The Library Girl

Preludes

If I had to pick one word that defines my mood at the moment it’s ‘travel’. These days, I’ve been thinking of it non-stop. In the weeks ahead, I’ll be heading to Europe for a brief respite, and then again in the fall for a longer jaunt.

Since flying is on the brain, it goes without saying that the books I read should match. This last week has been filled with almost nothing but armchair travel of one sort or another. First it was Rory Stewart’s excellent volume entitled The Places in Between. Read by the author, this audiobook was highly enjoyable. Stewart had walked across Persia and Pakistan, and this text concerned his peregrinations through Afghanistan. I loved his boldness and determination, especially when dealing with locals. The experiences he chose to share were also poignant.

Next came One Year Off: Leaving It All Behind for a Round-the World Journey with Our Children, by David Elliot Cohen. I had read about this book before and finally took it out. It was a breeze, and, like Gopnik’s Paris to the Moon, or James Dodson’s Road to Somewhere, it afforded the reader a glimpse of children discovering their world, through a parent’s loving eyes. It's the way I wish I could teach my kids one day.

This evening I’ll be finishing up Kerouac’s On the Road, one of my classics selections. I didn’t enjoy this one as I thought I would. It’s clear why it’s a classic, and what it captures about the beat esprit, but ultimately it wasn’t for me. Like Leonard Cohen’s Beautiful Losers, this is a book, I think, most meant for guys in their early twenties.

I’m still immersed in ancient Greece and Rome, but perhaps I’ll check out the Voyages of Marco Polo while I’m in trip mode, since it’s on my list too. We'll see… I have the coming week off, so doubtless you shall hear from me again soon.

Trucking

February has just flown by; I feel like I’ve blinked and missed it. This month started off with a fabulous library conference in Toronto, and my mind has been a well of creative ideas ever since. If I haven’t posted, it’s because I’ve been writing other things, some exciting, and others (like policies), a little less so.

The big ‘reading news’ is that I (finally!) finished the Bible. I found it long, repetitive, and rather boring at some points. This is one text I’ll never re-read if I can help it. That said, I got what I wanted to out of it. Now I know about all those references we hear about. I know how Christianity took its present form, and what happened to poor Job. Every other classic should go faster from now on. At least they’re more or less in prose form.

Most of the books I read this month have nothing in common. There was one about Rwanda and global justice, another about growing up female under the Taliban. One of my favourite books, listened to in the car on my way to work, was the most excellent Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, by Jim Collins. I’ve been hearing about this book for years, and its principles are applied and praised in every circle, and with reason. No matter what kind of organization you run (say… a library), you can glean golden nuggets from this one. I’m thinking of buying it for myself, and foisting it upon others. So good, and the audio was too.

Fiction-wise, there really wasn’t much this month. I picked up Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated, which was very original, and at times humorous. Jonathan himself is a character in the novel, searching for the woman who saved his grandfather during the Holocaust. He goes to Ukraine and has a translator named Alexander to guide him. They correspond (the latter, in ESL English), and send one another their fictional writing to look over. I read it in an afternoon over tea and was satisfied, if I can put it that way.

On the bookshelf now is a mixture of: classics; books about Muslim women (presentation coming up); fiction on a waiting list that I must get through; books about management and leadership; titles on cities (new obsession – fascinating); and French, especially québécois, fiction (I’m brushing up).

Scattered

Not very much has changed for me in the last few weeks. I thought that I’d post again when I had gotten through the Bible. Well, I’m not near the end, but I am that much closer (still have 400 pages to go…). The thing is it can’t be the only book I read. In general, I usually have several going at once. At the moment, it’s more like eight and counting. For whatever reason, ever other book looks more delicious than the ones I’ve started. Then I get into those and still others catch my eye. 

I was craving a novel, but felt behind in my classics, so I reached for Anna Karenina, on the list but meant for later on in the year. It’s just so good and reminds me of how much I adore nineteenth-century fiction. Lucky thing I have a ton of it in the plans, although practically every selection is a brick. The binding in this one also hurts my fingers. The type dips too closely into the crease, which means I have to hold it a certain way, and that aggravates my arthritis. I wish publishers would think of these things.

Another phenomenon I’ve noticed is diminishing type size. In more than half of the classics on my shelf, the font is 8 pt or less. In French books, they just add ‘tomes’, but in English, they shrink the letters. I don’t even wear glasses but I probably will by the end of 2007. A month or two ago, I was wandering around a bookstore and noticed that there was Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in a single volume on the shelf. While it is true that it was abridged (a travesty in and of itself), it was unwieldy. If ever a book was not meant for paperback that was it. The letters were like tiny dots and it was three inches thick. Blech. There’s one I won’t buy…

So now I am faced with the end of January, and only five books finished. I am two discs away from the end of Mayflower; one disc into Good to Great; half-way through the Bible; 200 pages into The Great Transformation; 120 pages into Rwanda’s Genocide, 150 pages into Anna Karenina, 77 pages into Occidental Mythology, and 60 pages into a French book about Champollion. I wish I could just sit my tuchus down and finish one of them but it seems well nigh impossible.

Compounding this inability for completion is a new obsession with documentary films. My library has a great collection which I’ve recently discovered, and now I can’t get enough. I watch at least two a week, which, for a girl who hasn’t watched TV in years, is quite a lot. As long as there’s still learning…

This leads to that, which leads to…

The quest to get through classics has taken over my existence, although in an indirect way. Certainly it has slowed down my reading to the point where I’ve had to find new ways to get my book fix. It has also led me to branch off to related topics to find out more information about the classic at hand. In essence, I’ve created a complex Liberal Arts program for myself.

The first selection is the Bible, and it’s going slowly. I figured I had to start with this text, as millions have read it and even more refer to it. It must be the most referenced book in history. This of course has led elsewhere, to a volume on comparative Middle Eastern mythologies, and documentaries about the Israelites. Since I’ve only managed to get through the five books of Moses, who knows what else it will inspire. I’ve learned weird random tidbits too, like the fact that grasshoppers and locusts are sanctioned by God to be eaten (Leviticus 11:20 if you want proof). I must find out more about the Babylonians, who are fascinating.

Given my penchant for quantity with regards to books, I uncharacteristically started listening to not one but two audio courses simultaneously, one on famous Greeks, and the other, on ancient Rome. Despite their length, neither of these will count in the number of books read this year, meaning that by the end of the month, I’ll have read peanuts. Both of them, however, are really informative and quite suitable to this year’s project. Ultimately, despite the anal need to fill lists within given timeframes, the purpose of this classics enterprise is Knowledge, so there will be no more complaining from self-inflicted rules (promise!).

