Treats!

I love it when it is Fu's turn to brings treats for staff parties.

Book Groups

I did not turn in a blog post yesterday since I have not yet figured out how to attach picture in blogger via my phone and I have never liked the way my blog posts and pictures turned out trying to do it using my email. Next week maybe I will have all my technological issues worked out but in the meantime, here is an unsuccessful picture I took of my cat, who is decidedly not thrilled about flash photography.

Now on to book related topics....

In the past year I have gone from not being involved in any personal book discussion groups to being involved with two. The first group is run by a close friend and his wife and makes some attempt to actually discuss the book before the socializing starts so from now on I will refer to it as my "serious" book club. The other is called the Martini Book Club and the group really does care more about what martini we will be serving than what book we are reading.

Last night I went to my "serious" book club and we discussed Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. I have to admit I procrastinated when reading this book so I only finished the first fourth of it but I have always enjoyed the British sense of humor and will finish this book in the near future. One of the other participants said she felt like the author nailed life in academia and I think she is probably right and this is a major strength of the novel.

In a couple of weeks I will be hosting the Martini Book Club and, since I hosted, I also get to pick the book. I decided to select one of the American Library Association Reading List Award winners for us to try. I selected the 2010 Women's Fiction award winner Very Valentine: A Novel by Adriana Trigiani. This is a pretty easy group to pick a book for because we don't actually spend much (if any) time discussing the book so I don't need to look for books with "issues" and could select based on the fun factor. Also since the last few books fell into the genre "messed up childhood memoirs" I thought something lighter might be nice as well. Now all I need is to find a fun new martini to introduce to the group. If you have a fabulous recipe please let me know!

The next book I need to read is Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson since it is the Kansas City Public Library BIG READ title for this year. I will keep you posted on this upcoming event so you can also participate.

Playing with the Droid

Tonight I am downloading apps (applications for all of you who don't have cool phones) trying to find on that will allow me to blog with ease using my new Droid©. I am currently playing with Androblogger to see if I can create fabulous blog posts.

So far this app is looking pretty utilitarian. I can't spellcheck the post and since typing on the phone is a little hit-or-miss, this is a bit of a problem. (Please do not contact me about typos. I know there will be a couple.)

Let's see what happens when I insert a picture which unfortunately has to be a URL instead of something I can upload from my phone. Since the pictures from my trip to Europe are online, let's try that. If you don't see a picture of a houseboat somewhere on this blog, my little experiment failed.

That was a short break.....

Well, after a short break it looks like I am back on the book award circuit again. I just was offered an appointment on The American Library Association Reading List. "The Reading List seeks to highlight outstanding genre fiction that merit special attention by general adult readers and the librarians who work with them. The eight genres currently included in the council’s considerations are adrenaline titles (suspense, thrillers, and action adventure); fantasy, historical fiction; horror; mystery; romance; science fiction; and women’s fiction."

Assuming my boss approves the appointment I will get to wallow in genre books this time around.

Renaming the Blog

Now that I am finished with my book award committee (see photo for committee members hard at work) and assuming I do not get assigned to a new one, I think I should find a new focus for my blog. I used to post my concert/event/personal musings on my Myspace blog but since so many friends have dropped off the site my blog posts have devolved into more of a personal journal instead of a blog to share with others. So.... I could conceivably post about some of those topics over here. Not the dating woes perhaps, but the things I wouldn't care if library users know about me.

Since I working more at the part-time job again it looks like I might have time between reference questions to post some entries and, hopefully, won't be so burnt out that I can't try to post a bit more often than I have been lately. I think having a "schedule" might be beneficial to keeping the blog posts flowing.

Here is my proposed schedule:

Sunday - I am hoping to have more variety in my social life than I managed in past years so on Sundays I will try to post about a weekend event or activity that I have indulged in. If I spent the weekend in my PJ's with a stack of books, I will blog about that too.

