LibraryReads Selection Ideas

It is almost Thanksgiving and that long break from school and work may provide a nice window to sit down and relax with a longer read.  There is certainly plenty of choice – with recent National Book Awards announcement, The New York Times’ list of Notable Books being released this week, and voting ongoing for Goodreads Choice Awards.  Here, I am going to note several LibraryReads selections – some of the 10 books chosen each month by librarians to recommend to their patrons:

I look forward to and definitely recommend titles by Kate Morton, international bestselling author of The House at Riverton, since she offers a kind of Gothic mystery that both challenges and entertains. There’s suspense and a bit of romantic tension in each, including her latest, THE CLOCKMAKER'S DAUGHTER which was a LibraryReads selection in October. In this novel, which bridges 150 years, Morton introduces Edward Radcliffe and his artistic associates who are spending the summer of 1862 at Birchwood Manor on the upper Thames. Intending to escape and focus on creative endeavors, they instead experience a murder, a disappearance, and a jewelry theft. Once again, Morton features a house that bears witness through generations as a modern day archivist, Elodie Winslow, discovers a photo and drawing which prompts her hunt for family connections. Pick up this novel if you are looking for historical fiction dealing with art and secrets; THE CLOCKMAKER'S DAUGHTER received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.  

 

A LibraryReads selection in September, TRANSCRIPTION by Kate Atkinson is another suspenseful work of historical fiction set during the Second World War and 1950s London. The main character is Juliet who at 18 is first employed to rather naively transcribe wartime conversations for the British intelligence service, MI5, and who increasingly becomes involved in espionage activities, and later works as a BBC producer on children’s programming.  Once again, Atkinson describes how events and choices reverberate across time, causing the reader to reflect on the meaning of patriotism, on guilt, and on fate’s tragic repercussions.  TRANSCRIPTION received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, and Library Journal.

VIRGIL WANDER by Leif Enger (Peace Like a River) was an October LibraryReads selection and could easily work as a Junior Theme choice given the publisher’s description as a “timeless all-American story that follows the inhabitants of a small Midwestern town in their quest to revive its flagging heart.” Virgil’s car runs off the road into Lake Superior near Greenstone, Minnesota and he suffers memory loss as a result.  Virgil’s subsequent and sometimes humorous interactions with residents (including a romantic interest, a best friend and newspaper editor, and a pet raccoon called Genghis) and also visitors (like Rune, a fan of kite flying who is looking for his long lost son) charmingly chronicles attempts at recovery for both Virgil and the town. VIRGIL WANDER received starred reviews from Library Journal (“surprises and delights throughout”) and Booklist (“Virgil's narration is a joy: he lost his adjectives in the crash, making for their gleeful insertion each time he remembers one.”).

 

THE LIBRARY BOOK by Susan Orlean is actually a narrative non-fiction work that tells the story of the Los Angeles Public Library fire which occurred in 1986. This text, too, includes a bit of a mystery given that the cause of the fire was suspicious and Orlean deftly explores the story of suspect Harry Peak.  She also comments on her own relationship with books and reading, especially reflecting on childhood visits to the library with her mother. Overall, this is a fascinating look at library operations. Please see the video below for more visual detail from a PBS NewsHour interview with author Susan Orlean:

A LibraryReads selection in October and recipient of starred reviews from Booklist and Library Journal, THE LIBRARY BOOK will be appreciated by bibliophiles and fans of libraries everywhere.

Mother's Day: The Book of You and This is What a Librarian Looks Like

Happy Mother’s Day!  This past week, a teacher brought some card stock and markers to the library so that our high schoolers could make cards for their Moms and Grandmothers.  If you are looking for a creative way to celebrate with your children, consider, THE BOOK OF YOU by Kate and David Marshall. This book is designed to be a keepsake journal created for a child and is perfect for future baby gifts, birthdays, even graduations. It is filled with quotes and prompts to express how proud you are of your teenage or adult child and how grateful for the person s/he has become.

My favorite quote is one from Elizabeth Stone:  “Making the decision to have a child – it is momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”  The love just seems to burst from these pages. The Marshalls have also co-authored What I Love About You. 

Since many of the Moms I know are also librarians, it seemed appropriate to add a review of a related new book and a plea for action. THIS IS WHAT A LIBRARIAN LOOKS LIKE by Kyle Cassidy is based in part on his photo essay which appeared at Slate a few years ago and has been extremely popular. In this new book, Cassidy photographs close to 220 librarians who then share personal thoughts and opinions on what being a librarian means.  That is fascinating and uplifting reading in itself, but he also includes essays on the importance of libraries and librarians from several writers, including Neil Gaiman, Cory Doctorow, Nancy Pearl and others. THIS IS WHAT A LIBRARIAN LOOKS LIKE is truly inspiring and a wonderful tribute to the profession. 

