The Library Girl

Habits

As you know from previous posts, I love getting into the minds of readers to find out what they like and why they enjoy what they do. I don’t pass judgment, but I do itch to know more. This compulsion doesn’t end with mere authors and titles, either. Do they keep track of what they read? Do they use libraries or go to bookstores? Do they hoard books or tote them to a second-hand shop as soon as they’re done? Do they (choke!) dog- ear pages or use bookmarks?

I keep a running list of the reading preferences of my friends and family, and my employees, to an extent. Now I’ve started a whole new set for the city officials with whom I work. (“Likes sports, American politics, Harry Potter… Check”). When new books come in for any of the above, I always keep them in mind and pass them forward. Connecting books to readers is what I do, and I don’t really care who the reader is.

In our library at the moment, we are developing reader ‘road maps’, which are essentially personalized bibliographies. You fill in a detailed form and we give you back a list of what to read next according to your indicated tastes. It is startling how lost people can be in a sea of stacks. They see thousands of books and can’t find a single one to suit their mood. That’s what we’ll be there to do.

Since this is a whole blog about my reading habits, I hope it fulfils this ‘need to know’ that others may have (or not!).

Balance

Because I have a tendency to get swept up in what I’m passionate about (books, libraries, work) I often lose that healthy balance that ensures that one eats properly, or gets exercise, or (most importantly of all) spends enough time with friends and loved ones. This weekend recharged my batteries in a way. I spent time with someone I haven’t seen in months, went for lovely walks, and cooked veggie-laden foods – something I haven’t done in an age.

I still didn’t get to read my four books, but I did get through two, the first of which launches another book phase which couldn’t be helped, given my new position. I’m very into what is called ‘civisme’ in French, and what translates to ‘public spiritedness’ in English, according to my dictionary (sometimes, living in Quebec, you completely lose English words for things!).

Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community was really good. From 2000, it covers the decline in the involvement of Americans in civic life over the last couple of decades, why this occurred, and whether it will bounce back. As a civil servant, the subject interests me greatly. I love his descriptions and discussions of schmoozers versus machers: those who are highly connected socially versus those who contribute much effort and time to the betterment of their communities, respectively. I think I may forward this book to some of our senior officials, and then read the author’s next book on the same subject, adding it to the small pile of titles growing on my living room coffee table. I can’t wait to read more Jane Jacobs too.

The second book I read was disappointing, despite it’s snappy title. Quirky QWERTY: The Story of the Keyboard @ Your Fingertips by Torbjörn Lundmark was really not so much about the history of the keyboard, but more about the evolution of the letters. David Sacks’s Language Visible fleshes out the same information in a more thorough and interesting way. The single chapter devoted to the keyboard itself could have been gleaned from an encyclopedia entry. I also hated the layout, and thought that it was designed as filler. It’s too bad because I had high hopes.

The week ahead is rather packed as you’d expect. I have great books lined up though, so here’s hoping I can get to them. It’s been a few weeks now that I haven’t been able to read the four books a week as per this blog’s original intent. I should be getting back to my regular posting days soon, however, which are Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. Speak to you then.

News

This week I haven’t had the opportunity to even crack open a book, as my concentration has descended to amoeba levels. When avalanches of things tumble into my life, I head for white noise in the form of music rather than audiobooks because my mind wanders. I’d miss half the story thinking about to-do lists and people I have to speak to.

This flurry of activity has to do with a new promotion, which I am thoroughly ecstatic about. I was appointed Director of my library this week (hence no Wednesday post), and have been madly dashing around ever since. I’m not sure how easily I could keep up my four books a week goal, but I’ll try. It may have to drop down to three but we’ll see.

Rainy Day Reading

It’s been pouring outside every single day for the past week. Only this morning, however, did I get a chance to knock back a couple of books. The first was a French volume on intellectuals, and the second, an audiobook.

L’histoire des intellectuels aujourd’hui (The History of Intellectuals Today), edited by Michel Leymarie and Jean-François Sirinelli, is an excellent overview on the last hundred or so years of intellectual history. It has a chapter for different categories of intellos, including those in a several different countries, and others working in various media. The Dreyfus Affair in France is held as the crucial moment for thought and cerebral mobilization in Europe. Because of the divisions, this would make a great reference book.