Monday - Library related blog post, which leaves it pretty wide open. It can be a program at the library, a new library innovation, something to share from another blog, etc...

Tuesday - Musings

Wednesday - Picture of the Week

Thursday - Book review, poetry or a book list.

Friday - I will try to get Free e-book Friday back up and running.

Saturday - Free Day

Disclaimer: This is not a set-in-stone schedule, just something to keep me motivated.

Weekend Reading

Maybe I went a little overboard ordering some "fun" books?

Week Two: Facebook (23 Things Project)

I have been on Facebook for several years (long before it went "public") and don't have any new lessons to share so I thought I would talk instead about my love/hate relationship with it. I enjoy it when communicating with co-workers, friends (especially those who live overseas) and family members. I hate it when everyone I have ever met finds me and wants to suddenly be "friends", when Facebook tinkers with privacy settings or when people are inadvertently hurt by the actions of others on these sites. I have seen some of the greatest kindnesses on Facebook and some of the greatest ugliness on this site as well.

Because of the Facebook "friend" terminology I have noticed that social networking can lead to hurt feelings when people misunderstand the use of the work "friend" on places like Facebook or Twitter or simply have differing definitions of what the word friend means. An online "friendship" can develop into a real life friendship with time and a lot of work but many people seem to take to heart the word friend and are enormously hurt when someone "unfriends" them on a social site. Unfortunately, I don't have answers on how to manage friends and more importantly, acquaintances on these sites but I do caution you new 23 Things users to be aware of these issues and try to approach online friendships in a way that suits your personal friendship style.

Having said all that, I would love some new librarian friends so look for my Facebook badge on the sidebar of this blog.

Notable Books Council 2010 Award Winners

I just got back from serving for my fourth and final year on the ALA adult Notable Books Council Committee. I am pleased to announce the winners of the Notable Books Council book award. (My favorites are starred.)

2010 Notable Books List: the best in fiction, non-fiction and poetry

The 2010 selections for the Notable Books List—a source for very good and very important fiction, non-fiction and poetry for the nation’s adult readers—have been announced by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA).

Since 1944, the Notable Books Council has annually selected a list of 25 very good, very readable and at times very important fiction, nonfiction and poetry books for the adult reader. Books may be selected because they possess exceptional literary merit; expand the horizons of human knowledge; make a specialized body of knowledge accessible to the non-specialist; have the potential to contribute significantly to the solution of a contemporary problem; and/or present a unique concept.

The winners were selected by the Notable Books Council, a group of RUSA members and readers’ advisory experts from around the country. This year’s committee included Alicia Ahlvers, chair, Kansas City Public Library; Susie Brown, Shaker Heights Public Library; Julie Elliott, Indiana University-South Bend; Lucy Lockley, St. Charles City-County Library District; Valerie Taylor, Lewisville Community Library; Elizabeth Olesh, Nassau Library System; Jessica Pigza, New York Public Library; Nancy Pearl; A. Issac Pulver, Saratoga Springs Public Library; Heather Robideaux, Fayetteville Public Library; Nonny Schlotzhauer, Pennsylvania State University; and Andrea Slonosky.

The 2010 winners are:

Fiction:

Anthony, Jessica. The Convalescent. McSweeney’s. 9781934781104 - my nomination

Rovar Pfiegman, bus dwelling meat salesman, fulfills his destiny as the last of the last of his clan, in this oddly imaginative tale.

*Atwood, Margaret. The Year of the Flood: A Novel. Doubleday/Nan A. Talese. 9780385528771

In the near future, two women survive an apocalyptic event in a queasily enthralling work.

Baker, Nicholson. The Anthologist: A Novel. Simon & Schuster. 9781416572442. - my nomination

A charming failure, poet Paul Chowder struggles to regain his muse and his girlfriend while watching deadlines slip by.

Chaon, Dan. Await Your Reply: A Novel. Ballantine. 9780345476029.

This chilling exploration of the modern meaning of identity follows three people on the fringes of society.