Please consider taking a minute from your celebrations today and asking family members to call both of their Senators and remind them to support federal library funding! Ask that Senators "sign the FY 2018 Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and Innovative Approaches to Literacy (IAL) Dear Appropriator letters." These programs amount to more than $210 million in federal funding for libraries and the American Library Association believes that protecting them has never been more necessary.  If interested, you’ll find all the background information and links you need to quickly reach Senators by email, phone or Twitter at the ALA’s Fight for Libraries! web portal .  The ALA’s grassroots campaign for FY 2018 LSTA and IAL funding is aiming to increase that base of support to 51 Senators by May 19, so timing is critical.  Thank you!  Last week these eight leading national companies (with collective revenue measured in billions of dollars), made the request: Baker & Taylor, Follett School Solutions, Gale/Cengage, OverDrive, Peachtree Publishers, Penguin Random House, ProQuest and Rosen Publishing to the offices of all Senators who have not already signed both the Senate LSTA and IAL letters and urged them to do so. 

Libraries – and Moms – deserve our support and thanks today! 

Some New Titles from University Presses

EXCEPTIONAL AMERICA is written by Mugambi Jouet who teaches at Stanford Law School. In the description for this book, the publisher (University of California Press), notes that “Anti-intellectualism, conspiracy-mongering, a visceral suspicion of government, and Christian fundamentalism are far more common in America than the rest of the Western world—Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.”  It honestly was a surprise at first to see America described in such anti-intellectual terms relative to other countries, but then I realized how aptly that descriptor fit with recent calls and emails about the need to preserve library funding due to current budget cut proposals.  Jouet explores the growing radicalization of conservative America and what divides us from each other.  This , too, fits with the news: note, for example, the demonstrations being called for the six month anniversary of the election and a Wall Street Journal article (“When the CEO Met the CEO President”) quoting a business leader who says, “if we don’t do something fundamentally different soon, we are going to have class warfare, and that’s a scary thing.”

In the extensively researched and footnoted EXCEPTIONAL AMERICA, Jouet includes a quote from Tocqueville describing Americans as having “a grasp of public affairs, a knowledge of laws and precedents … and an ability to understand them [which] is greater there than in any other place on earth.” Jouet then questions whether this is still true, saying, “in vast segments of modern America, its people are arguably the least informed of all Westerners and the likeliest to ignore the greater good.” Even if they only spend time on a relatively short excerpt, this book will prompt some critical thinking and great discussions for our students.

In BATTLES FOR FREEDOM, Pulitzer Prize winning historian Eric Foner explores some different aspects of American radicalism. Available from independent publisher I.B.Taurus, this book contains 24 pieces written by Foner and published in The Nation over the past forty years. He particularly focuses on the politics of history and the politics of race.  The first piece (“The Men and the Symbols”) deals with the controversy surrounding American “justice” as applied to two immigrants, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. In the last (“Letter to Bernie”), Foner acknowledges Sanders’ role in forcing “the questions of economic inequality and excessive corporate power to the center of our political discourse.” As a side note, our Advanced Placement US History students examining nineteenth century events frequently consult other texts by Foner:  Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men and The Fiery Trial.

From Yale University Press, SOUL OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT provides an overview of freedom of speech and is written by legal expert Floyd Abrams, who has taught at Yale Law School and litigated cases such as the Pentagon Papers and Citizens United. Abrams, too, contrasts, America with other Western democratic states, noting that the First Amendment (his “rock star of the American Constitution”) contains only 45 words, including nine which prohibit the government from “abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.”  Abrams divides his argument into sections which provide some historical context, compares the legal protection in the US to other countries, explains the importance of Bridges v. California, examines the right to be forgotten and the funding of political campaign spending and then concludes with a discussion of ongoing issues like those concerning classified materials. It is that last section which is particularly interesting, since Abrams begins, “having sweeping First Amendment rights does not begin to answer the question of how to use them.” Much to ponder here.
  

 

WE ARE DATA by John Cheney-Lippold was published this week by New York University Press and deals with privacy and the right to be forgotten. As the subtitle notes, Cheney-Lippold is writing about “Algorithms and the Making of Our Digital Selves.”  The cover is very cool, right? And the first chapter explains “algorithmic knowledge production” or “how computers create categories through patterns in data.”  Much of the content, though, is fairly detailed and involves complex ideas and new vocabulary (measureable types, soft biopolitics, dividual privacy, datafied subject relations and so forth). Consequently, WE ARE DATA will have most appeal for those students beyond our high school group.