The second title of the day was Thomas L. Friedman’s The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. Less political than his other books, this one is concerned with how technology and new ways of thinking have flattened the world, creating advanced global communication patterns and supply chains, among other things. Narrated by Oliver Wyman, I really, really enjoyed it. The content very much follows where my thoughts have been meandering lately, which helps a lot. I’ve had technology on the brain.

Small Books

When on a quest to devour four books a week, one learns to very much appreciate the short ones (under 200 pages). Many a Sunday night has been saved by a brief text. I love them, and it’s not just the list compulsion that drives the sentiment. They are light, which means that they make great public transit reading. Often (though not always), there is an economy of verbiage, meaning that big ideas or concepts are crammed into thinner packages, creating more bang for your buck, or more importantly, your time. That’s not to say that what amounts to essays are not often stretched into short books (they are, unfortunately), but in general, you can access a greater quantity and more highly varied information by running through a string of smaller volumes, especially non-fiction.

One of our displays last summer in the library was “Short Books/Petits Bouquins”, where the only qualifier for admission was length. It was a smashing success, with people grabbing bunches and taking them home because they could breeze through each in an afternoon. There’s less commitment on their part, unlike intimidating 1000+ page tomes.

Some great short books:

Sobel, Dava. The Planets (NF)
Domínguez, Carlos María. The House of Paper (F)
Sijie, Dai. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (F)
Paradiž, Valerie. Clever Maids: The Secret History of the Grimm Fairy Tales (NF)
Schecter, Harold. Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment (NF)
Truss, Lynne. Eats, Shoots & Leaves (NF)
Furedi, Frank. Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone? (NF)
Jacobs, Jane. Dark Age Ahead (NF)

I have to apologize for the scattershot manner in which I’ve been posting lately. The next month or two will be nuts, so bear with me. Thanks.

A Post of Two Novels

Another jam-packed week prevented me from reading as many books as I would have wished. There’s so much going on at work that I got completely absorbed, and I suspect that it won’t be the last time. I did manage a couple of novels though, and good ones at that.

The first was actually a recommendation from a senior manager in the city I work for. Our brief book discussion led me to The Coffee Trader by David Liss. This historical suspense tale takes place in 17th century Amsterdam and focuses on the Portuguese Jew Miguel Lienzo and his circle of acquaintances, business partners, lovers and enemies. Readers will feel tension over whether or not he will get away from his creditors and succeed in his plot to profit from coffee, a good recently introduced into the city. This novel is brimming with history, love, betrayal, scheming, and, of course, the rich dark beverage, which you should have on hand if you plan to read this volume.

When I read this book, I was reminded of both Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier because of the Dutch and partly domestic setting, and The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holmes because of its night-time machinations and seedy relationships. If you want other books set in the Netherlands during the same time period, you can look into Gregory Maguire’s Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, or the excellent Tulipomania: the Story of the World’s Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions it Aroused, by Mike Dash. I appreciated the fact that The Coffee Trader doesn’t focus on the tulip as most books set in the same place do, although it does discuss the workings of the Exchange. This book is recommended.

I’ve been working on Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown in its audio format for a couple of weeks now. This is not an easy text, especially to listen to, but it is rich in language and demonstrates profound storytelling talent on the author’s part. Set largely in Kashmir over the course of several years and two generations, each character’s narrative is woven together, a tapestry of passion, strength, love, revenge, politics, and history. The narration by Aasif Manvi is also excellent.

I haven’t read any others of Rushdie’s books (embarrassing as this is to admit), but I really should at least get to Midnight’s Children. Soon, like every other book I suppose. It’s time will come.

Notebooks

I am a compulsive notebook user. This fact was mentioned briefly in my last post, but I thought I'd elaborate on it here. In my bag at all times there are at least three different kinds: one for work ideas, one for anything and everything, and one for French books. At home, I also have my vocabulary notebook, and another for tidbits, books to read, and quotes. Oh, and there’s the one that has the list of all the books I’ve read in the last few years. And the one concerning intellectuals.

I couldn’t imagine reading without a pen and at least paper nearby. You never know when you’ll stumble across an amazing quote, or a mellifluent turn of phrase. Since I have mental blockages about writing in books (that’s a post in itself), I need to find another way of interacting with a text. Spiral friends allow you to collate all those reactions and golden nuggets in one retrievable place. They even serve as diaries of sorts if you keep them. The one that’s got everything in it has been going on, September to August, every year since my undergrad.

