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Category Archives: Firefly
Seth Godin’s Blog About Public Libraries
- Tuesday, 17 May 2011 16:03
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I opened up Facebook Monday to see that author Seth Godin had written a piece about public libraries in his blog–and several friends sent me the link as well.
It’s interesting to read what nonlibrarians write about libraries, especially so when the writer is a dynamic and future-oriented thinker. I’d probably argue about some of his points, but right now, to think about the big picture….
Where I think that Godin is right on is where he puts the focus on the PEOPLE in libraries. What we have means nothing if people aren’t using us, whether in person or online. And when people tell me what the libraries have meant to them, almost always they mention the PERSON at the library who connected them. I’m proud that I receive lots of positive comments about Lincoln City Libraries, and I can trace nearly every compliment to someone at Lincoln City LIbraries who did a great job and made that connection.
I agree with Godin when he writes that “What we don’t need are mere clerks who guard dead paper.” I’d also point out that we never needed those.
I agree with him as well that this is the chance of a lifetime. I worry that years and years of tight budgets and fewer staff might permanently narrow our focus to just the task in front of us. We’ve got to keep our heads up and focus wide so that we’re living this image of dynamic libraries and passionate librarians.
“Skippy Dies” from the Notables List
- Sunday, 15 May 2011 16:08
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I felt quite a sense of reading accomplishment when I finished page 661 of “Skippy Dies” by Paul Murray. It’s the longest of the novels on this year’s American Library Association’s Notable Books list.
I’ve ranted elsewhere about the unnecessary length of some of the books on this year’s list. I’m still evaluating this one, both overall and in terms of its length…I can’t seem to come to a final sense of it.
It’s a novel set in a contemporary Irish boys boarding school. The novel begins when a student named Skippy indeed dies during a doughnut-eating contest. It backs up to place Skippy in that critical event, and then does a little follow-up afterward.
Here’s the blurb for “Skippy Dies” from the Notable Books list website, “Filled with warmth and humor, this coming-of-age novel set in a Dublin boys school is a sprawling homage to adolescence, string theory, donuts, and unrequited love.” That makes this sound like fun reading, but while it had some hilarious scenes, overall this is a sad sad story. It’s full of young people who can’t figure out how to be true to themselves AND connected to others. I’m wondering now if I took it all too seriously.
In brief–Skippy falls in love with a girl who’s in love with a violent boy who takes advantage of her sexually in return for providing her with drugs. Skippy’s part of the swim team, but hates the team even though he’s always enjoyed swimming. One of the priests at the school is fighting his own crush on Skippy. Spoiler alert–the swim coach takes sexual advantage of him. His mother is seriously ill and his father isn’t coping well. The girl ends up acting as if she likes Skippy to deflect her parents’ concern about her involvement with the other boy, He uses his phone to make a sexually graphic video of her that he sends to several students. In Skippy’s upset over her, he takes an overdose of the unprescribed drugs his swim coach provided him. And then, he’s off to the donut shop.
I didn’t sense enough warmth and humor to overcome the tragedy in all of that.
I’m not saying it isn’t a good book. It is. But please don’t dive into this without realizing that at its core is a sense of emotional and physical danger. The ways in which people try to band together to address the danger is one source of hope here.
In conclusion, I’m thinking about to whom I’ll recommend this. I can think of a few reading friends who are fairly cynical and will find the school’s principal a perfect example of what’s not right in education. They might also enjoy the forays into the places where scientific thought seems to border magic realism. I would love the chance to have some conversation with others who’ve read this, so that I can develop a more firm opinion of “Skippy Dies.”
Another Notable–“Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter”
- Tuesday, 03 May 2011 16:13
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Over the Easter weekend, I hit the Passionate Reader Jackpot–I started and finished a book within the space of the weekend. Truly, that’s one of my favorite things.
The book–“Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter” by Tom Franklin. It’s from the fiction portion of the American Library Association Notable Books list.
First–the title. An introductory page tells, “How southern children are taught to spell Mississippi– M, I, crooked letter, crooked letter, I, crooked letter, crooked letter, I, humpback, humpback, I.”
I might describe this book as a literary mystery. Two men from rural Mississippi were friends as boys, one white, one black. As they grow up, their lives intersect and intertwine. The white man, Larry, is accused while in high school of the murder of a girl who disappears. He endures his role as a scourge of the community. That her body is never found keeps the tension alive. The black man, nicknamed 32 but named Silas, is a constable in the area. When another young woman goes missing 20 years after the first, 32’s attention turns to his old friend.