Cleave, Chris. Little Bee: A Novel. Simon & Schuster. 9781416589631. - my nomination

The compelling voice of a refugee illuminates the life-changing friendship between two women that began with a horrifying encounter on a secluded Nigerian beach.

Dexter, Pete. Spooner. Grand Central. 9780446540728.

A boy struggles to navigate the vagaries of the world with the lifelong guidance of his stepfather in this funny and heartbreaking tale.

Harding, Paul. Tinkers. Bellevue Literary Press. 9781934137123.

In this lyrical novel, the life of a dying man is examined through the smallest moments of time and memory.

Li, Yiyun. The Vagrants: A Novel. Random. 9781400063130.

The execution of a dissident woman reverberates through her small town in the aftermath of China’s Cultural Revolution.

McCann, Colum. Let the Great World Spin: A Novel. Random. 9781400063734.

Phillipe Petit’s highwire walk between the Twin Towers provides the backdrop for this rich portrait of the unlikely connections among a group of New Yorkers in the 1970s.

Morrison, Toni. A Mercy: A Novel. Knopf. 9780307264237

Four women—white, mixed race, black and Native American—become a makeshift family under the care of a “good” man in colonial America.

*Powers, Richard. Generosity: An Enhancement. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 9780374161149.

In this postmodern indictment of the biotech industry, a student’s unnerving happiness seems to hold the key to banishing despair from the human genetic code.

Tóibín, Colm. Brooklyn: A Novel. Scribner. 9781439138311.

A young Irish woman faces heart-wrenching decisions in this unabashedly romantic and deceptively simple story of immigration and belonging.

Non-Fiction:

Cullen, Dave. Columbine. Twelve. 9780446546935.

This fine work of investigative journalism challenges the myths and misconceptions of the Columbine tragedy.

*Eggers, Dave. Zeitoun. McSweeney’s. 9781934781630.

This powerful account explores the devastation of post-Katrina New Orleans through the eyes of a Syrian-American who remained and endured the resulting chaos and confusion.

Finkel, David. The Good Soldiers. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 9780374165734.

An embedded reporter describes the human cost paid by an Army battalion on the streets of Iraq in language that is searing, visceral and immediate.

*Grann, David. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon. Doubleday. 9780385513531.

An intrepid reporter sets out to uncover the mysterious fate the last of the great Victorian explorers in this thrilling adventure.

*Guibert, Emmanuel. The Photographer: Into War-torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders. First Second. 9781596433755.

Using mixed visual media, this stunning memoir vividly depicts the struggles and accomplishments of a humanitarian mission in an unforgiving terrain.

Holmes, Richard. The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science. Pantheon. 9780375422225.

This lively, stellar group biography animates the engrossing accounts of the research that inspired a sense of awe in poets and scientists alike.

Keefe, Patrick Radden. Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld & the American Dream. Doubleday. 9780385521307.

Human trafficking and its subsequent effects on the American economy and social structures are documented in this fast-paced panoramic expose.

McDougall, Christopher. Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen. Knopf. 978-0307266309.

One journalist’s quest to discover the secrets of the reclusive Tarahumara Indians leads to an exciting and dangerous endurance race.

Norman, Michael and Elizabeth M. Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 9780374272609.

In-depth, brutal and moving this narrative provides multiple perspectives into a tragic WWII episode in the Philippines.

Salisbury, Lainey and Aly Sujo. Provenance: How a Con Man & A Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art. Penguin. 9781594202209.

This enthralling page-turner describes how archivists uncovered one of the most extensive frauds in recent art history.

Small, David. Stitches: A Memoir. Norton. 9780393068573.

Stark drawings give voice to the horrors of a child who find redemption in art while growing up in a repressed and disturbed family.

Thompson, Nicholas. The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War. Holt. 978-0805081428.

The remarkable half-century friendship and rivalry between two influential strategists who helped shape American policy is brought to life in this insightful dual biography.

