Raymond Chandler famously said, “The ideal mystery is one you would read even if the end is missing.”

In honor of his birthday this week, we asked our librarian experts to name mysteries they’d read even if there were no endings—books so compelling, with such great characters or such an evocative setting, that the story itself is just a bonus.

NYC Mysteries

I would read the Gods of Gotham series by Lyndsay Faye, even sans ending, since she so carefully envisions the formation of the NYPD at the peak of the great Irish potato famine.—Jenny Baum, Jefferson Market

I love reading historical mystery series, so the books become less about the mystery du jour and more about the characters’ ongoing relationships and the details of the historical setting. A favorite is Victoria Thompson’s Gaslight Mysteries. Set in late 19^th-century New York City, they involve upper class, midwife Sarah Brandt who always stumbles onto murders and gets help from Irish, NYPD detective Frank Malloy. Filled with historical detail of the city and great developing relationships, you’ll not remember the mystery plots but you will remember the vivid characters. Start with Murder on Astor Place. —Anne Rouyer, Mulberry Street

Christie, Doyle, & Co.

I’ll go with The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie, featuring the amazing detective Hercule Poirot. This book could have ended twice (!) before it actually ended as potential murderers were identified - each with equally compelling motive and suspicious behavior. Such was the twist and mastery of this whodunit tale. —Jean Harripersaud, Bronx Library Center

I read and re-read Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None when I was young, fascinated by the idea of remote-island mystery. Who did it really didn’t matter. Louise Penny’s Still Life and the rest of the Three Pine series are another kind of remote island—although that one has friendly characters you’d like for your neighbors. —Danita Nichols, Inwood

The first mystery I read as a child was A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, closely followed by The Hound of the Baskervilles (also by Doyle). I was enthralled by Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson and the Victorian London setting. It’s not that I don’t want to know the solutions to the mysteries, but getting to know the characters was the real enjoyment. So I recommend anything Sherlock. —Lois Moore, Mid-Manhattan

International Intrigue

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Who cares even what the mystery is? The sights, smells, and feel of Zimbabwe matter the most! —Danita Nichols, Inwood

The mysteries of Kathy Reichs have already been turned into a television series, but her novels have different nuances to her characters or completely different characters altogether. She also has very different settings than the show, from Canada to North Carolina. Peter May is another mystery writer whose works have been adapted for television. His setting of Scottish Hebrides islands is rich with details of the culture and landscape. —Jenny Baum, Jefferson Market

It is more the journey than the destination that appeals in Peter Høeg’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow, a murder mystery and a meditation on nature. The protagonist is Greenland native Smilla, who can read snow like a book (and in whose language there are over a dozen words for it) and sees in the snow on the scene of a rooftop fatality that it was actually murder. The end of the book takes us deeper into supernatural territory, but it is Hoeg’s vivid descriptions of winter along the way that make this the perfect heat wave read. —Jeremy Megraw, Billy Rose Theatre Division

In Emotionally Weird, set in northern Scotland, Atkinson tells a story of a dysfunctional mother telling stories about the past and her college writing major daughter telling stories about the present in order to learn about the past. There are deaths, dogs, and unpleasant weather, and when you finish it you get to think about whether you really know what went on. Did I mention that Atkinson has an unusual sense of humor?  Well, she does. When Will There Be Good News, a Jackson Brodie mystery, is all about deaths that happened many years before and still haunt the victims today. Police, a train wreck, missing people, lovers, and a teenage heroine are the characters that keep readers entertained and guessing. —Peggy Salwen, St. Agnes

Hard-boilers, Noir, & More

I absolutely adore Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe and Archie. Stout began with Fer-de-lance, published in 1934, and continuously wrote until the mid-1970s.  The main characters do not age over the years, but they present a really interesting glimpse into New York life over the decades. —Leslie Bernstein, Mott Haven

No ending?  Well in that case, the writing has to be so delicious that I don’t care what happens at the end.  A mystery writer that easily fits that bill is Dashiell Hammett, who was a predecessor of Raymond Chandler (in fact he’s considered to be the father of "noir" fiction).  His last novel The Thin Man is a masterwork in combining mood, humor, and sentences that will make you shiver... not with fear, but with delighted appreciation. —Wayne Roylance, BookOps

