Reader Review: Ishmael

Posted on Wednesday, January 3, 2024 by patron reviewer

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn book cover I love gorillas. As a small child my grandfather would take me to the B&I shopping center in Tacoma, Washington where I would watch Ivan the gorilla for hours. Even that young, I felt sorry for him, but I was, at the same time, happy to be able to wile away literal hours watching him. He was funny, clearly smart, and so incredibly intimidating. It was obvious he was intelligent and it forced me to think about humans relationship with animals in a way I otherwise may not have done.

The book “Ishmael” follows the story of a gorilla named Ishmael who can “speak” telepathically, and communicate vast amounts of knowledge about the aforementioned relationship between men and animals. He advertises for students in the newspaper and the story is a chronicle of his tutoring of one such man that answers the advertisement.

I find it funny that the top three reviews of this book are not only one star, but are written by people that clearly took the book at it’s word and face value. Ishmael uses his time with the narrator to explain why man is on a crash course for self-destruction. While I don’t agree with every detail of Ishmael’s explanation, I do agree with the overall sentiment. Manifest destiny, etc. lend very heavily toward our precarious place in the circle of life. Our hubris and self importance will be our eventual downfall.

This is fiction and should be read as such, but it makes you think and makes you reexamine ideals and supposed knowledge. Isn’t that what all good fiction should do? If the reader is also entertained, it’s a win-win. My copy is littered with Post-It Notes. Ishmael says many, many things that I want to look into further things I know, but want to know more about.

Three words that describe this book: Thought-provoking, relevant, insightful

You might want to pick this book up if: You question humanity’s place in the world.

-Kandice

This reader review was submitted as part of Adult Summer Reading. We will continue to share reviews throughout the year. 

Nonfiction Roundup: January 2024

Posted on Monday, January 1, 2024 by Liz

New Year, new nonfiction books coming out in January 2024! All of the mentioned titles are available to put on hold in our catalog and will also be made available via the library’s Overdrive website on the day of publication in eBook and downloadable audiobook format (as available). For a more extensive list of new nonfiction books coming out this month, check our online catalog.

Top Picks

The Age of Deer by Erika Howsare book coverThe Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship with Our Wild Neighbors” by Erika Howsare (Jan 2)
Deer have been an important part of the world that humans occupy for millennia. They’re one of the only large animals that can thrive in our presence. In the 21st century, our relationship is full of contradictions: We hunt and protect them, we cull them from suburbs while making them an icon of wilderness, we see them both as victims and as pests. But there is no doubt that we have a connection to deer: in mythology and story, in ecosystems biological and digital, in cities and in forests. Delving into the historical roots of these tangled attitudes and how they play out in the present, Erika Howsare observes scientists capture and collar fawns, hunters show off their trophies, a museum interpreter teaching American history while tanning a deer hide, an animal-control officer collecting the carcasses of deer killed by sharpshooters, and a woman bottle-raising orphaned fawns in her backyard. As she reports these stories, Howsare’s eye is always on the bigger picture: Why do we look at deer in the ways we do, and what do these animals reveal about human involvement in the natural world? Continue reading “Nonfiction Roundup: January 2024”

Reader Review: River of the Gods

Posted on Friday, December 29, 2023 by patron reviewer

River of Gods by Candice Millard book coverIn the mid-19th century, explorers wondered about the location of the source of the Nile River. Two English adventurers, Burton and Speke, led an expedition to find the final answer. “River of the Gods” describes the extreme difficulties of their exploration including lack of funding, disappearing workers, near starvation and life-threatening illnesses that made the trek nearly impossible.

The even more interesting story was the personalities of these two men. Burton as the leader was six years older, more experienced, better able to communicate with the African people he hired, better able to understand their culture. Speke was more aristocratic, less interested in scientific investigations, more interested in hunting the African animals. Not surprisingly, although the two men had supported each other through near-death diseases, they returned to England bitter rivals. The resulting argument was nearly as interesting as the fascinating tale already told.

Candice Millard gives a detailed and seemingly historically accurate description of this expedition and its aftermath. An amazing story told in an amazing way.

Three words that describe this book: historical, exciting, adventure

You might want to pick this book up if: You enjoy true tales of adventure; you like geography; you like descriptions of interpersonal relationships and how they affect outcomes.

-Anonymous

This reader review was submitted as part of Adult Summer Reading. We will continue to share reviews throughout the year. 

