On April 11, 2011, I published my first ever DBRL blog post, “Resources for Writers at Your Library.” While many older articles are no longer in the archives, I’m an information hoarder and have maintained a spreadsheet listing the ones I’ve written. This post you’re reading right now? Number 100 for me. To mark the occasion, I’m focusing on books with 100 in the title.
“One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, published in 1967, follows several generations of the Buendia family, living in the remote Colombian jungle town of Macondo, established by their patriarch. I read this book more than twenty years ago, yet there are images that remain fresh in my memory — the reaction of someone seeing ice for the first time, a scene with ants that still makes me shudder. Incorporating magical realism, ghosts and a lot of metaphor, the story interweaves much of the history of Colombia into the telling. No matter the remoteness of the family dwellings, they are unable to escape the encroachments of the railroad, a civil war, and United Fruit. Continue reading “One Hundred”
Four Seasons 1208 / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
“All human things are a circle” is the inscription on the temple to Athena in Athens.
I had started to write a very different article. I was going to write about summer and beach reads, but this just doesn’t seem to be the summer for that. Not that there’s anything wrong with escaping into a good beach read. I changed my mind when my 25-year-old son came to me and wanted me to watch President Kennedy’s address on civil rights and Bobby Kennedy’s address in Indianapolis on the 1968 race riots after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. He made the comment that it feels like the world is on fire. He says this from a position of relative privilege. And it’s not just the George Floyd protests. It’s everything. It’s race. It’s climate. It’s the pandemic. It’s political chaos. It’s so much more. I asked him if he had read “The Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin and the parallel book of essays, “The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race.” It’s hard to deny a sense of deja vu. It’s also incredibly frustrating that we seem to be still fighting the same fights. Continue reading “Literary Links: All Human Things Are a Circle”
The serendipity of finding books through browsing is one of the powerful features of libraries. You might think that browsing the shelves online is impossible, but I’m here to tell you it can be done right inside our DBRL catalog. The feature is called “Browse by Call Number,” but note that the feature is unfortunately missing for mobile users — it only works for browsing the catalog on a desktop computer or tablet. Continue reading “Catalog Tricks: Browsing the Shelves Online”
Posted on Thursday, July 2, 2020 by Reading Addict
What a crazy summer it is! Normally that would mean wild parties and big vacations but that is (hopefully?) not the case this year. This summer doesn’t HAVE to be defined as the summer of the pandemic, although I’m sure it will be. But we can define it as the summer of the pause. We can make it the summer of reading. There are a lot of hot new books out that feature our hottest season.Continue reading “Are You Ready for the Summer?!”
Try freezing food scraps to make a delicious broth once you’ve accumulated enough ingredients
Between the bountiful summer harvest and the COVID-19 pandemic keeping many of us at home, the time is ripe for minimizing food waste from our home kitchens. There are so many ways to get the most use out of our food, like using all of the edible parts of proteins and produce or stretching the shelf-life of items by dehydrating or pickling.
“Every last bit of vegetable and protein contains nutrition and flavor waiting to be savored”
– wisdom from The Soupmaker’s Kitchen
Today brings us into the home stretch of pollinator week. I trust that you have been outside all week, feverishly pollinating plants by hand. Hard work, isn’t it? It’s a lot easier when we let nature’s other creatures do that work, but we need to have enough of those creatures to pollinate the plants. Otherwise, there could be problems.
Pollinators provide pollination services to over 180,000 different plant species and more than 1200 crops. 1 out of every three bites of food you eat is there because of pollinators, and pollinators add 217 billion dollars to the global economy. As if that wasn’t enough, they also support healthy ecosystems that clean the air, stabilize soils, protect from severe weather, and support other wildlife. So, a problem for pollinators can easily become a problem for us.
The designation of a week in June as “National Pollinator Week” was a necessary step toward addressing the urgent issue of declining pollinator populations. Some of the ways you can help are to utilize plants that support pollinators, support local beekeepers, practice conservation and be a responsible steward of the environment.
I’m sure I’m not the only avid reader who often finishes a book, or an entire series, yet still wishes to know more about the characters and the fictional universe they inhabit. Specifically, I wonder about what happened in their pasts. This is where prequels come in.
I’ve done a lot of pondering about the world Suzanne Collins created with The Hunger Games trilogy. How did it get to the state it was in? Were the games always so technologically advanced? Some backstory was woven into the original three books, explaining the origins of the deadly contest for which the series is named. Readers saw many details about the mechanical and political workings of the games as experienced by teenaged protagonist Katniss Everdeen and dictated by the ruthless leader of Panem, President Snow. Now, in “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” a recently released prequel that is set 64 years before Katniss became a District 12 tribute, we get a look at how things were done in the early days, when Coriolanus Snow was a teenager eager to restore his family’s ever-slipping position of power in society. Continue reading “Prequels: What Happened Before”
Here is a new DVD list highlighting various titles recently added to the library’s collection.
“Seven Worlds, One Planet” Series 1 Website / Reviews
Millions of years ago, incredible forces ripped apart the Earth’s crust, creating our seven continents, each with its own distinct climate, its own distinct terrain, and its own unique animal life. This documentary series presented by Sir David Attenborough showcases the true character of each continent in turn and reveals just how it has shaped all life there. Continue reading “New DVD List: Seven Worlds, One Planet, & More”
Why should kids have all the fun? Summer Reading is for grown-ups, too! The Daniel Boone Regional Library is challenging adults to read three books, submit three book reviews and do seven fun, library-related activities. Complete the challenge, and beginning August 1, you’ll receive a prize. You’ll also be entered into a drawing for other fun rewards including a Kindle Fire tablet or a book store gift card.
Step One:Register for the Adult Summer Reading Challenge. Download a reading record to help you keep track of your reading, reviews and activities.
Step Two: Read three books and submit three book reviews.
“One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, published in 1967, follows several generations of the Buendia family, living in the remote Colombian jungle town of Macondo, established by their patriarch. I read this book more than twenty years ago, yet there are images that remain fresh in my memory — the reaction of someone seeing ice for the first time, a scene with ants that still makes me shudder. Incorporating magical realism, ghosts and a lot of metaphor, the story interweaves much of the history of Colombia into the telling. No matter the remoteness of the family dwellings, they are unable to escape the encroachments of the railroad, a civil war, and United Fruit. Continue reading “One Hundred”
Today brings us into the home stretch of pollinator week. I trust that you have been outside all week, feverishly pollinating plants by hand. Hard work, isn’t it? It’s a lot easier when we let nature’s other creatures do that work, but we need to have enough of those creatures to pollinate the plants. Otherwise, there could be problems.