The problem is the other books, as in, when can I find the time to read them? Well, before bed I allow myself to read whatever I want (in this case a book about the French language). I also started a great ritual in the mornings when I get to work. Instead of shuffling through papers, for the first half-hour or so after I arrive I sit with my tea and read in my office. This has had the amazing effect of focusing my concentration. After I put the book away, I am wildly productive. Exercise has also proven helpful in that I can listen to a regular audiobook while doing it.

I think that my 50 classics is a pipe-dream for a single year, but by the time I get to the last one, I’ll know a whole lot more than I did. This multi-pronged approach will prove very educational, and allow for the pursuit of curiosity.

I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going.

As the Year Turns

It seems like I started this blog only a little while ago, while in fact it’s been just about a year. There’s so much to talk about that I don’t even know where to begin.

First, I guess, the vitals of 2006:

I capped off the year with 150 books read, which is about three per week. While this fell short of the four-a-week goal, I’m happy enough with it, given my new life circumstances.

Of those, 46 were fiction, 22 were audiobooks, and 19 were in French.

The most I read in one month was 18 books, in April.

My favourite books read this year were:

Fiction:
Beauchemin, Yves. Charles le Téméraire (just published in English as Charles the Bold)
Coe, Jonathan. The Rotter’s Club
Connelly, Karen. The Lizard Cage
Goldberg, Myla. Bee Season
Khadra, Yasmina. The Attack
Levy, Marc. Et si c’était vrai…
Liss, David. The Coffee Trader
Martel, Yann. The Life of Pi
Park, Jacqueline. The Secret Book of Grazia Dei Rossi
Rushdie, Salman. Shalimar the Clown

Non-Fiction:
Abu-Jaber, Diana. The Language of Baklava: a Memoir
Bader, Sara. Strange Red Cow and Other Curious Classified Ads from the Past
Friedman, Thomas. The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
Levitt, Steven D, and Stephen J. Dubner. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Manguel, Alberto. A Reading Diary: A Year of Favourite Books
Moehringer, JR. The Tender Bar
Rapaille, Clotaire. The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People around the World Live and Buy as They Do
Salzman, Mark. Iron & Silk
Walls, Jeanette. The Glass Castle
Wheen, Francis. How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions

This coming year brings many new challenges and projects. I’ve already mentioned the classics one in a previous post, but I have people projects too. In 2006, it was my father who, despite having read only a few books in the last decade (all of which were business-related) became a pure Reader. He finished the year at 50 books, rendering me misty-eyed with pride and proving to me that I am a decent librarian. This year I have a colleague and friend to work on, and a series of people to get using the library. My work is cut out for me on more levels than you can imagine.

Happy New Year!

The Quiet Bookworm

A happy marriage of circumstances has allowed me to post this week, for the first time in what feels like an age. While I may have neglected my blog in no small measure, the same cannot be said for its raison d’être – the actual reading and passion for books. I apologize for not sharing more of my bibliographic meanderings in the last few months. To say I have been busy is an understatement. The truth is, posting also came to feel less like a pleasure and more a duty at the time I stopped. I never intended to actually drop the pursuit, however, so here I am.

Where to begin?

I long ago gave up the hope that I could finish four books a week under the present circumstances. The average has been a steady two, and I have to accept that as good enough, even if I am (not so secretly) disappointed about it. Next year that aspiration will be downright impossible. My new scheme, starting in January, involves getting through a list of self-prescribed classics. Not an original pursuit, I must admit, but one that has been brewing for some time. There are just so many books that are referred to repeatedly that I haven’t read. Titles I deem beyond basic, like The Bible, or The Illiad, or even Don Quixote and Madame Bovary. To me, it is unacceptable to consider myself ‘educated’ and not have read these. With small exceptions, they are bricks, too.

My father thinks that I’ve bitten off a bit more than I can chew. Maybe he’s right, but I’m so excited by the enterprise that I’ll not lower my aspiration of fifty. The list isn’t comprehensive, in that I’ve read many classics already, and have left many more out. That said, I’ll feel much better after this set and, one hopes, more enlightened. Perhaps a second list of equal number will follow for future years. I’m giddy even thinking about it. I want to own every book on that list. Happily, I have more than half already, given my accumulation of volumes over the years. I haven’t yet decided if I’ll read them chronologically, or pick one from each era and then keep restarting. We’ll see.

I believe there is a canon, whether PC dictates otherwise or not. I refuse to concede to the postmodern possibility that there is no such thing as a ‘good’ book, or that that designation is completely subjective. Some books are universal and timeless, and others not. The edges of such a definition may be frayed, but they are still there.

Before I began working in the library, all I ever read were classics and history books. That exclusivity had to end, as it became obvious very quickly that such limited knowledge of contemporary books would inhibit my ability to serve patrons well in a public library. The old strings have been pulling in the last year, though, and the tendency has resurfaced.  Without question I’ll still have to read some current books, if only to balance the proverbial and literal weight of the classics, and to stay on top of things literary. Mmm… Can’t wait.

Book Club Blues

I hold my non-fiction book club every six weeks, which isn't exactly often by any measure. Be that as it may, it takes over my life each and every time. This weekend, for example, pretty much all I did was prepare for it. Sure, I procrastinated big-time through baking, shopping, walking, and napping, but essentially, I had to mosie back to my desk and keep taking notes. Hour after hour. Page after page. I wish I could sleep. I wish I had better sitting posture so my back wouldn't hurt. Kvetching isn't seeming to help.

There is nothing that detracts from the enjoyment of a book as much as forced note-taking. A quotable bit is one thing, a nice turn of phrase - whatever- but details like the kind one needs for papers are painful. It's a good thing that the actual book this time is endlessly fascinating, otherwise I'd have been in trouble.

The title in question is Tom Reiss's The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life, about an eccentric dandy named Lev Nussimbaum/Essad Bey/Kurban Said. This terrific biography is about a man who had a short but rollicking life, fleeing from Bolsheviks and then Nazis, whilst chasing his Oriental dream. A Jew from the oil-producing region of Baku in Azerbaijan, Lev ended up escaping through desert and mountain, and converting to Islam before finding his place (for a while) in Weimar Berlin. He went on to publish both fiction and non-fiction bestsellers, and managed to make it through more a more than average number of scrapes before finally perishing in 1942.

I really loved this book. It has adventure, flamboyant and witty characters, history, romance, and tragedy. On top of that, I like the way the author tells the story, and how he tries to get to the bottom of the man behind the mystery, pursuing his trail in over ten countries. As a history person, I also appreciate the details and background information Reiss provides.