Reader Review: Shuna’s Journey

Posted on Wednesday, December 27, 2023 by patron reviewer

Shuna's Journey by Hayao Miyazaki book coverShuna’s Journey” is a parable about societies that lose control of what sustains them. In this case, as one might expect of Hayao Miyazaki, what’s lost is a connection to the natural world, particularly to agriculture.

The main and titular character, Shuna is a prince from a village in the periphery whose people have retained this connection, living impoverished agrarian lives. He desires a better life for his people, but unlike the manhunters and city dwellers seen elsewhere who live in symbolically lifeless deserts and enrich themselves with the labor of slaves stolen from the periphery, Shuna understands that that life must come from the natural world — from the fruits of agriculture. He seeks a better cereal crop, the golden grain that sustains the city, shipped in husked and lifeless from the land of the gods. A journey through geological time into that land proves surreal and, almost literally alien, full of lavishly illustrated horrors and wonders that Shuna only escapes with the aid of slaves he freed previously in his journey.

The story is a striking tale of courage and renewal. Despite the fact that it wears its origin as a Tibetan folk tale on its sleeve, Miyazaki’s identification of the source of modern energy, modern lifeless society — our “golden grain” — in the life force of natural epochs past is a powerful and thoughtful image that ties together movements for environmental protection, worker’s rights and decolonization.

If there is something lacking in this image, it is the modern analogue of Miyazaki’s hero, Shuna. We ourselves cannot journey through geological time to gain control of the golden grain, so Miyazaki’s tale leads us to no clear path of future action to save our world.

Three words that describe this book: imaginative, thought-provoking, breath-taking

You might want to pick this book up if: you loved Miyazaki’s work on the film “Princess Mononoke” which evokes many of the same themes in a far more historically and geographically grounded narrative.

-Shane

This reader review was submitted as part of Adult Summer Reading. We will continue to share reviews throughout the year. 

Reader Review: Eva Luna

Posted on Monday, December 25, 2023 by patron reviewer

Eva Luna by Isabel Allende book coverIn the book “Eva Luna,” the title character is an orphan with a gift for story-telling. As she navigates the magical and sometimes ruthless streets of South America, she has only her wits and words to barter passage and build friendships. She sees the world through the lens of stories and views her fellow citizens as characters, swirling around in her mind providing inspiration for whatever necessary tale she needs to weave next.

Isabel Allende’s writing is dense and intricate, but if you give yourself over to the style you’ll find yourself woven into the tapestry of the world she creates. There is a supplemental collection of stories, “The Stories of Eva Luna,” where Allende shares the specifics of the stories Eva Luna crafted in the first novel, and it’s worth reading them one right after the other. I wished that the novel “Eva Luna” had gone into the stories instead of just alluding to them, but then reading the stories after the fact, I appreciate that I have a rich and detailed understanding of the context they were told in.

Three words that describe this book: Intricate, Romantic, Vibrant

You might want to pick this book up if: you are looking to broaden your reading experience and explore diverse authors and stories. Also, if you want to read a novel and then a book of short stories right after.

-Amy

This reader review was submitted as part of Adult Summer Reading. We will continue to share reviews throughout the year. 

Follow First Thursday (and More) with RSS

Posted on Friday, December 22, 2023 by Nathan F

The next First Thursday book discussion is coming up in the new year, on January 4. This post by staff member Maggie M has the details on the book, Rebecca Serle’s “The Dinner List” and the online author talk with Serle, on January 10. I just caught up with last week’s online talk with Stephanie Land, author of December’s First Thursday book, “Maid.” (If you missed that discussion or Land’s talk, Maggie’s post on her book is a great primer.)

To keep up with this and future First Thursday discussions, you can of course check the website or the Program Guide in your mail (or online, under “Events Quick Links”), and follow DBRL on social media and by email. But did you know you can also get updates about First Thursday, specifically, using… a feed reader?

Feed readers may be familiar to you if you were online during the blog era. For everybody else, the simplest way I have seen to describe feed readers, a.k.a. RSS readers, comes from longtime RSS app developer Brent Simmons, “It’s like podcasts — but for reading.”

Continue reading “Follow First Thursday (and More) with RSS”

Read the Recipe! Snoop & E-40 Write a Cookbook?!

Posted on Wednesday, December 20, 2023 by Jason Delpire

Goon with the Spoon book cover I’ll be honest, I wasn’t going to write another cookbook review. I’ve been feeling like there were few new books that really interested me and the older titles everyone already knows about.  But, as I was shelving New Books, this caught my eye: “Goon With the Spoon.” I have looked at Snoop’s other cookbook, “From Crook to Cook” (it was also surprisingly well done), but when I saw E-40 was also involved, I was sold; I listened to E-40’s “In A Major Way” a BUNCH when it came out.