Poetry:

*Alexie, Sherman. Face. Hanging Loose Press. 9781931236706.

Autobiographical poems experimenting with various styles and forms explore childhood, fatherhood, and the trials, perks and humor of minor celebrity.

Dunn, Stephen. What Goes On: Selected and New Poems 1995-2009. Norton. 978039306775

Completely accessible poems written in ordinary language deal with cats, love, barfights, desire, melancholia and relationships.

Last Notable Commitee Meeting

I will be heading off to Boston soon to chair the meeting that will decide the Notable Books Council Award, a list of 25 very good, very readable, and at times very important fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books for the adult reader. This is a list that is used by librarians for collection development and by the public to discover quality new literature for the reading pleasure.

After four years of living and breathing this award (not to mention being buried in books) I will be attending my very last Notables committee meeting at the American Library Association Midwinter conference. While I am looking forward to more free time to read some light and frothy books, catch up on some movie watching, get in shape and spend more time with friends, I am also quite sad to see it end. It has been four years filled with discovering new authors, making new friends, talking nonstop about literature and finding that I do indeed know how to pick out extraordinary books.

Week One: Blogging AKA: Inventive Librarian Training

Some wonderfully inventive librarians have come up with their own spin on the original 23 Things concept. While I am fairly tech savvy, I am planning to participate in order to hone my skills and maybe even find a few new things. It's a Kansas Library project but they will let those of us who live or work out-of-state participate.

Take a look at Librarian, Erin Howerton, hosting the opening module: Blogging. 23 Things - http://www.23thingskansas.org/

Stephen's Lighthouse has also provided a little history on the 23 Things project.

Columbine by Dave Cullen

This outstanding nonfiction work is probably going to be the definitive book on the Columbine tragedy. The author alternates Dylan and Eric's background, the telling of the actual events and the survivor/parents views. Some people might be put off by the way the author moves from topic to topic but I am not entirely sure I could have read a straight retelling of the events without having to put the book down so I appreciated the "breaks".

From Ninety-Fifth Street: Poems by John Koethe

Ninety-Fifth Street

by John Koethe

Words can bang around in your head

Forever, if you let them and you give them room.

I used to love poetry, and mostly I still do,

Though sometimes “I, too, dislike it.” There must be

Something real beyond the fiddle and perfunctory

Consolations and the quarrels—as of course

There is, though what it is is difficult to say.

The salt is on the briar rose, the fog is in the fir trees.

I didn’t know what it was, and I don’t know now,

But it was what I started out to do, and now, a lifetime later,

All I’ve really done. The Opening of the Field,

Roots and Branches, Rivers and Mountains: I sat in my room

Alone, their fragments shored against the ruin or revelation

That was sure to come, breathing in their secret atmosphere,

Repeating them until they almost seemed my own.

We like to think our lives are what they study to become,

And yet so much of life is waiting, waiting on a whim.

So much of what we are is sheer coincidence,

Like a sentence whose significance is retrospective,

Made up out of elementary particles that are in some sense

Simply sounds, like syllables that finally settle into place.

You probably think that this is a poem about poetry

(And obviously it is), yet its real subject is time,

For that’s what poetry is—a way to live through time

And sometimes, just for a while, to bring it back.

* * *

A paneled dining room in Holder Hall. Stage right, enter twit:

“Mr. Ashbery, I’m your biggest campus fan.” We hit it off

And talked about “The Skaters” and my preference for “Clepsydra”

Vs. “Fragment.” Later on that night John asked me to a party in New York,

And Saturday, after dinner and a panel on the artist’s role as something

(And a party), driving Lewis’s Austin-Healey through the rain

I sealed our friendship with an accident. The party was on Broadway,

An apartment (white of course, with paintings) just downstairs

From Frank O’Hara’s, who finally wandered down. I talked to him

A little about Love Poems (Tentative Title), which pleased him,

And quoted a line from “Poem” about the rain, which seemed to please him too.