I love open-ended mysteries—the ones where the police close the case, but the characters are left with questions and guilt.  Two of the best— Kenneth Fearing’s “The Big Clock” and Cornell Woolrich’s “I Married a Dead Man”—are in an anthology: Crime Stories: American Noir of the 1930s. In both, someone confesses and dies but the characters (and readers) are left with questions, suspicion and guilt.  I recommend any of Woolrich’s novels and short stories, but not if you require beginnings, middles, and ends. —Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, Exhibitions

Keith Ridgway’s Hawthorn & Childis a mystery novel set in a heavy fog, or an impenetrable steam. Two middling detectives track a maybe ghost car, a maybe crime boss, a pick-pocket, and more. To what end? Who knows. They certainly don’t. The result is a book that asks whodunit… and what was done anyway… and why do we care? Fantastically strange. —Chad Felix, Social Media

Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your picks! Leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend.

This is a guest post from volunteer, Joanne Dillon. Joanne has interviewed several people for the NYPL Community Oral History Project and continues to share her experience and the experience of others who are participating in this historic initiative.

A passion for local history brought together New York Public Library staff and volunteers in a quest to capture the memories of past and present residents of the Morris Park, Van Nest, Pelham Parkway, and Allerton neighborhoods in the East Bronx this past spring. Through memory circles and more than 70 individual interviews, they captured stories that won’t be found in any history books. All are now part of Voices from East of Bronx Park, part of The New York Public Library’s Community Oral History Project.

Take long-time Morris Park resident Peter Ulrich, a volunteer, who conducted six conversations, participated in one memory circle, and was recently interviewed himself. A history buff, Peter volunteered after hearing Dawn Holloway, manager of the Morris Park branch library, promote Voices from East of Bronx Park at a local community meeting. Although he had never before been involved in a project of this type, Peter thought the listening skills he had developed as a high school guidance counselor would be a natural fit. He soon found himself interviewing a variety of people, each with a fascinating story to tell. They included a 94-year old World War II veteran, who had served with the Seabees; a Vietnam veteran now a local businessman; a published author; and a married couple—doctors who had practiced together in the neighborhood for many years.

When retired pediatrician Lois Fermaglich, who grew up near Pelham Parkway, read about the project taking place in her old neighborhood on The New York Public Library’s website, she immediately volunteered. “Who doesn’t like libraries? Who doesn’t want to support them?” she exclaims. Lois, who is writing her own family’s history, has fond memories of growing up in the Bronx. Through the 12 interviews she conducted, she reconnected with friends from her school days and met many others who had also lived near Pelham Parkway. “Helping to preserve a bit of local history through this project has been a lovely experience,” she says.

In addition to advocating for the project, Dawn Holloway conducted several interviews with local residents, including one that spanned three generations—a co-worker, her older brother by 23 years, and the woman who had been the family’s babysitter.

Dawn, who also resides in the Bronx, has witnessed many changes in the Morris Park area in the years she has worked there. “Many patrons of the Morris Park library are getting older,” she says. “I wanted to capture, for all time, their memories of this evolving neighborhood, before they are lost forever.” Dawn enthusiastically promoted the project, speaking along with other branch managers at community board meetings, and encouraging library patrons to participate. The project has also sparked her desire to expand into other activities at the branch; she is currently exploring ideas, such as memoir writing workshops and an art exhibit that would highlight the area’s history.

Dawn’s colleague David Nochimson, manager of the Pelham Parkway-Van Nest branch, was equally as enthusiastic, promoting the project at senior centers and neighborhood associations. For David, it offered a way to get adults more involved with library activities. And, through the interviews he conducted and the memory circle he facilitated, he discovered what the neighborhood means to its residents. David is very impressed by the neighborhood’s diversity. “Immigrants from just about every continent, members of all three major religions, all generations, and people from all economic levels actively use and share this library,” he says.