That's my recommendation for the day, or week, I guess. Just read it. You'll be glad you did.

Getting Crispy

This is the first weekend in months that felt like pre-promotion times. I read like crazy and enjoyed every minute of it. Perhaps it’s that nip of fall in the air (it’s still stiflingly hot during the day, but gets somewhat crispy at night), but the brain is ON.

I started with a book edited by Helen Small called The Public Intellectual.  It was really disappointing in that I could barely trace the relevance of several of the essays contained therein. A volume I picked up last year, I am annoyed at myself for buying it rather than taking it out of the library.

The second book was a text by Gwynne Dyer, whom I heard speak years ago when I was in CEGEP (that’s college, for those of you who have no clue what I’m referring to). A Canadian journalist living in Britain, this volume, entitled Future Tense: the Coming World Order, was really insightful. Even though it was published a couple of years ago, it is still most relevant. He talks about the present US leadership vis-à-vis the rest of the world, especially the Middle East. I appreciate his viewpoint, which is neither American, nor fully Canadian, nor quite British. It’s recommended.

Going along the theme of war (fun fun!), I read the absolutely brutal Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra. I love this author’s novels, but they are really heavy and always disturbing. Since reading The Attack, I’ve had this book on my radar, and only just got to it last night, finishing it this morning, at 2 a.m. It takes place in Kabul and focuses on two couples and their response to a Taliban-dominated existence. Khadra writes about mental unraveling in an eerily accurate way. One must read total fluff afterward to balance the cosmos a little.

And so I shall. In truth, I should be doing some prep for my upcoming book club, but I’m tired and have a crazy day ahead tomorrow. Since my muffins are out of the oven (carrot-bran this week), I think I’ll just go to bed. G’night.

Presents

Every day, you should give yourself a little present, be it a cat nap in your office or a good cup of rich dark coffee (so said Special Agent Dale Cooper in the hit TV series Twin Peaks). It’s sound advice if you ask me. This week’s gift to self consisted of time off; two lazy days of not much more than reading, going for walks, and otherwise hanging about.

You’d think I’d have read a huge pile of books, but this wasn’t the case. I finished my four and am in the middle of two audiobooks and six other titles.

Suite française by Irène Némirovsky was excellent. I read it in the original French version, and it was long but worth it. This book is destined to become a classic. The author, who was killed in a concentration camp in 1942, wrote about her adoptive country just as the Germans invaded. The book is actually incomplete in this printing (only two of the projected five parts of the tale are contained therein), but each unit is separate. The first section represents the experiences of a variety of Parisian characters as they try to flee the capital, and the second, life in the countryside with billeted soldiers.

The next book of the week was The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar. A graphic novel that won the prestigious Prix Angoulême a couple of years ago, this was a great little story set in Algeria and told from the point of view of a witty cat who, for a spell, could talk aloud. As a rule, my favourite kind of graphic novel is the French-inspired variety. I love the dark lines and illustration style. I can’t wait for the rest of the series to be translated so I could buy them for my library.

The reputable and prolific orientalist Bernard Lewis wrote the next book, entitled The Multiple Identities of the Middle East. This interesting and short book does much to illustrate how different groups in the region perceive themselves and others. The text was full of tidbits (yummy), and pointed things out that I hadn’t thought about before. For example: in Christianity, state and church are completely separate from the get go; this is not the case for either Judaism or Islam.

The last book I read doesn’t really fit in with the rest, having to do with customer service and work, but I started it last week and had to finish it. Overpromise and Overdeliver was actually really helpful, discussing what the author Rick Barrera calls ‘Touchpoints’, which are the zones of contact between the customer and your organization. I think I shall pass this one along to a few of my employees, as it has a lot to teach.

Next week will be really busy and I likely won’t be able to read as much, but I look forward to it nonetheless.

Nothing to Read

Yesterday I was frantically trying to find something to read and nothing at all held any appeal. At the library, I scanned at least eight carts of books and found very few I wanted to take home. Of the mountain of books strewn around my house, none quite fit the bill; they were too dense, too big, not quite the right subject, too much about work, requiring note-taking, or the type was too small. I truly do want to read every book (especially the library ones) I have at home, but they all have their time, which clearly is not now.

Similarly, on numerous occasions, I’ve heard patrons say that they have a whole library full of books and yet nothing to read. The thing to do in such circumstances is to find out what kind of mood they’re in and then try to match it. If I were to do this exercise on myself, the result would be:

• Not too big: I just can’t bear another 500-page commitment. Actually, I’m presently reading Irène Némirovsky’s Suite Française, which is about that size, but that’s because it’s on a waiting list and I feel pressured. Give me 200-page books for the next while please.
• Easy to read: I have been gorging on these dense history tomes which, although excellent, are weighty. I don’t want fluff, but the words really have to roll along.
• Audio: This is quite the desperate situation. I just finished Jack Welch’s Winning today while baking muffins, and I have nothing at all for tomorrow. The thing is, the audiobooks are getting increasingly popular in my library, and the nummy stuff is just not on the shelf. That’s one problem; I also have to find one each for my husband and father, both of whom are ripping through them faster than I can replace them (I’m working on it Dad!).

Another of my present reading issues is that I own the books I really want to read the most. Under normal circumstances, this would hardly be construed as a problem, except that I have to get to the library volumes first. And volumes there are. While on vacation, I take only my own books in case I lose those belonging to others. As there is no vacation in sight, that doesn’t work. The result is that scores of books lay untouched, in piles, on my home office floor.

If I had my druthers, I’d be reading classics. I used to only read classics and then got off them when I started working at the library in order to be of the world and find out what people were actually reading. I long for them again.

Some of you may find it nuts that I won’t just read what I want, but it’s impossible. Perverted, ridiculous, annoying – maybe – but it cannot be helped.

Tomorrow I will go to work and browse. Ultimately, I find that to be the best solution to the ‘nothing to read’ disease. That, or having someone you trust pick one out for you.

Accessories

For about two years or so, my husband and I have wanted to order our very own American Library Association (ALA) Yoda READ poster. Today, we finally did. We also threw in the new Superman equivalent, as well as a READ stamp and umbrella, for fun. If I had my druthers, I could have spent whopping fortunes on the range of adorable bookmarks they have too. Maybe I’m a sucker for these types of things but I am not alone. You should have seen the crowds at the ALA store at the conference I went to in Boston in March. So many librarians needing their own Nancy Pearl action figure…

Book lovers in general like having the accessories that go with their bibliomania, especially the bookmark. To use myself as an example, I grab them whenever possible, no matter what the size, shape, kind of paper, image, etc. Actually, that’s not quite true, as I detest wide bookmarks, but apart from that, it’s an almost ridiculous problem. The bookmark must match the book in terms of size and style. I have hundreds of them in a drawer to choose from, and I literally get twitchy if my husband reads a book without one nearby. Some are amazingly attractive, while others are rather boring. I know several people who collect them, too, although most everyone at least appreciates them.