The party ended, John and I went off to Max’s, ordered steaks

And talked about our mothers. All that talking!—poems and paintings,

Parents, all those parties, and the age of manifestos still to come!

I started coming to New York for lunch. We’d meet at Art News,

Walk to Fifty-sixth Street to Larre’s, a restaurant filled with French expatriates,

Have martinis and the prix fixe for $2.50 (!), drink rose de Provence

And talk (of course) about Genet and James and words like “Coca-Cola.”

It was an afternoon in May when John brought up a play

That he and Kenneth Koch and Frank O’Hara—Holy Trinity!

(Batman was in vogue)—had started years ago and never finished.

There was a dictator named Edgar and some penicillin,

But that’s all I remember. They hadn’t actually been together

In years, but planned to finish it that night at John’s new apartment

On Ninety-fifth Street, and he said to come by for a drink

Before they ate and got to work. It was a New York dream

Come true: a brownstone floor-through, white and full of paintings

(Naturally), “with a good library and record collection.”

John had procured a huge steak, and as I helped him set the table

The doorbell rang and Frank O’Hara, fresh from the museum

And svelte in a hound’s tooth sports coat entered, followed shortly

By “excitement-prone Kenneth Koch” in somber gray,

And I was one with my immortals. In the small mythologies

We make up out of memories and the flow of time

A few moments remain frozen, though the feel of them is lost,

The feel of talk. It ranged from puns to gossip, always coming back

To poems and poets. Frank was fiercely loyal to young poets

(Joe Ceravolo’s name came up I think), and when I mentioned Lewis

In a way that must have sounded catty, he leapt to his defense,

Leaving me to backtrack in embarrassment and have another drink,

Which is what everyone had. I think you see where it was going:

Conversation drifting into dinner, then I stayed for dinner

And everyone forgot about the play, which was never finished

(Though I think I’ve seen a fragment of it somewhere). I see a table

In a cone of light, but there’s no sound except for Kenneth’s

Deadpan “Love to see a boy eat” as I speared a piece of steak;

And then the only voice I’m sure I hear is mine,

As those moments that had once seemed singular and clear

Dissolve into a “general mess of imprecision of feeling”

And images, augmented by line breaks. There were phone calls,

Other people arrived, the narrative of the night dissolved

And finally everyone went home. School and spring wound down.

The semester ended, then the weekend that I wrote about in “Sally’s Hair”

Arrived and went, and then a late-night cruise around Manhattan for a rich friend’s

Parents’ anniversary bash, followed by an Upper East Side preppie bar

That left me looking for a place to crash, and so I rang John’s bell at 2 AM

And failed (thank God) to rouse him, caught a plane to San Diego

The next day, worked at my summer job and worked on poems

And started reading Proust, and got a card one afternoon

From Peter Schjeldahl telling me that Frank O’Hara had been killed.

Ninety-fifth Street soldiered on for several years.

I remember a cocktail party (the symposium of those days),

Followed by dinner just around the corner at Elaine’s,

Pre-Woody Allen. It was there I learned of R.F.K.’s assassination

When I woke up on the daybed in the living room, and where

John told me getting married would ruin me as a poet

(I don’t know why—most of his friends were married), a judgment

He revised when he met Susan and inscribed The Double Dream of Spring

“If this is all we need fear from spinach, then I don’t mind so much”

(Which was probably premature—watering his plants one day

She soaked his landlord, Giorgio Cavallon, dozing in the garden below).

It was where Peter Delacorte late one night recited an entire side

Of a Firesign Theatre album from memory, and set John on that path,

To his friends’ subsequent dismay, and where he blessed me with his extra copy

Of The Poems, and next day had second thoughts (though I kept it anyway).