David believes that, through the website, the project will help bring people to the library, at least in the electronic sense. But he hopes it inspires people to visit their local libraries and to take time to explore their neighborhoods. This is a point Dawn agrees with. “Nobody knows their neighbors anymore,” she says. “I hope that by listening to the histories, people will be moved to reach out and get to know the people living here now.”

For those interested—but hesitant—about volunteering with an oral history project, David suggests participating in a memory circle. “The participants in the Pelham Parkway-Van Nest memory circle had a lot of fun reminiscing about local shops, restaurants, and bakeries – and all the wonderful food they remembered.”

Volunteer Peter says, “Don’t be afraid. Approach it like you would any other conversation. Ask one or two questions to get the storyteller talking, and let things evolve from there.” Lois agrees. When conducting her interviews, she always had some questions handy to use as a prompt, but rarely needed to use them. “People enjoy sharing their memories,” she explains. “Once a storyteller starts talking, all an interviewer needs to do is listen.”  

“Be inquisitive,” adds Dawn, “If a storyteller says something that sparks your curiosity, follow up. If you’re interested in something that is said, chances are others will be, too.”

Voices from East of Bronx Park is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the neighborhood history of the Allerton, Pelham Parkway, Morris Park, and Van Nest communities through the stories of people who have experienced it. The project will collect oral histories of people who live in neighborhoods east of Bronx Park and train community members to conduct these interviews. Longtime residents and those who have worked in these neighborhoods are invited to share their stories, documenting an important past and present history. Interviews will be preserved at The Milstein Division of United States History, Local History, and Genealogy. Interviews will also be available in a circulating collection and accessible on this website. To listen to the stories collected, please visit oralhistory.nypl.org.

E.L. Doctorow brought history to life.

In dozens of works over a long and storied career, the author conjured up intensely believable characters—sometimes real historical figures, sometimes imagined—who breathed life into events long past. He created historical fiction that millions of people couldn’t wait to read.

And, as a lifelong New Yorker, Doctorow chronicled the city with the piercing eye of an observer tempered by the affection of a hometown boy.

Here are five essential reads to celebrate Doctorow's consummate contribution to literature. (And it was hard to choose from his 12 novels; let us know in the comments which books you’d put on this list.)
 

City of God
Theological musings and historical conceptions of the divine morph into a detective story, as a rabbi and a rector work together to discover who stole a gigantic brass cross from a rundown Episcopal church in lower Manhattan—and how it got onto the roof of a synagogue on the Upper West Side.

 

Ragtime
Sigmund Freud, Harry Houdini, Henry Ford, Emiliano Zapata… the imagined lives of real historical figures join a cast of Doctorow’s imagined characters to create a delicious, meaty history of the early 20^th century in America.

 

World's Fair
Visit the Bronx in the 1930s, when science promised a glittering new frontier, but a young boy is disillusioned by the shadow of the Great Depression and the looming threat of the Nazis.

Book of Daniel
Moving back and forth between present and past, this fictional memoir is written by the son of accused traitors executed for passing national secrets to Russia, much like Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

Homer & Langley
Two brothers inhabit a crumbling mansion on Fifth Avenue, hoarding newspapers and obsessively chronicling history.

Bonus: Doctorow was best known as a novelist, but he was really a writer-of-all-trades: a critic, an essayist, a playwright, and more. Dip into his short stories with All the Time in the World; his nonfiction with Creationists; and his theater with a play, Drinks before Dinner.

Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your picks! Leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend.

This week's post is by intern Rosie Shewnarain.  

Vicki Cobb started off week two with a fun-filled afternoon of science experiments! She had everyone bright-eyed and on the edge of their seats as she demonstrated experiments involving flying teabags and levitating tennis balls. Soon after, the kids of Imagination Academy went off to look for their own crazy experiments to do with inspiration from Vicki’s very own book We Dare You. After many failed and successful experiments the group sat down and had a chat with Ms. Cobb. She explained that scientists can be wrong or right, but that doesn’t matter as long as you learn something. She also shared the story of how she became a writer. She used to be a science teacher but instead of teaching from the textbooks, she did tons of research to try and make it fun and relatable for kids. She figured that if she can teach it, then she can write it. She’s an inspiring woman and the kids had a blast! (ed note: I loved her book Bet You Can't! when I was a kid!)