Today’s book is the reason I brought all this up in the first place. It’s a French volume called Bouquiner: Autobibliographie, by a woman named Annie François, who works for Seuil, one of the biggest publishing houses in France. It’s one of those common enough bibliophile books where the author discusses his or her reading habits or quirks, but hers are rather eccentric, and her writing, endearing and humurous. For example, she will neither dog-ear nor bookmark her spot; instead, she memorizes the page number she’s on. Salient passages are marked by the use of her fingernail, so as not to leave an obvious trace. While she reads in the bathtub pretty frequently, one day she gets the uncontrollable urge to dip her paperback in the water to see what would happen. She lies to friends who ask her to borrow her books, telling them that she herself borrowed it until they catch her out by reading the dedication inside the cover. Even though she loves them, she also tosses all dust jackets just because the book underneath is the real and naked thing. You have to love her.

Let me say a word about the term ‘bouquiner’, because it’s really meaningful in an all-encompassing way, and has no equivalent in English. Literally, it translates into ‘to read’, but it could also mean ‘to go about the business of books’, either to sell, buy, or deal in them as well. I love it conceptually and it sounds lovely when you say it aloud.

I would go on about the variations between the French and English books, publishing, and reading habits, but that will have to wait for another day. It’s so hot and sticky in my house that I cannot sit at my laptop for another minute.

Enlightenment

While in university, I managed to completely cut out French history save a brief three weeks in an intro-level European survey class. Why I could not tell you; it simply didn’t interest me. British history seemed less pompous somehow, and much more eccentric (and therefore more appealing). This state of affairs continued until 2002, when I went to Paris on my honeymoon. Partly because I’m a librarian, and also because of the type of personality I have, I spent the year before reading all I could get my hands on before my departure, in order to get more out of the experience.

It changed me. Since then I have steadily read French books, worn perfume and pointy high-heeled shoes and my hair in chignons. I tried my first ever crème brulée there (such bliss) and regularly drink wine and eat brie and baguette. I also got obsessed with the Enlightenment.

I’ve already told you about my admiration of Benjamin Franklin. Allow me to extend that to Voltaire, in addition to all the encyclopédists and philosophes of 18th century Paris. Not only did they collectively produce mountains of seminal and remarkably influential works that shaped our times, they did so under the watchful (and punishing) eye of authorities. Their collaboration is astounding, and their wit amusing, especially in the case of Voltaire.

This was definitely the reading theme of this week. It all started because I had my book club, which was on Philipp Blom’s excellent Encyclopédie: the Triumph of Reason in an Unreasonable Age. I wish this book wasn’t a sleeper in terms of sales; it really is very interesting and sophisticated. I adored talking to the public about the text and the times. Actually, on this topic I’ll talk to anybody who’ll listen.

The novel of the week (I’m so glad to be back reading fiction) was a French one by Jean-Michel Riou entitled Le Secret de Champollion. True to the title, it takes place during Napoléon’s reign. The book is divided into sections, each ‘written’ by one of the scholars on the campaign to Egypt. They all try to crack the code on the Rosetta Stone but cannot. Twelve-year-old Champollion is brought onto the team and by seventeen, he can. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.

The last book, which I’m a hair away from finishing, is Voltaire Almighty: a Life in Pursuit of Freedom by Roger Pearson. Despite a glitch in his writing style, I really got into this one. If you want to know anything about the man and his times, this is a must-read. The type is smallish, but it’s not too dense intellectually. In addition, the author provides both a chronology and list of ‘characters’, which is always helpful. Every time I pick up this volume, I want to lock myself away and study/write. It has that effect. Is that enough of a recommendation?

Cities

Although I currently live in suburbia, a significant part of my soul rests in the city, downtown, in the thick of things. In French there is a lovely word for city-dwellers: les citadins. Naturally all urban centers come with flaws, which is why I moved to the outskirts of town, but the pulse and action of a metropolis are found on the pavement and in flashing windows, in restaurants and shops and crowds.

In larger cities, there is certainly diversity of every kind. While places like Montreal are made up of a mosaic of people, somehow the mix pales in comparison to a megalopolis like London or Paris or New York. In those towns, it feels like the world has converged, folding onto itself amid the architecture.

Kwame Anthony Appiah’s book, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, explores the philosophy of that convergence in a global setting. Born to a British mother and a Ghanaian father, he presently lives in the United States where he is a professor. While he presents no answers, he certainly poses questions, to do with nationality and nationalism versus greater humanity, conversation, cultural relativism, belonging, and more. I liked this book, as it sets the stage for great talks on these subjects. It’s a good read for 21st century philosophy classes.

On a more localized but related scale, there is the second book I read this week, on Canadian cities. So young by European standards, they have unique characteristics unto themselves. John Lorinc's The New City: How the Crisis in Canada's Urban Centres is Reshaping the Nation, is a quick and relevant, albeit Toronto-centric read. The ‘urban crisis’ is one of poverty and pollution, but without the doughnut effect so prevalent in the United States. Citing Jane Jacobs and Richard Florida extensively, he applies their theories to a Canadian setting, particularly in the latter’s case. 

Since my husband and I booked a trip to London for the fall, you will probably be hearing more about that city in the weeks to come. Two degrees in British history and I’ve never been. For shame!

Memoirs

In the last few weeks I’ve been a terrible blogger but a fairly decent reader. When there’s so little time to do anything, books come before writing. That’s not to say that I’m up to speed in that department either. I’ve actually been feeling disconnected from my regular literary life. It’s been weeks since a novel has been in my hands, and while reading for work is necessary, it’s not what I’d normally choose per se. I’m also farther away from the actual volumes at the library as well, even if I’ve never spent more time there. Sometimes I feel one step removed, but most directors could probably claim the same. I’ve taken a couple of days off to catch up, and the R & R should do some good. Just give me some books.

In a past post, I had said that I’m not too big on memoir and biography. Of course my reading habits of late would indicate the exact opposite. These books just land on my lap, I swear it. A couple of them have been really good, although a current one (My Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion) has been an absolute struggle. Normally it would have been tossed at the 50-page mark, but it has been dubbed the best non-fiction book of last year, so it must be endured (more on this in the next post, if I get through it by then).

