with the steep decline of the church in England.

(Yes, Paul and Ringo get plenty of coverage too.)

My takeaway is that the Beatles hadn’t set out to be gurus, but in their very public quest for a spiritual…something, they became just that, in a way that Elvis, for instance, was not. This is a function of being better educated, writing their own songs, and that protection that being one of four provides. While there were stories I knew, there was a lot more I did not.
***
Yes, I DID know which Beatle visited the United States first, but did you? Here’s a nice story about that first trip.