On Wednesday, Julie Salamon brought along her own experience as a writer. She wrote the bookCat in the City which was based off of an actual cat named Pretty Boy. Many of her characters were based off of real people; the cello player inspired by her son’s cello teacher, one of the characters is her own dog, and there is even a dog named after her daughter! People aren’t the only things that inspired her though. One of the scenes in her story was inspired by a snowstorm in Washington Square. After she shared her story, she gave the kids a writing exercise to do. “Your character appears out of nowhere in a strange place, what happens next?” They could choose to write poems, stories, or draw pictures. This brought on a poem about a food fight with jumping juices, partying potatoes, erupting eggplants, and tangerines that tangoed! Somehow this exercise escalated into a heated debate on what life would be like without death. Would gardens grow in our stomachs when we ate our vegetables?

We ended the week with Lauren Magaziner who made Thursday a day filled with inspiration. She is the author of The Only Thing Worse than Witches and had gotten many ideas from the people and places around her; inspiration can come from anywhere. We then played a game called "what if..." For example, what if there was a boy that never grew up or what if there was a spider that wrote on her web to save a pig’s life (sound familiar?). The young writers came up with a few of their own:

• What if dogs ruled the world?
• What if you had to share your room with an alien?

After this activity Lauren pulled out some story dice. These dice included setting, plot, and character dice which inspired wacky stories about queens being chased evil giraffes, dentists that could not stop hiccupping, and alien pilot messengers. Then the kids split up into threes and joined forces to create group stories. The stories were hilarious!

We can’t believe we’re already at the halfway point. Time flies when you’re having fun!

Delilah, nighttime radio host, reaches million of listeners every week. She has connections with radio stations across the country. She receives the stories of her audience through live phone calls and emails that she reads on air. The lady is kind, compassionate, and she dispenses useful advice to people who want help with their relationships. Even without a caller on the line, Delilah chats about the time of year, the weather, and whatever people might be thinking about. She generally keeps people company during the evenings with her show.

Delilah plays love songs, and she has a knack for matching up the perfect song with someone's story, wants, needs, hopes and dreams. Sometimes, audience members request a specific song, and she gladly obliges.

Delilah is full of love, and she wants to share it with the world. Delilah strives to be everyone's mother. She has a nightly "Delilah's Dilemma," in which she helps listeners solve their relationship problems. She also hosts a Friday Night Girls' Club. Delilah is fun, and I also enjoy the music that she plays. 

Arms Full of Love by Delilah, 2012

I love listening to Delilah in the evening; I find her words and the stories that she and the listeners share inspirational.

• Delilah's web site
• Books about family
• Books about music

#1 Recommendations. For readers who enjoyed PAPER TOWNS, by John Green, here are more novels about strong female protagonists:

• Perfect Escape by Jennifer Brown
• Just One Day by Gayle Forman
• We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
• Let’s Get Lost by Adi Alsaid
• If I Stay by Gayle Forman

#2 Recommendations. For readers who enjoyed LOOKING FOR ALASKA, by John Green, here are more novels about people who change your life:

• All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
• Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
• 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
• The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen
• Winger by Andrew Smith            

#3 Recommendations. For readers who enjoyed ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL, by Jesse Andrews, here are young adult novels that deal with illness: 

• The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
• The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder
• This Star Won't Go Out: The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl by Esther Earl
• I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
• Every day by David Levithan

#4 Recommendations. For readers who enjoyed THE BOOK THIEF, by Markus Zusak, try these novels that deal with great courage of young people and tragedy:            

• The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
• Copper Sun by Sharon Draper
• Maus : a survivor's tale By Art Spiegelman

#5 Recommendations. For readers who enjoyed MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN, by Ransom Riggs, more novels about children  who are on their own: 

• Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
• The Night Gardener A Scary Story by Jonathan Auxier

SAGEWorks Workshop. Career  Transition:  How to Enjoy and be Empowered by the Process of Changing,  on Monday, July 27, 5:30  - 7 p.m., at The Sage Center, 305 7th Avenue (Cyber Center, 15th Floor), New York, NY 10001.  SAGEWorks assists people 40 years and older in learning relevant, cutting-edge job search skills in a LGBT-friendly environment.