Last night I finished up a terrific debut memoir [in audio format] by J.R. Moehringer entitled The Tender Bar. It’s about the author’s search for his father, but also male role models generally. He essentially grew up in a Long Island bar, where he learned about masculinity, friendship, loyalty, betting, drinking, and most importantly, storytelling. The narration by Adam Grupper exactly matches the character. I enjoyed this one immensely and shall certainly pass it along.

Another recently finished memoir that I liked was Diana Abu-Jaber’s The Language of Baklava, a story about an American girl who moves to Jordan with her family, then back to the United States, then once again to her ancestral homeland as a grad student. She struggles with her two seemingly irreconcilable identities but remains loyal to her family and to her memories, especially of food. If you like Ruth Reichl’s memoirs, you’ll appreciate this one as well.

Book Couples

I could be as busy as can be at work all week, but nothing is allowed to get in the way of the morning reading ritual I share with my husband on the weekends. We look forward to it immensely as a guaranteed time we spend with one another; a slow and relaxing pause in our hectic lives. The books change along with our habits, but not the fact of the books themselves.

Nowadays, I’m ripping through volumes related to innovation, creativity, marketing, leadership, etc. to help with my new job. For my darling, it is language. Yesterday I finished James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds, which is about the combined intelligence of individuals acting in a group, in the way that, say, wikis demonstrate. I lump this title along with the Tipping Point and Freakonomics in terms of interest and likeability.

This morning it was Seth Godin’s Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, which is a marketing text of sorts about creating remarkable products. The bus book of the week was a wholly unrelated French volume of short stories by a local writer named Marie Hélene Poitras called La Mort de Mignonne et autres histoires.

I can’t tell you how important it is to me that my husband reads. If you are a Reader, books can make or break your couple. When I was doing my undergrad degree and amassing books at a frantic pace, this boy in my class expressed interest in me. When he told me how proud he was that he had kept not one single book in his apartment, I lifted my jaw back into place and then got out of there as fast as possible. A skunk may as well have sprayed me.

To bibliophiles, other people’s reading can be aphrodisiacal. Nothing is more attractive than finding out about a prospective mate’s passion for books, particularly if you share similar taste. I know of a couple who just started dating who are positively excited about each other’s bookish habits. They talk about that quality more than anything else in reference to the other. It’s actually much more meaningful than it at first appears. What it translates to is: he’s intelligent; she’s interesting; he’s like me; we have a lot to talk about; we can spend time reading together; we have similar values; we like to learn; we appreciate the same things, and on and on. It’s a solid foundation upon which to build. They will never run out of things to say.

Book couples are kindred souls. There’s nothing more to it.

Used

Every kind of book venue has its crowd, and every bibliophile has his or her purveyor of choice, although few would sniff their noses at even the tiniest of operations. I have to say that I’m not too fussy; I love all libraries and I’ll give any new book store at least one chance. Used bookshops, however, are another matter entirely.

There is a definite art to putting together a second-hand establishment, and the great ones have a mixture of dependability in terms of quality, high turnover, and a degree of chaos. The true joy behind paying one a visit is browsing and serendipitously stumbling upon a gem. It’s also thrilling to have a title in mind and then find exactly what you’re looking for on the shelf. Such a pleasure is taken for granted in chains. There is also the specific sound of creaking floors in quiet rooms which I love, and a certain ubiquitous used-but-not-unpleasant smell that most seem to possess.

Poorer operations, conversely, have had the same lingering titles sitting on the shelf since 1975. They smell all right, but musty or fungal, and nothing irritates me more than overpriced books. I don’t care much for those specializing in popular schlock fiction either.

These days I long to go used book shopping. I get the itch every couple of months, and then go and drop a ton of cash in one day. (That’s another fun thing about used books: they’re cheaper and you can cart more home with less money.) In Montreal, we don’t have one big shop, but rather, English and French clusters of smaller ones. The former is on Ste. Catherine between Atwater and Guy, and the latter, in an ‘L’ shape up St-Denis and then along Mount Royal East.

By far, I think the Strand in New York City is the best used book store. Although some order has been imposed onto it, I shall never forget the first time I stepped inside and spent several hours at least glancing at every shelf. You had to look just in case you missed something. Talk about ‘rough sort’. I must have bough thirty volumes that day. Sometimes I wish I could fly to NY just to go to there and then come home again. Sigh...

I shall ruminate no further on the subject, as I am getting wistful.

Leaders and Minds

There are great leaders and there are great minds, and often enough the two are found within the same person (although, alas, not always). I love studying greatness in any domain, from the past or the present. It doesn’t change over time or space, which is what makes it interesting. If you could distill certain qualities possessed by the Great and perhaps develop them in yourself, then in theory it should be possible to become that very thing - hence the abundance of books on leadership.

My first book of the week is a rather practical choice, recommended at a PLA session on becoming a leader. In my new job, I have a lot to do and a lot to prove, and I thought Michael Watkins’s book, The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels , would help. It will. Basically the book talks about how to create momentum in your organization during the first (and very pivotal) three months after you get the position. Watkins talks about accelerating your learning, securing early wins, building your team and creating coalitions, among other things. I must admit that I voraciously took notes, and will have my managers read it as well, as it is sure to assist them.

In keeping with this theme and the Benjamin Franklin one I mentioned in an earlier post, I also read Atlantic Cousins: Benjamin Franklin and His Visionary Friends by Jack Fruchtman Jr. This is a collective biography of some of the people with whom Franklin corresponded in three countries: America, Britain, and of course, France. The choice of people to write about was wide open, as Franklin spent inordinate amounts of time sending letters back and forth across the pond. Because of that, I found some of the selections rather weird (like Franz-Anton Mesmer), but that didn’t at all detract from the book. The author succeeded if he wanted to demonstrate the Enlightenment penchant to dip into many pots (politics, science, abolition, health, business, letters, etc.) and more importantly, to share findings with others.

I have become completely enamored with this era and the people who made it happen. So much has come from groups of intelligent people who decided to get together and discuss ideas, feeding off one another’s energy. These creative and brilliant clusters could be found throughout history, and all are deeply fascinating. Take ancient Athens, 1950s France, 1820s New England, and the Bloomsbury group in the early 20th century, just to give four random examples. I could read about them all day. Come to think of it, I have. This is the kind of thing I live for, and the kind of environment I am trying to foster in the library. The team I work with is just extraordinary and our brainstorming sessions inspire and invigorate us all. It doesn’t even feel like work, although we get a lot done.

I’ll leave you with this thought on a Saturday night: imagine what more could have been if all the aforementioned groups would have only had the Internet. Wow.