I don’t want to spoil the story, so no more about the plot.
Looking back on the book, I felt somewhat “underwhelmed” by the conclusion. I expected something more dramatic. But on further reflection, I think that Franklin did right by his story. He’s a master of revealing the story slowly, adding tantalizing ideas and details one by one. I knew that each scene was placed for a reason. He steps right up to the brink, but doesn’t go over.
There are many issues swirling around race, reputation, family ties of love and hate, and maybe even redemption. Those are part of the lives of these fairly everyday people. Franklin draws them realistically.
When I read novels, I usually look for the person that I want to trust, and I wanted to trust 32. I could sense that he wanted to do right by Larry.
I’ll recommend this to many of my reading friends because most of them appreciate novels that reveal the drama behind our everyday lives, and that sometimes reveal the everyday-ness behind the drama. There’s something compelling, too, about the Southern setting with race as a decades-old factor in individual lives. I see a wide audience for “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter.”
A Long Way for a Notable–“Travels in Siberia”
- Sunday, 17 April 2011 15:59
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Earlier this week I finished Ian Frazier’s “Travels In Siberia,” one of the nonfiction titles on this year’s American Library Association Notable Books list.
It made an excellent companion to “The Tiger” by John Vaillant, my most recent Notable, also nonfiction. “The Tiger” happens in far eastern Siberia, and as I wrote previously, captures the entire geography and history of that particular region within the story of one tiger.
Frazier, one the other hand, is all over Siberia. And it’s an awfully long way across. This book describes several trips he makes into Siberia, the largest by far a trek with two guides along the route of the Trans-Siberian highway.
I hadn’t read Frazier before, though many of my reading friends recommend him highly. I expected that the book would be as much about him as about Siberia, which was fine. I appreciated his often self-deprecating humor, and his ability to recognize when he was inserting just a little too much of himself. I also enjoyed his “birdwalks” of distraction into details or stories about the places he was visiting. Just when I lost track myself of why we were going down a particular narrative path, he would once again connect his story to the place at hand. It seemed effortless, but is a mark of a strong writer.
Frazier refers to a kind of “Russia fever” that he caught, a condition that kept him from ever feeling quite finished with the country. Even after the primary journey of the book, a months-long journey across Siberia, he has to go back.
A question I usually ask myself when I finish a book is–what image will I keep from this? And in Frazier’s case, it’s his description of the smell of places, especially Russian airports and restrooms. I think this explains part of his popularity–he plumbs the depth of his travel experience, and employs every sense.
The key to my enjoyment of “Travels in Siberia” was to relax and enjoy the telling, and not be in a hurry to get to a destination. I did enjoy the reading, but I never felt that luscious compulsion to return to this, the compulsion that I always hope to sense when I crack open a new book.
I’ll certainly recommend this to people who enjoy travel books, who have a particular interest in Siberia, or who enjoy stories of cross-cultural experiences.
This Is Why I Love Nonfiction, “The Tiger” by John Vaillant
- Wednesday, 30 March 2011 16:09
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I just finished “The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival” by John Vaillant in my journey through this year’s American Library Association Notable Books list. It’s a perfect example of great nonfiction, and perhaps also of a nonfiction book that many fiction readers would enjoy.
On the one hand, it’s the story of an Amur tiger in present-day Siberia, a tiger who has taken to attacking men. And now the tiger is being tracked.
On the other hand, it’s the story of Siberia, its geography, history, and culture, especially in terms of how the area has changed for wildlife.
And (would that be the third hand?) it’s the story of each man touched by the tiger, as well as those men who join together in the hunt.
Vaillant manages to weave all of this together without losing the narrative thread.
I learned a lot about tigers, of course, but also about the interesting cultural crucible that is Siberia. Plenty of native people live there, along with Russians and others. Their various views of the role of people within nature, combined with the recent history of Soviet government, rolled together with an immense nearby Chinese market, have created a place where poaching is common. It is a place where many people have next to nothing, other than their skill at the hunt.
I’ll recommend this to my friends who are intrigued by science, who are interested in the environment, who maybe have a particular interest in this part of the world, or who are just up for a fresh way of seeing a place, through the eyes of this remarkable tiger.