From Crook to Cook book cover

First of all, this is NOT a book for everyday eating. In the name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, please do not eat like this every day. But, if you are throwing a party or, say, watching a football game, (You know, watching a good team, like the Packers. 😂) then, this is an excellent selection of rich, flavorful items with enough variety for nearly every taste. And, the recipes are legit — not many shortcuts like you tend to find in most pop culture cookbooks. Not to be left out: a wide variety of drinks for adults. Oh, and the photos!! Bold, deep, meaty colors with minimal gimmicks. Each photo highlights the dish and lends legitimacy to the book; paging through you don’t see it as a cookbook by two legendary rappers — you see this as a handbook to throw a great food party. Seriously, these are some of the best food pics I can remember seeing. (Ok, maybe not in the same class as the books by Michelin-starred chefs, but that’s just different.)

Mount Westmore Album CoverQuick plug for the Mount Westmore release, too. I listened to it while writing this. It’s like a Westside Connection album, but with a couple extra legends. (Read: if this was released in ‘98, it would be AMAZING. Now, it’s like when that one uncle gets to talking a bit too much about when they were young.)

Some of the best looking recipes from “Goon With the Spoon” include:
Cornbread Rice, pg 159; Flamin’ Hot Cheetos Mac ’n’ Cheese Bites, pg 62 (The cook in me recoils in horror, but the cheese addict in me says to get over it.); and Kickin’ Lickin’ Collard Greens, pg 153 (This one features what may be my favorite photo in the book!).

The Gift of Information: Newspapers!

Posted on Monday, December 18, 2023 by Sew Happy

This holiday season, do you want to play the best party game ever with friends and family? Or perhaps, as if giving them a gift, show them a wonderful aspect of our online library that they may not know about? Teach them how to read major publications such as the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal for free. Just sit down with their library cards and laptops or tablets and show them all the awesome things this post will teach you how to do.

Yes, first you need to learn how to do this yourself. So grab your own library library card, a cup of tea and let’s get to exploring DBRL’s online resources.

New York Times Recent & US Major Dailies

I want you to go to www.dbrl.org, our website. Notice the green menu bar that runs across the page. Tap on Research & Learn, find the Topics column and finally tap onto Articles & Newspapers.

Continue your search by clicking on New York Times Recent & US Major Dailies. Log in with your library card and PIN (your birthdate in MMDDYYYY format). A search page comes up. Just above the search field are publication types; if you are searching for a topic and don’t care which newspaper it is in, find Newspapers under all source types, then fill in the search field and hit enter. All articles from all newspapers will come up in the result list. You click on an article title to get a summary and then on the Full Text – PDF button to read the article.

If you only want to read one newspaper, look at the top of the search page for a link to publications. Type the newspaper you want to read on the publications search page and hit enter. From the result list look for the one that has full text coverage through to the present.

Clicking on this will bring up the published articles from the current issue; you can also select to view an earlier issue. To the right of any article are options for emailing or saving or citing it as well as related articles and additional search terms you may want to explore.

This particular resource gives you access to 10 different databases and only one of those contains newspapers, which are the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune. These are text-based articles only unless you are looking at the historical records of digitized newspapers. If you find yourself looking at scholarly journals and dissertations, check your filters to be sure only newspapers is selected.

Other Resources in the Topic Guide

The Kansas City Star Collection and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Collection have current newspaper articles in text form or you can view the entire paper just as if you held it in front of you. It’s a bit difficult, in my opinion, to read on your phone, although the image interface does allow you to zoom in and out. I use my computer screen so I’m reading the paper as if it was a paper copy with the ads, the images and the adjoining articles, and I feel the experience is more interesting.

Newsbank brings us local papers such as the Columbia Daily Tribune, Boone County Journal and Fulton Sun, as well as The Kansas City Star and St. Louis Post-Dispatch collections. Again, you miss the pictures and the ads and it is not the same experience as holding the paper in your hands. No comics or crosswords! The community aspect of reading a newspaper online isn’t there, either, but accessing the local papers via these resources will keep you up with local news.

By the way, the Columbia Missourian is not mentioned in the previous resource because it has made its archives open and you can search there at any time. I learned that from a journalism student.