Active Citizenry

Several thought threads wove together nicely today, leading to more questions than answers in my brain. They are of such a complex nature so as to keep me occupied philosophically for a while. You’ll probably be hearing more about this in the weeks to come.

Going along the theme of public service, I read a French book entitled La Communication publique, by Pierre Zémor. It’s basically a break down of the varieties and purposes of all forms of public communication; that is, from governmental sources. It made me think of the difference between being a resident and being an active citizen. For residents, it’s “What can my city do for me? What benefits does it offer?” The citizens’ question, à la JFK, is “What can I do to improve my community? How can I get involved?” That’s a fundamental difference.

In all groups, there are the passive and active people, with some who dabble with joining should it suit them. To live in a city minimally means that’s where you go home at the end of the day. Using a municipal based service like the library is not being ‘active’, but it at least counts you in as a beneficiary of the city’s offerings. It’s hard enough getting every resident to do even that. First they have to see the point - how it helps them in their daily lives. You’d be surprised how difficult getting that across is. Beyond that level of involvement is a whole other story. Is it only a certain type of person who takes part? I’d like not to believe that to be the case, but I suspect it is. 

When I was gardening this entire afternoon, my mind flashed to an article I had recently read about Victory Gardens during the Second World War, and how they supplied 53% of American produce during that period. That’s incredible, but goes along the lines of doing what you can as a citizen (never mind the health and taste benefits of fresh veggies). Does it have to take a war or cataclysmic event to remind people that they belong somewhere? That of course begs a further question about multiple layers of identity and sense of community, but I won’t go there tonight. In fact, I’d better stop, because this post is straying very far from books altogether.

Documents of the Past

I have two degrees in history because I find the discipline riveting. I’d get a third if my life allowed it, but in the mean time, I’ll take my history where I can get it. This weekend’s first two books, though very different, scratch that historical itch.

The first, Strange Red Cow and Other Curious Classified Ads from the Past¸ is rather unknown but absolutely fascinating. Written by Sara Bader, this book is outright cool in every way. Not only are the design and layout of the book incredibly fitting and well-done, the inside offers keyhole views into the past. The author points out that while useful tools in our lives, classifieds have such a short-term life span as to be ephemeral and subsequently ignored or forgotten. By revisiting them, we can catch a glimpse of what was deemed important, how people regarded their property, what they sought in love. By far the most interesting chapters are those on runaway slaves and ‘information wanted’, especially about recently immigrated people. What delicious primary sources these ads are. Please ma’am, I want some more.

The second book is not a history at all, but takes place in one of the most historically steeped cities in the world, Venice. John Berendt’s latest, The City of Fallen Angels, is a memoir/documentary of sorts about the time he spent there following a fire that destroyed a famous opera house, the Fenice. As with other books set in the same place, the author presents the spectacle that is Venice, its many facets and personalities, not to mention scandals and intrigues. History is everywhere in the text – architectural, literary, political. Where else would Marco Polo’s 13th century house be found underneath a theatre?

I will be reading more about Venice and Italy this summer since I hope to visit the Boot in the fall. Ci vediamo.

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.

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.

Montreal

For years if not decades, Montreal was a city in decline. A huge chunk of the population and dozens of businesses left (mostly for Toronto) after the 1980 referendum, and more still departed after the one in 1995 (mostly for Vancouver or Calgary). I moved out of my parents’ home the year after that, when they were practically giving apartments away, with first and last month’s rent free and more selection than one could dream of. I too contemplated leaving because prospects for employment were slim, especially in a town of under-funded libraries and two library schools. Ten years later, I wouldn’t dream of it.

Renaissance is definitely the word for it. That mot juste is also used by Jean-Louis Roy in his book Montréal: ville nouvelle, ville plurielle, which I read this weekend. Everything he states about the surge in growth of this city, I could feel just by walking down the street. There are signs that prosperity has returned, including everything from cranes to a dramatic increase in the costs of rent and real estate. People are choosing to move here instead of the inverse, and the same is true for companies.

In his books on the creative class, Richard Florida discusses what it takes for a city to attract the best and the brightest, which he narrows down to three Ts: talent, tolerance, technology. We have all of them in spades. Our population is also really educated on average, a state of affairs aided by the presence of four universities and scores of colleges. We are also truly bilingual in a functioning way. Florida’s books, especially the most recent (The Flight of the Creative Class) are really good, although the first two are less readable because of the amount of statistical charts. I heard him speak at a conference last year, and he was fabulous. City planners should listen up.

From a bibliophile and librarian’s perspective, this town has collectively never been more ‘book aware’. The opening of the Grande Bibliothèque last year resulted in the multitudes flocking to use the facility. Being World Book Capital meant that literary activities abounded, and the merger/demerger discussions put libraries at the forefront of citizen debate. I absolutely love our Salon du Livre, which takes place in the late fall, and we have a thriving publishing industry as well.

I am incredibly enthusiastic about all of this, and I do hope to contribute in some way to the intellectual life of a once-again thriving island.

The ‘End-of-Semester’ Rush

This is one of the first weekends that I finished my required reading by Saturday night. I don’t know what it was about this week, but my nose was in the books constantly. The theory is that my brain is so conditioned to final exams and papers at this time of year that it subconsciously launched into adrenaline mode, as if there were seventeen assignments due and less than a month in which to complete them. It’s the same influence that makes me feel smarter in the fall. Being a university student is something I miss very much, and I did it for so many years that it would be impossible to ever shake the associated habits (including, unfortunately, cramming for important projects). There is no doubt in my mind that I’ll go back one day. In the meantime, I shall have to stick to Tanya U, which is still filled with much learning, albeit of a more relaxed nature.

Two of this week’s books had to do with reading. The first, edited by the brilliant Anne Fadiman, was Rereadings: Seventeen Writers Revisit Books They Love. You may be surprised, but I got nothing out of it. You should know this about me: I rarely if ever re-read books unless I’m giving a talk on them. The reason is that there is so much out there to get to that it feels like stagnation going over the same ground twice. Perhaps I’ll feel differently after many more years of life and experience, but this is how it is for the moment. I know you pick up on things you may have missed, or see the text with different eyes, but it’s still fundamentally the same book. Since I don’t re-read, I didn’t much care for hearing about the revisitations of others, least of all for titles that aren't familiar. This volume only got picked up because Fadiman’s name was attached to it. Others will definitely appreciate it, so please don’t turn away because of this personal feedback.