Enrollment Now Open! SAGEWorks Boot Camp. This two-week long, intensive training course will provide participants with essential skills to lead them toward job placement. The first session starts on Monday–Friday, from August 10 to August 21, 9:30 a.m.–2 p.m. Participants must attend every day at the SAGE Center, 305 7th Avenue, New York, NY 10001.  SAGEWorks assists people 40 years and older in learning relevant, cutting-edge  job search skills in a LGBT–friendly environment.

Custom Computer Specialists, Inc. will present a recruitment on Tuesday, July 28, 2015, 11 a.m.–2 p.m., for Help Desk Technician ( 5 Temp openings), Technical Customer Service Agent (5 Temp openings) at the Bronx Workforce 1 Career Center, 400 E. Fordham Road, Bronx, NY 10458. 

Mini Job Fair–Health Industry, on Wednesday, July 29, 2015, 10 a.m.–2 p.m. at Workforce  1 Career Center, 250 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201.  Participating Businesses include:  all Metro Health Car; 20 openings, Ideal Home Health, Inc.; 10 openings, Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Home Care Council, Inc.; 10 openings.

SAGEWorks Workshop - First Light Homecare Recruitment Event, on Wednesday, July 29, 2015, 11 a.m.–2 p.m., at The Sage Center, 305 7th Avenue, Classroom, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10001.  SAGEWorks assists people 40 years and older in learning relevant, cutting-edge job search skills in a LGBT-friendly environment.

H&R Block will present a recruitment on Thursday, July 30, 2015, 10 a.m.–2 p.m., for Tax Preparer (20 Seasonal openings), at Flushing Workforce 1 Career Center, 138-60 Barclay Avenue, 2nd Floor, Flushing, NY 11355.

New York Life Insurance Company will present a recruitment on Friday, July 31, 2015, 10 a.m.–2 p.m., for Financial Services Professionals (5 openings), at Flushing Workforce 1 Career Center, 138-60 Barclay Avenue, 2nd Floor, Flushing, NY 11355.  

Job Postings at New York City Workforce 1.

Apprenticeship Opportunities in New York  City.         

The New York City Employment and Training Coalition (NYCE&TC) is an association of 200 community-based organizations, educational institutions, and labor unions that annually provide job training and employment services to over 750,000 New Yorkers, including welfare recipients, unemployed workers, low-wage workers, at-risk youth, the formerly incarcerated, immigrants and the mentally and physically disabled. View NYCE&TC Job Listings.

Digital NYC is the official online hub of the New York City startup and technology ecosystem, bringing together every company,  startup, investor, event, job, class, blog, video, workplace, accelerator, incubator, resource, and organization in the five boroughs. Search  jobs by category on this site.

St. Nicks Alliance Workforce Development provides Free Job Training and Educational Programs in Environmental Response and Remediation Tec (ERRT). Commercial Driver's License, Pest Control Technician Training (PCT), Employment Search and Prep Training and Job Placement, Earn Benefits and Career Path Center. For information and assistance, please visit St. Nicks Alliance Workforce Development or call 718-302-2057 ext. 202. 

Brooklyn Workforce Innovations helps jobless and working poor New Yorkers establish careers in sectors that offer good wages and opportunities for advancement. Currently, BWI offers free job training programs in four industries: commercial driving, telecommunications cable installation, TV and film production, and skilled woodworking.  

CMP (formerly Chinatown Manpower Project) in lower Manhattan is now recruiting for a free training in Quickbooks,  Basic Accounting, and Excel. This training is open to anyone who is receiving food stamps but no cash assistance. Class runs for eight weeks, followed by one-on-one meetings with a job developer. CMP also provides Free Home Health Aide Training for bilingual English/Cantonese speakers who are receiving food stamps but no cash assistance. Training runs Mondays through Fridays for six weeks and includes test prep and taking the HHA certification exam. Students learn about direct care techniques such as taking vital signs and assisting with personal hygiene and nutrition. For more information for the above two training programs, email: info@cmpny.org, call 212-571-1690, or visit. CMP also provides tuition-based healthcare and business trainings free to students who are entitled to ACCESS funding.