Sometimes a vague, amorphous stretch of years assumes a shape,

And then becomes an age, and then a golden age alive with possibilities,

When change was in the air and you could wander through its streets

As though through Florence and the Renaissance. I know it sounds ridiculous,

But that’s the way life flows: in stages that take form in retrospect,

When all the momentary things that occupy the mind from day to day

Have vanished into time, and something takes their place that wasn’t there,

A sense of freedom—one which gradually slipped away. The center

Of the conversation moved downtown, the Renaissance gave way to mannerism

As the junior faculty took charge, leaving the emeriti alone and out of it

Of course, lying on the fringes, happily awake; but for the rest

The laws proscribing what you couldn’t do were clear. I got so tired

Of writing all those New York poems (though by then I’d moved to Boston—

To Siena, you might say) that led to nowhere but the next one,

So I started writing poems about whatever moved me: what it’s like

To be alive within a world that holds no place for you, yet seems so beautiful;

The feeling of the future, and its disappointments; the trajectory of a life,

That always brought me back to time and memory (I’d finished Proust by then),

And brings me back to this. John finally moved downtown himself,

Into a two-story apartment at Twenty-fifth and Tenth, with a spiral staircase

Leading to a library, the locus of the incident of Susan, Alydar and John

And the pitcher of water (I’ll draw a veil over it), and Jimmy Schuyler sighing

“It’s so beautiful,” as Bernadette Peters sang “Raining in My Heart” from Dames at Sea.

The poetry still continued—mine and everyone’s. I’d added Jimmy

To my pantheon (as you’ve probably noticed), but the night in nineteen sixty-six

Seemed more and more remote: I never saw Kenneth anymore,

And there were new epicenters, with new casts of characters, like Madoo,

Bob Dash’s garden in Sagaponack, and Bill and Willy’s loft in Soho.

John moved again, to Twenty-second Street, and Susan and I moved to Milwaukee,

Where our son was born. I stopped coming to New York, and writing poems,

For several years, while I tried to dream enough philosophy for tenure.

One afternoon in May I found myself at Ninth and Twenty-second,

And as though on cue two people whom I hadn’t seen in years—David Kalstone,

Darragh Park—just happened by, and then I took a taxi down to Soho

To the loft, and then a gallery to hear Joe Brainard read from I Remember,

Back to John’s and out to dinner—as though I’d never been away,

Though it was all too clear I had. Poems were in the air, but theory too,

And members of the thought police department (who must have also gotten tenure)

Turned up everywhere, with arguments that poetry was called upon to prove.

It mattered, but in a different way, as though it floated free from poems

And wasn’t quite the point. I kept on coming back, as I still do.

Half my life was still to come, and yet the rest was mostly personal:

I got divorced, and Willy killed himself, and here I am now, ready to retire.

There was an obituary in the Times last week for Michael Goldberg,

A painter you’ll recall from Frank O’Hara’s poems (“Why I Am Not a Painter,”

“Ode to Michael Goldberg (’s Birth and Other Births)”). I didn’t know him,

But a few months after the soiree on Ninety-fifth Street I was at a party

In his studio on the Bowery, which was still his studio when he died.

The New York art world demimonde was there, including nearly everyone

Who’s turned up in this poem. I remember staring at a guy who

Looked like something from the Black Lagoon, dancing with a gorgeous

Woman half his age. That’s my New York: an island dream

Of personalities and evenings, nights where poetry was second nature

And their lives flowed through it and around it as it gave them life.

O brave new world (now old) that had such people in’t!

* * *

“The tiresome old man is telling us his life story.”

I guess I am, but that’s what poets do—not always

Quite as obviously as this, and usually more by indirection

And omission, but beneath the poetry lies the singular reality

And unreality of an individual life. I see it as a long,

Illuminated tunnel, lined with windows giving on the scenes outside—

On Ninety-fifth Street forty years ago. As life goes on

You start to get increasingly distracted by your own reflection

And the darkness gradually becoming visible at the end.