The second book was Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading by Maureen Corrigan. Clearly, this author can be counted among the ranks of bibliophiles everywhere. She discusses her mania, how books overpower her house and how her career consists of reading. In between, she reveals more personal aspects of her life, such as her struggles both to have a child and wade through the waters of academia. I was enjoying this book thoroughly until about halfway through. I didn’t like the feminist/leftist discussions on various titles (the lenses felt somewhat dated), and couldn’t at all relate to the Brooklyn working class Catholic background that tainted her reading and in this case, somewhat overpowered her writing. Not that I have to relate to everything I read (far from it), but something in this put me off. That said, I would read others of her books in the future, or at least give them a chance.

I started reading the third book to my husband months ago and hadn’t finished until today: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. While he had read it during his childhood, I had not. We started it as part of a new bedtime ritual, but quickly realized that it would take a while because of our sleeping habits. I go to bed only when on the verge of collapse which occurs, much to my chagrin, far earlier than it did ten years ago. By the time he joins me an hour or two later, I’m more often than not out cold. He then reads alone, being quite the night crawler and unable to unwind without some form of literary transition. Despite the deep allure of weighty slumber, it got done.

If you’re getting the impression that it seemed a bit of a chore, you aren’t wrong. While I loved the bonding with my hubby part, this isn’t my type of story. It’s too absurd and nonsensical, as Carroll himself stated repeatedly. Everyone should read it at some point, however, because of all the allusions and references made to it by writers, artists, and filmmakers ever since its publication in the nineteenth-century. One cannot accuse it of lacking imagery nor memorable characters. I think we'll read an American classic for the next bedtime pick, and then head back to Victorian Britain after that. On verra.

In the meantime, I’ll go spend some time with my husband lest he forget that he actually has a living and breathing wife.

Going Public

We’re currently digging through archives at my library so that we can put together a special anniversary publication. The exercise has been fascinating. I love going through historical documentation because it’s interesting to get a glimpse of what the library looked like decades ago, and what activities and services were offered. It’s also illuminating to track the values and norms of the times, and how they change (just to give you an example: we had a smoking room at one point).

One of the articles we’re writing is called ‘Growing up in the Library’. The fact is that there are thousands of people who have known this library their entire lives, who cannot imagine life without it. They had it when they were bouncing toddlers and their moms brought them to story time; they came here for all their school projects; they hung out here with their teenaged friends; and they took out books to help them find careers, love, and cars. They now bring their children here and continue the cycle. Even though they aren’t old yet (we’ve only been around for 40 years), we will continue to serve them well when they are. I say ‘here’ and ‘we’, but I could be referring to any public library, anywhere.

The beauty of public libraries (or one of them at least), is that they have offerings for every cycle of life, and people get out of them what they want or need. You can pop in, grab a book and go, or linger, talk to a librarian, sit and relax, attend a program and stay all day if you want. They are pretty flexible as far as institutions go, and mightily democratic.

Unlike schools, public libraries are places that people can pursue personal interests without a curriculum, or homework, or someone watching over them. When I was a kid, I took out the same Halloween book at least twenty times, maybe more. Nobody told me I couldn’t, or that I was wasting time (that’s a lie… My mother had something to say about that particular obsession after the third check-out, but I digress). Kids can find or create their own world at the library, and they are treated as individuals. I like to believe that we are helping them develop their personalities and cultivate their minds. Then we help them maintain it.

I’d be interested in hearing about your library memories if you want to share them. I’ve got to say too that I love what I do. Until next time.

Sunday Evening Stretch

There are many Sunday nights that I’d rather not read and instead spend time with my husband or preparing for the days ahead. Much as I love it, I wish I didn’t have to cram so much reading in on the weekends. It’s just impossible to get through books during the week, when I tend to take work home. The fourth book sometimes requires effort; it is the one that I’d drop every now and then if I could.

This morning I woke up once again with a linguistic bent. Howard Richler’s A Bawdy Language: How a Second-Rate Language Slept Its Way to the Top fit the bill. The author, a Montrealer, is one of the several solid English Language writers out there, in good company with Richard Lederer, William Safire, Bill Bryson, and David Crystal, to name a few. A Montreal Gazette columnist, he writes in a conversational way that appeals to an inquisitive but general audience. I very much appreciate the short chapters too. This would have made excellent bus reading.

After hours of housework ate up the afternoon (neatness, unfortunately, is not my forte), I needed to be transported. My ticket was Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. No, I didn’t read the book years ago, nor did I see the film. Part of my personal library collection, it’s lucky to have even been cracked open this decade. That said, it read like a breeze. Not romantic, but subtle. You don’t so much get a snapshot of a town in 17th century Netherlands as you do a portrait of the domestic and private life in that time and place. I think that this book did so well because of that keyhole feeling the text imparts. It suited my mood perfectly.

I’ll sign off before today slips into tomorrow, but you can be sure I’ll return.

Words/Les mots

Two areas that I never tire of reading about are language and intellectuals - subjects which, fortunately, are vast and often connected. I go through degrees of obsession with first one and at the moment, it’s in full swing. For the first time too, my husband has jumped on the bandwagon. Even our joint audio course is related: the fantastic The History of the English Language, given by Professor Seth Lerer from Stanford University. Did you know (just to throw a tidbit at you) that the word ‘butterfly’ is a Modern English version of ‘flutterby’? Etymology is fascinating.

The transit book of the week was On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language by Ilan Stavans. We’ve met this author before, and I enjoyed this volume, although it is really different from Dictionary Days. It reveals a lot more about the author and his family, for one thing. He’s descended from Ashkenazi Eastern European Jews who moved to Mexico, where he grew up and learned to speak Spanish, Yiddish, and Hebrew. He then moved to the States and learned English, his preferred tongue. In this book he recounts his journey in search of identity through different family members, countries, and —ultimately — words.

The second text of the week is part of my effort to maintain my French. It’s about one of France’s most well-known public intellectuals, Bernard-Henri Lévy. The book, entitled BHL: une biographie, by Philippe Cohen, filled the gap in my knowledge about the now very controversial figure. He’s currently under fire in the United States for his latest work, American Vertigo, which is an account of his travels in the footsteps of Alexis de Tocqueville. His descriptions are not altogether flattering. For what it’s worth, he also always causes a stir in his own nation, albeit for different reasons. His fellow countrymen love criticizing him for everything from being exceedingly wealthy to being a media-hound; from not coming up with any ‘original theory’ to lying about some aspects of his past. This isn’t exactly a flattering biography. Maybe it’s because I’m Canadian, but I really don’t care about any of the above.

I’ve read several of his books and pretty much liked every single one of them. He writes well, and so what if he’s gone against the stereotype of the homely impoverished Parisian intellocrate? That he’s used the media to maximum effect is very clever, and that he’s opportunistic in what he writes about makes me take my hat off to him even more. I can appreciate a well-managed career, and will follow Lévy’s for some time to come.