В библиотеку Мid-Manhattan  поступило большое количество книг об истории и культуре зарубежья. 
Предлагаем нашим читателям совершить кругоственое путешествие с книгой в руках. 

Индия : 33 незабываемые встречи / Ростислав Рыбаков
Индия - страна "на слуху", многие люди там бывали, но мало кто почувствовал подлинной, нетуристическое своеобразие Индии. 
Ростислав Рыбаков - крупнейший специалист по Индии в России. И человек, который действительно любит эту страну. Он знает все об истории и современности Индии.

В  "Индия глазами русского индолога" описана Индия, заключающая в себе и жизнь людей, и чудеса, о которых европейцы наслышана уже много веков подряд, и те особенности страны, которые можно узнать и почувствовать, действительно проживая жизнь Индией и полюбив эту страну.

От нищих кочевников сельджуков – к блистательной Османской империи, завоевавшей всю Южную и часть Центральной Европы и весь исламский Восток, потом к медленной гибели империи, и, наконец, к процветающему, современному государству, гармонично сочетающему в себе черты Запада и Востока, - такова история Турции.

Как же удалось Турции оправиться после позорного поражения в Первой мировой войне, в результате которого она лишилась всех своих земель на Ближнем Востоке и арабских территориях? Как удалось избежать конфликта между исламскими традициями и проевропейским, прозападным правительством? Как в этой стране сочетались – и до сих пор сочетаются – разумный консерватизм и стремление к прогрессу?

На эти и многие другие вопросы отвечает  превосходно написанная книга Норманна Стоунa. 

Исследование профессора Европейского университета в Санкт-Петербурге Сергея Абашина посвящено истории преобразований в Средней Азии с конца XIX века и до распада Советского Союза. Вся эта история дана через описание одного селения, пережившего и завоевание, и репрессии, и бурное экономическое развитие, и культурную модернизацию. В книге приведено множество документов и устных историй, рассказывающих о завоевании региона, становлении колониального и советского управления, борьбе с басмачеством, коллективизации и хлопковой экономике, медицине и исламе, общине махалле и брачных стратегиях. Анализируя собранные в поле и архивах свидетельства, автор обращается к теориям постколониализма, культурной гибридности, советской субъективности и с их помощью объясняет противоречивый характер общественных отношений в Российской империи и СССР

Петербург : застывшие мгновения : история города в фотографиях Карла Буллы / Наталия Гречук
Перед вами продолжение экскурсии по былому Петербургу. Используя в книге редкие фотографии из Центрального государственного архива кинофотоф
онодокументов Санкт-Петербурга, автор увлекает в путешествие по прошлому Северной столицы.

Снимки здесь как застывшие кадры истории, которую можно снова оживить благодаря рассказам в книге и собственному воображению. Они поведают о фактах и людях, перед глазами возникнут как знакомые и привычные места и люди, что всегда были на слуху, так и незаслуженно забытые фамилии и места, которые бесследно исчезли.

Автором большинства снимков в этой книге является знаменитый фотолетописец петербургской жизни на рубеже XIX-XX веков Карл Карлович Булла. Есть там также работы его сыновей Александра и Виктора, которые в свое время и передали архив отца городу.

Mei Tei Sing, Curator of The 75th Anniversary of the American Negro Theatre, describes the significance of the theater's groundbreaking radio program which is featured in the exhibition:

In September 1945, our American Negro Theatre (ANT) became the first theatrical company to present a radio program. Titled "New World A-Coming," the series aired Sunday afternoons for 30 minutes and was designed "to promote the universality of scripts, characters and performing talent." It was produced by and in cooperation with the City-Wide Citizens' Committee on Harlem and Ted Cott in association with ANT co-founder Abram Hill, as well as WNEW production manager Jack Grogan. 

Typically, actor and ANT member Canada Lee was the host/narrator of the series, which featured guests such as Tuskeegee Airman Virgil Richardson, playwright Eugene O’Neil, and contralto Marian Anderson. The musical opening for the series was composed by the Duke Ellington Orchestra. 

