friday june 26
Imagine that you find yourself in San Francisco with an entire day of freedom. Or Sydney, or Lisbon, or Tokyo. What would be the perfect way to optimize your good fortune? Writers of the Lonely Planet travel guides have put together a small book that describes their ideal plans for a day in 100 cities around the world: it's called The Perfect Day. Frequently starting with a little coffee, a local newspaper, a leisurely stroll, these short vignettes make for delightful reading. Timbuktu is in there too!
What might your 'Perfect Cincinnati Day' consist of? Throw out all of the barriers - you can wish for no traffic on I-75, a grand slam with two out in the bottom of the ninth for a Reds win, or maybe someone invites you and yours to cruise the mighty Ohio River on their yacht on a sunny - but not too hot - summer day. It's fun to think about the possibilities.
My own Perfect Day in Cincinnati would involve pizza, ice cream, and George Clooney - enough said!
wednesday june 24
I was at the Art Museum last Saturday, talking at the From Author to Artist Book Club, which pairs books from the library to artworks in the museum. Do you know about the program?
We were discussing Portrait of an Unknown Woman, by Vanora Bennett. It’s a novel about Thomas More and one of his wards, and about the family portrait of the Mores that Hans Holbein painted during the reign of Henry VIII.
Bennett wrote the novel based on a theory she had read, that the symbols in the painting indicate a secret identity for one of the figures. To reveal more would be to say Too Much, but fans of historical conspiracies will enjoy that part of the plot. Readers interested in the roles of women in historical times will find lots more to enjoy.
It was an interesting discussion, and Libby from the Art Museum showed us some fascinating things about northern Renaissance painting.
But if you’re picking a Vanora Bennett novel to read, I actually liked her new novel, Figures in Silk, much better.
Continue Reading…
monday june 22
Remember a few weeks ago, when I posted about how you can find people who love books, music, and movies as much as you do, here at the library?
Now I'm hoping you're out there, too.
We just heard on Saturday that the governor's proposed budget, which will be finalized by June 30, will cut state library funding by 50%.
Just to clarify: this is entirely separate from the issue of a local library levy proposed for this November's ballot.
Since almost all of our library's funding currently comes from the state, you can imagine how catastrophic this change would be.
So, book lovers, library lovers, we're hoping for your support. We're asking that people contact their legislators before June 30 to make their concern known about the proposed cut.
For more information, take a look at the Call to Action posted on our homepage.
Meanwhile, I hope you're all enjoying the good reads you find in this blog. I felt triumphant last week when so many of you requested The Gone-Away World. Do you like it?
wednesday june 17
Recently, I saw the trailer for the new Woody Allen film, Whatever Works. Basic premise is aging eccentric New Yorker meets a sweet young thing, marries her and the ensuing drama (and hilarity?) that follows. It immediately made me think of Manhattan and the semi-scandal of featuring seventeen-year old Mariel Hemingway as the then middle-aged Allen's love interest. That and his own marriage to his former step-daughter do give one pause about his fascination with younger women. Mariel, however, seems to have emerged unscathed from her notorious moment as the Allen star du jour and has turned to writing books about holistic living and cooking in addition to her acting career.
Her latest offering, Mariel's Kitchen: Simple Ingredients for a Delicious and Satisfying Life,is an attractive, glossy book stuffed with pictures of the still gorgeous Hemingway as she preps and cooks for her daughters and friends. Of course everything is fresh and organic and raised just down the road at that adorable sustainable farmstead, but in addition to her preaching about living a greener and healthier life, Hemingway does offer some basic recipes that suit the needs of those avoiding flour and sugar (for a while she ate no fructose but does allow some fruit to sneak into her recipes).
Continue Reading…
Don’t stop reading when I say this one’s science fiction. It’s for all of you who loved Catch-22, The Three Musketeers, Hunter S. Thompson, P. G. Wodehouse, Russell Hoban, and, well—hard to say what else. It’s a larger-than-life war story, a scathing satire told in laugh-out-loud-clever wordplay, and a postapocalyptic tale of friendship in the best buddy pic tradition—The Gone-Away World, by Nick Harkaway.
The Haulage and HazMat Emergency Civil Freebooting Company is as usual gathered in the Nameless Bar when they see on TV that the Jorgmund Pipe is on fire.
It can’t be on fire. It’s the only thing that’s holding back the strangeness that has swept the world since the recent war. The very unusual war in which Gonzo Lubitsch and his pals performed various raucously heroic and occasionally unspeakable acts, and formed their mercenary gang.
Naturally, they suit up to go to the rescue. And our narrator, Gonzo’s best friend and sidekick, fills us in on how the Pipe came to be, what the horrors are that it keeps at bay, and why this particular band of friends is the only hope to set the world at right again.
Continue Reading…
tuesday june 16
I have a confession to make: I've never read James Joyce's Ulysses, have not so much as scanned a few pages in order to get through a literature course. And so today, Bloomsday 2009, I shall attempt to rectify this situation.
Upon initial inspection, I can see what all of the fuss is about. Joyce stirred up the literary world with his story of a few people who make their way through a day in Dublin on June 16, 1904. Beyond that, it is obvious that it could take a lifetime to get a grip on this novel, which required a decision from the US District Court in December 1933 to be published legally in the United States.
Continue Reading…
wednesday june 10
Here are a couple of peculiarly enjoyable little mysteries set in England. The instantly inimitable voice of the eleven-year-old narrator of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley, will leave you in no doubt that it’s in a class of its own. And the George Booth cartoon on the cover of The Herring-Seller’s Apprentice, by L. C. Tyler, will clue you in that it isn’t the usual sort of cozy either.
Flavia de Luce is overjoyed to stumble on a dying man in the garden of their English country house in the middle of the night. Along with her passion for chemistry and poisons, she has always wanted to solve a murder.
The man is an apparent stranger, but the enterprising Flavia suspects he is connected to the dead jacksnipe her father found on the doorstep a few days before with a penny stamp impaled on its beak.
Continue Reading…