I try not to look too far ahead, but just to stay here—

Quick now, here, now, always—only something pulls me

Back (as they say) to the day, when poems were more like secrets,

With their own vernacular, and you could tell your friends

By who and what they read. And now John’s practically become

A national treasure, and whenever I look up I think I see him

Floating in the sky like the Cheshire Cat. I don’t know

What to make of it, but it makes me happy—like seeing Kenneth

Just before he died (“I’m going west John, I’m going west”)

In his apartment on a side street near Columbia, or remembering

Once again that warm spring night in nineteen sixty-six.

I like to think of them together once again, at the cocktail party

At the end of the mind, where I could blunder in and ruin it one last time.

Meanwhile, on a hillside in the driftless region to the west,

A few miles from the small town where The Straight Story ends,

I’m building a house on a meadow, if I’m permitted to return,

Behind a screen of trees above a lower meadow, with some apple trees

In which the fog collects on autumn afternoons, and a vista

Of an upland pasture without heaviness. I see myself

Sitting on the deck and sipping a martini, as I used to at Larre’s,

In a future that feels almost like a past I’m positive is there—

But where? I think my life is still all conversation,

Only now it’s with myself. I can see it continuing forever,

Even in my absence, as I close the windows and turn off the lights

And it begins to rain. And then we’re there together

In the house on the meadow, waiting for whatever’s left to come

In what’s become the near future—two versions of myself

And of the people that we knew, each one an other

To the other, yet both indelibly there: the twit of twenty

And the aging child of sixty-two, still separate

And searching in the night, listening through the night

To the noise of the rain and memories of rain

And evenings when we’d wander out into the Renaissance,

When I could see you and talk to you and it could still change;

And still there in the morning when the rain has stopped,

And the apples are all getting tinted in the cool light.

Source: Poetry (July/August 2009)

Between The Assassinations by Aravind Adiga

Adiga's collection of short stories creates a portrait of Indian life as his finely tuned characters become vibrant individuals fighting against caste and class in a system designed to keep people firmly in their place. From a child who learns to beg in order to support her father's drug habit to the man too poor to offer for the woman he loves these stories capture the struggles of modern day India.

A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True by Brigid Pasulka

A story of magical realism mirroring the history of Poland, Pigeon, his wife Anielica and their Granddaughter Baba Yaga alternate in this delightful novel with the feel of a folktale. Even when the Germans are followed by the Russians the cast of characters manages to retain their grace and wit, in much the same way Poland has retained its individuality.

Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector by Benjamin Moser

The life of one of Brazil's most celebrated novelists is carefully and meticulously documented in this biography of Clarice Lispector. This larger-than-life celebrity was lauded during her lifetime and has attained cult status with Brazilians of every age but has not been recognized by the world literary community for her body of work. Benjamin Moser succeeds in highlighting her achievements and bring into focus the brilliance of this mysterious novelist.

From Theory of Mind: New and Selected Poems by Bin Ramke

49 Views of Childhood

But he was a quiet child, I was, he was never
one, such a one as would wander

into wilderness alone—untrue, he was
one to play at death as boys will.

I was small when I was small and then
I was no longer. Dolls are delicate. Legs

and arms articulate to sit them
around you and tell them stories, to have them

tell you stories tell him stories make them
up. Dress them. If an end comes

it will come the sky will remain sky
and weather will be simple, simply

where we live during it. Another version
of this world engages these little ones

around us, about our feet, small humans
who have forgotten the future who

splash happily as if weather were a cure
for childhood. We didn't, he didn't, know

better than to sulk heavily as if
I did not watch secretly gathering

clouds, gathering under them
into likely groups—action figures. Us.

It was better when birds did not
gather so forcefully, mournfully back

before ravens and crows had moved
into cities following the pioneer

pigeons—boys walked under groups
would dismally look down, boys and blackbirds

crossing Sunday paths home
back before sparrows would

so cravenly eat from our hands;
children of today know only

small wishes and crooked feet,
articulated legs and artificial voices

to cry Mama or Papa at whim, at the least
tipping of self into horizontal . . . .