The work notebook is filled with ideas and things I want to try out in the library. I work in a cool enough place that I actually could for most things. Because of that, I even keep that notebook on my night-table when I’m in bed, as it often occurs that a fabulous idea comes while drifting off to sleep.

People in general love notebooks, especially small ones. Whenever we have a readers’ advisory program at the library, I give patrons their very own little notebook that they can write titles down on. These babies are actually quite diminutive and easy to put in a pocket or purse. Our public loves them, not just because they’re adorable, but because they’re a great alternative to those stubs and receipts that are otherwise used.

I shall go to bed now as I’m exhausted, but for the record, it’s the Mead Five Star notebooks I love the most.

Crunch! Explode!

My life at the moment is a whirlwind of activity and change. I apologize for not posting yesterday, but I was attending the Quebec Library Association Annual Conference (whose planning committee I was on) and had one of the speakers as a house guest for the weekend. As such, I only managed one book this week.

The conference itself was really great. The quality of the lecturers had a lot to do with it, but the venue was enchanting too and the coming together of friends and colleagues, a treat. I love conferences because you leave with new ideas, keep abreast of trends and get energized.

My head has been positively brimming with innovations for my library these days. I actually keep a notebook with me at all times in case a great idea happens along, and volume four is nearly filled. My husband is away this week, so the probability of me turning into a work junkie is pretty much 100%. The thing is it doesn’t feel like work; it’s more of a deep-seated passion. Woohoo!  I love my job.

The one book of the week was Frank McCourt’s Teacher Man. Way back in the late 1990s, I read Angela’s Ashes and loved it. At the time, I was obsessed with Ireland (long story) but thought that the voice in the memoir was what made it so appealing. It’s written as if it were spoken, and so lyrically and humorously at that. Other people thought it was really depressing given its content of poverty and abuse, but the tone really wasn’t down.

Along came the sequel ‘Tis and I hated it – not because it was poorly done or anything like that, but because he turned into the same kind of alcoholic dirt-bag as his father. I was disappointed in him rather than his text. As a result, I became leery of the author’s future endeavors. It has to be said that he is somewhat redeemed in my eyes with this latest book.

Teacher Man is a memoir of McCourt’s decades-long experience as a high school teacher in New York City. The audio version was narrated by the man himself, and he did a great job. That didn’t actually surprise me, first because he speaks when he writes, and second because the art of oral storytelling is bred in the bones of the Irish.

My mom was a high school teacher, so I could really relate to what he was talking about. I think that anyone who teaches should read this book, although the chances are they will anyway, since there aren’t too many popular works out there that tell you what swims through an educator’s brain as he stands in front of a class. Hey, if a librarian did the same, I’d be right there too.

On that note, I have to resume working on the many things I’m cooking up this week. Talk to you on Wednesday.

Random Bibliographic Musings #2

When people all read the same book, they imagine different scenes in their heads with completely unique visuals. If several hundred thousand people read the same novel, there are as many versions of it residing in readers’ imaginations. That’s pretty fantastic when you think about it. Each individual’s rendition is like a thumbprint, only no one else can see it. There are millions of ideas about, say, Robert Langdon’s appearance floating in the ether.

This of course, gets tainted horribly when a film is made of a book. In such cases you get to crawl into the director’s brain for his interpretation of the text, but it’s only one of millions. If you see the celluloid version first, you can’t help but insert the images from the film into your own mental picture. That’s why I always start with the book. Even if the storyline doesn’t quite match, you take the face of the actor and transpose it onto your personal set. I experienced this with the Harry Potter books/movies and can never go back.

Leaving film, people change their snapshots of characters as they read. You could picture a tall, slender, blond girl, and then fifty pages into the book be told by the author that she is actually dark-haired and chubby. The reader then makes a subconscious choice: you either stick to your image which you may prefer, or remain true to the text and the author’s intention. I often have trouble shaking original impressions, which is why my Charlotte Simmons looks like the blond actress in The Faculty.

Sometimes the writer purposefully leaves the main character’s appearance ambiguous. For the record, it drives me nuts. J.M. Coetzee often does this and I can’t take it. Race in South Africa changes everything, and I just have to know. I may have missed the entire point, but like everyone else, I read for myself and not the author.

This ends the second bibliographic musing, probably of many. Tomorrow I do final preparations for the annual QLA conference coming up this weekend. I hope I'll still get to read. We'll see.