You will hear much more about my pet subjects in the weeks to follow; of that I am certain.

Random Bibliographic Musings #1

When you read about book collectors and rare book dealers, you learn that more often than not, they hunt down first editions. As I was wandering through the stacks at work today, it occurred to me that pretty much every hard cover version of any book we have is a first. Most public libraries would have collections worth a mint if not for one tiny little factor: processing.

If driving a car off the lot halves its value, then processing a book does as much damage. Actually, it pretty much kills any and all monetary appreciation. By processing I mean, of course, gluing on pockets, stamping the library name, plasticizing the cover, adding a barcode and so on. That doesn’t even count wear incurred by use.

The purpose of any book in a public library is to be circulated above all else, otherwise the citizens’ tax dollars would be wasted. The more a book goes out, the more value the book has. Our currency, you see, is people. On a purely intellectual level, the ideas and language within a book are also not bound to pages inside two covers. Books are written for an audience.

I always wonder if an author would rather have his or her ideas widely spread, or sell a few copies more but have fewer people discuss or know about it. Public libraries, without a doubt, allow more people to access a given title. Most people would simply read less if there were no way to get a book for free. That said, if a library has even a single copy of a book and forty people take it out, that’s forty books not sold. But forty people wouldn’t ever have bought it, or read it, or discussed it. I’d say about ten might have; another few would borrow it from them; perhaps some might have sold it to a used book dealer, who would in turn resell it. Often it happens that runaway bestsellers do very well in both libraries and bookstores, but not always.

For publishers, it’s quite a predicament. I wonder if public libraries were invented in our day and age and didn’t have the weight of tradition, if they’d even be legal today. You can say that literacy is a public good, etc. etc. but in our times, money often seems more important. Then again, libraries are also major purchasers of books, so they kind of have to be catered to as well. To throw in another twist, people in the book business are usually bibliophiles to some degree, and I’m sure that many grew up loving libraries, which helped foster the admiration for books in the first place. Certainly they would not consider public libraries a threat to their livelihood. Hmmm…

I just wonder about things like this, hence, the title ‘random bibliographic musings’.

Memorable Memoir

Although I tend to follow my own path in terms of which book to pick up next, I force myself to read at least a few titles from a bestseller, ‘best-of’, or other kind of list, just to be in touch with my fellow readers, and in case there’s a gem I’d have otherwise not discovered. Tonight’s book - The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls - is one such title, and a fabulous memoir to boot.

Raised by eccentric parents in a nomadic and impoverished lifestyle, the author found solace in her siblings and eventually the (realized) dream of moving to New York. The story is about disillusionment on one hand, (in this case, with her alcoholic father), and tenacity on the other. Walls grew up too fast, and she is a survivor in a literal sense, once even eating margarine when there was nothing else in the house.

I really enjoyed this book, and for many reasons. The relationship she has with her brother and sisters is crucial. They really look out for one another in a way that siblings ideally should. If you have any, you know what I mean. I appreciated the author’s ability to step away from her upbringing and create her own life. She is highly likeable, too: tough, smart, protective, sensitive, and down-to-earth. The way she writes pulls the reader into her story, and you just want to keep going to see how she gets to be the author of the volume in your hands. This book is highly recommended.

Guys and Books

It is one of the great and tragic mysteries of the reading world that the male half of our species reads nowhere near the same amount as its female counterpart. This is a phenomenon that begins relatively young, and carries into old age. It has not always been this way, so you have to ask: what happened? Honestly, I don’t know, but does it ever bother me.

It’s not like there aren’t books to suit every taste imaginable. It’s not like there is anything inherent in the delightful process of reading that would drive men away. I know many men who read a lot, and who could be easily classified as bibliophiles to boot. For every one of them, however, there are certainly five or six women with the same designation, and even more guys who don’t read at all.

Public librarians across the U.S. and Canada are troubled by this. Downright perplexed, in fact. There are seminars and workshops given by experts on how to get boys to read, how to draw them into the library. The rising popularity of graphic novels in libraries can practically be attributed to this effort, and they work on some level. Still, it’s not enough.

I’ve asked my husband, now a bibliomaniac like me, why he read less in his teens and twenties. He had a few one-word answers: TV, videogames, computer, movies, and going out. If he were the type, one could add sports to the mix as well. Is this unique? No. I’d say his list covers most obstacles to male reading in that age group. He got into reading again by taking out books on those very subjects, and from there branched out. That’s a good place to begin. In terms of fiction, here’s another.

The phenomenon of ‘Chick Lit’ swept across the literary world in the late nineties and just gets more popular as time goes on. There is a male equivalent, called ‘Lad Lit’, or ‘Dick Lit’, for the twenty and thirty-something crowd. It hasn’t been as big, to be sure, but it’s still out there, no matter how low key. Leading the pack is Nick Hornby, but do check out Jonathan Coe, Irvine Welsh (of Trainspotting fame) and Roddy Doyle.

On this side of the pond, the McSweeney’s crowd is the way to go. What began as a literary journal has grown to much, much more than that. Involved, among others, are David Eggers, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, and Paul Collins. The last of these is my favourite of the bunch.

I just finished his most recent book called The Trouble with Tom : The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine, about – literally - the resurrection and reburial of Mr. Paine’s body several times, in America and Britain. Collins loves digging into strange and neglected historical phenomena, and this is another manifestation of that. I suppose it’s false putting him with fiction, since he pretty much writes non-fiction, but he’s still with the gang, and a great writer.

I’m in the painful process of putting a bibliography together on ‘guy reads’ for the library. It’s only difficult because there is very little out there in terms of resources. I have my helpers, though, and please feel free to become one of them.

Audio Dynamite

Audiobooks are the best kept secret in the reading world. Once thought to be an invention for the visually impaired or long-distance driver, they are any and every reader’s best friend. I’ve worked in libraries for years, and I always disregarded them until last summer. Now, I’m a junkie. Trust me, once you listen to one, you’re guaranteed to be hooked and your reading habits will change forever.

These recordings, performed by professional actors, are available in a variety of formats. You’ll want to go for the unabridged ones, for the most part, unless you just want an idea of what a given book is about. In many cases, the audio version is even better than the physical book (as with the Harry Potters read by Jim Dale, or any title performed by Jeff Woodman). You can also get audio courses given by top university professors, put out by the Teaching Company or Recorded Books (in the latter case, the Modern Scholar series). This is a beautiful art form.

The main reason I love them is that people can squeeze more books into their lives during times that they would not otherwise be able to read. In my case, because I n