That is a quick introduction to just a few of our resource databases. Others provide you with articles from newspapers: Academic Search Elite brings you results from full-text journal articles for most academic areas for the teen and adult researcher; Explora provides our younger patrons with articles and facts for research papers, class projects, or homework from the world’s leading magazines and reference books.

More About Topic Guides and Resources

It is fairly easy to move between our list of topic guides and the list of resources. Just use the green boxes that are visible on any of the pages in this section of the website. But what is the difference between the two categories?

Our resources are databases for which we have paid licensing fees so you have to have an active library card and live in our service area. It is a long list! Learn history, languages, arts, how to repair a car, what stocks are worth, read newspapers and books (both adult and children!), have a book read out loud to you, prepare for your driver’s exam, prepare to get a job, a GED, a will… the opportunities go on and on. Some of them, like Ancestry, have to be used in the library because of licensing requirements. Some of them, like Chilton Automotive Repair, is more convenient to use in the library as we have larger paper for printing out schematics, although you can use them at home or on the road. Each item on this page is a separate resource.

Our topic guides are a mix of free resources and resources that require a library card. And while I’ve covered the first one, Articles & Newspapers, I highly encourage you to look at others. These have been curated to ensure the information is appropriate. The links are checked regularly to ensure they are still active. Explore such topics as Arts, Hobbies and Recreation, Cars and Driving, Government and Genealogy and much more.

We would love for you to stop by any of our branches if you would like some help using these resources. Additionally, the Columbia Public Library offers Device Advice twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays, from 2-3:30 p.m.

Remember when I mentioned at the start of this post that this could be the best party game ever? It’s fun to explore; I personally have shown people how to use these resources many times and I love the pleasure and empowerment people experience as they realize what is available to them with the click of a few buttons — and their library cards, of course. I’ve opened my phone at the dining table, the grocery store and even at an estate sale to show people how to use their online resources. I hope that with this article I’ve encouraged you, too, to use your public library to your best and full advantage.

TBR (To Be Read) in 2024

Posted on Friday, December 15, 2023 by Michael M

With the year coming to a close, it is often considered a time for reflection and resolutions, looking back at the year’s events, and what we’re going to do over the course of the next year. In library- and book-land, the end of the year often means lots of retrospectives about the best books published that year, what people read and love, how many books they read, etc. I do read a lot of books (since working in libraries especially, I average between 150-200 books a year), but there are always more! So, given how many books I own, have out from the library, or have heard good things about, what am I prioritizing as we move into 2024?

Cover of "Legendborn" by Tracy DeonnTracy Deonn exploded onto the scene in 2020 with her debut novel “Legendborn.” Meant for a young adult audience (although don’t let that stop you), we follow Bree, a young Black woman as she discovers the secret behind her mother’s death. On her first day at UNC Chapel Hill’s early college program, Bree witnesses something she shouldn’t have, and when magic fails to wipe her mind, she sets off on a journey to discover more about her own magic. This novel mixes the African diaspora with Arthurian legend, while examining race, gender and intergenerational trauma.

I’ve owned a copy of this for a few years now, and it pushes so many of my buttons: King Arthur and his knights, with magic, set in the modern day, from the perspective of someone who isn’t a white male. Everyone I’ve heard talk about this book, either on social media or just within my friend group absolutely loves it, and they all immediately picked up the sequel when it came out. As of the writing of this post, the third book has been announced for 2025, with a planned fourth book down the line, meaning there will be lots to look forward to! Continue reading “TBR (To Be Read) in 2024”

January First Thursday Book Discussion: The Dinner List

Posted on Wednesday, December 13, 2023 by MaggieM

If you could have dinner with any five people, living or dead, who would you pick?

In Rebecca Serle’s novel, “The Dinner List,” the protagonist finds herself at dinner with the five people from a list she penned years earlier, including the deceased Audrey Hepburn.

The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle book coverI have to admit, that I was skeptical in the opening chapter of the book. Partly because the dinner list concept seems a little played out. It’s not a new concept or a particularly mind-bending idea, so I doubted if Serle was going to advance the discussion in a novel direction.

But I finished the book with my mind stretched in pleasant ways.

If you’ve never given this dinner list concept any thought before, and even if you have, I would encourage you to do so. Who would you invite? Why those people?

Read the book.

Return to your previous ruminations.

And bring your thoughts to the next First Thursday Book Discussion, on January 4, 2024.

Author Rebecca Serle will also appear live as part of the DBRL Online Author Series on Wednesday, January 10 at 7 p.m. Visit the author series site to register.