They do not see the green sky
we knew then, such empty grandeur:

in silence such insolence, solitude's
reward for being good, which is part

of every eros of childhood. In all parts
of this world there are children

except in the coldest southernmost,
Antarctica as imagined goal, to gather

there his dolls, my wish, his need
for clean weather and snow

articulated weather; is there no
child to sleep on that continent?

No child's dream floated ever above
the white horizon of an ice containment

bends the bodies to its will,
makes a wish. Like birds

the bodies fit in the fist. The still
children play those little games

the birds of the air the lilies
of the field, the insolence of the whole

agon; suicide as self expression
is paradox, as is sex as self. He made

little houses for his dolls to sit
through afternoons to peer

out narrow windows and be
invisible to have things to see.

I have, he has, things to say, he has
he had things. To say he was

a boy belonging to the end
of habitation, health and happiness.

If this doll could sin she would sing
to him I would sing also, to her

it is like forsythia, logical because
the branch wavers and blossoms bloom

while wind does what wind will?
A dance is like this: to console

as to clasp these hands, touch there
in the air away from bodies

and then to angle the arms, turn
the hips and some part submerges

drowned as the doomed self would
like voodoo, dolled up and doomed—

dancing anyway ever. He could sing
and does deliberately, the child, it

follows that anguish is not me,
nor do we suffer who make those cries.

He would drown his dolls slowly
slide into agonized waters

which reflect the intricate lace
of the bridge which trembled above

them, a bridge which fell in the end
vortex shedding and resonant

oscillations, a dance the bridge did
with the air, not the words the wind

is the reason for suffering. A past
is anything's childhood is a reason

flares into mind like burning
burning which might have been

mind, a doll could have one
and could dance like anything.

Copyright © 2002 Bin Ramke

The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker

Paul Chowder is suffering from writer's block and his long-time girlfriend has left him. As Paul wanders through the days trying to write the introduction to a long overdue poetry anthology, he struggles to rediscover his own poetry as well. Love him or hate him, Paul's stream of consciousness narration never fails to entertain.

This is a book that grew on me as I read it. You kind of want to bop Paul on the head but there is also a fascination about how (or if) he will manage to pull himself out of the mess he has made of his life.

Versed by Rae Armantrout

Versed explores both broad and personal topics in this work of astonishing range. The first half of this collection explores violence and contemporary society while the second half narrows in focus as Rae Armantrout chronicles her struggles with cancer. This darkly honest poetry is a touchstone to the human experience and provides the reader with a whole new range of questions to ponder.

Thing
by Rae Armantrout

We love our cat
for her self
regard is assiduous
and bland,

for she sits in the small
patch of sun on our rug
and licks her claws
from all angles

and it is far
superior
to "balanced reporting"

though, of course,
it is also
the very same thing.

From Poets.org

Blogging Anniversary

Three Halloweens ago I went to my first blogger meet-up. It was a relatively safe start for trying out these events where I would be meeting whole new groups of people. Especially since the friend hosting, gonemild, is a dear friend and someone I have known for years. It was supposed to be a Halloween party but I didn't get past the "and I will be serving my homemade beer" part of the invitation before hitting the RSVP button so I was the only one there without a costume. In spite of that, or maybe because of the beer (which remains my all-time favorite gonemild brew) I had a wonderful time.

That night was so important to me because I ended up meeting people that have become some of my very best friends. In addition to gonemild and his wife, I found Keith, Janet, Spyder, Kanga, XO, Eric, Well Hell Michelle (blog now retired), Average Jane, M Toast (blog now retired) and Krissy. I have met many wonderful people since that party but these are the people who will always hold a special place in my heart for their warm acceptance of me in their lives.

And General Blather, of course!

Terry Pratchett's acceptance speech

I just couldn't resist posting Terry Pratchett’s acceptance speech at the 2009 Michael L. Printz Awards (administered by ALA’s Young Adult Library Services Association and sponsored by Booklist) for his novel Nation. How can you not want to run out and read all of his books?