Popular dramatic  episodes reflected political and racial concerns through true-life acccounts of experiences within the African-American community, such as social life in 1940s Harlem, black U.S. soldiers on leave who weren't allowed entry in public spaces,  discrimination in the workplace, and other issues during the Jim Crow era. Through representations of everyday life in the black community, the series highlighted the significant political and racial concerns of its time.  In addition, it included classical dramatizations—from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to Charles Dickens’ Scrooge and operatic productions. 

Learn more about our exhibition, The 75th Anniversary of the American Negro Theatre. And listen to an excerpt from "A New World A-Coming, which is featured in the exhibition, below:

Imagine being trapped somewhere with little to no chance for escape.  Maybe you can’t get out of your school during an intense snowstorm.  Maybe you’re locked inside a windowless room.  Maybe you’re trapped in a coffin.  Maybe you’re stuck in what FEELS like a coffin, but you can’t tell because it’s so dark that you can’t see anything.  You can only hear the sound of someone walking back and forth somewhere above you… someone who’s been waiting for you to wake up.  

Recently, I read The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks, an incredibly suspenseful story about a group of people who are kidnapped and then held captive in a space they're forced to share.  I was thinking about why I enjoyed this book, and I realized that it reminded me of several books I’ve read since I became a young adult librarian as well as several books I enjoyed back when I was a teen.

When I was young, my mother guided my reading choices with books she checked out and bought from our local public library.  I’m not sure if it says more about the children’s and young adult literature of the time or more about my mom that many of those books contained life lessons in the form of warnings.  For example, I learned that I should always look out for my little brother (Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars), that I shouldn’t get pregnant (Phoebe by Patricia Dizenzo), that I shouldn’t take drugs (Go Ask Alice by “Anonymous”), and that I should try to stay safe but that I might be victimized anyway (Are you in the House Alone? by Richard Peck, After the First Deathby Robert Cormier, and many more).

After reading The Bunker Diary I remembered that I’d also read several books as a kid about kids getting kidnapped, or kids getting trapped and trying to escape.  The valuable lessons in those books, I suppose, were that I should always try to defend myself and I should never wander off with strangers!  In The Solid Gold Kid by Norma Fox Mazer and Harry Mazer, several kids are standing at a bus stop when they accept a ride from someone driving a van.  One of the kids is rich (and thus worth a ransom), but the others are much more expendable.  In House of Stairs by William Sleator—which is still one of my favorite YA books of all time—a group of kids wakes up in a very strange place made entirely of stairs and landings.  As they start to explore their surroundings, they discover that they’re being watched.

Since I’ve become a librarian, I’ve read many more novels about kids and teens who were trapped in dangerous situations.  Sometimes they were trapped by fate and sometimes by other people.  Sometimes they were able to escape, and sometimes they weren’t.  

Okay, I know it sounds a little weird to say “here are some of my favorite books about trapped teenagers,” but that’s exactly what these books are.  Here are a dozen young adult novels containing a mix of happy endings, sad endings, cliffhanger endings, and PLENTY of suspense!

The Girl in the Box by Ouida Sebestyen
Jackie has been kidnapped, and she doesn’t know where she is.  She writes a series of notes and pushes them under the door, hoping that someone will be able to find and rescue her.

House of Stairs by William Sleator
Five 16-year-old orphans are brought to a strange place that has no floors, walls, or ceilings.  There are only stairs, landings, and a mysterious machine.

Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott
Alice has been living with Ray for the last five years.  When she was in the fifth grade, Ray kidnapped her while she was on a field trip to the aquarium.  Now Alice is fifteen, and she’s getting too old for him.

Wish You Were Dead by Todd Strasser
An unhappy girl writes in her blog about how she hates herself and other people.  And every time the girl writes about wishing someone dead in her blog, that person suddenly disappears in real life.

What Happened to Cass McBride? by Gail Giles
When Cass wakes up, she is groggy, confused, and afraid.  It takes her only a few minutes to discover that she’s been drugged, kidnapped, and buried alive.

Trapped by Michael Northrop
The snow started falling in the morning, and it fell harder and harder all day.  Scotty and his friends had no idea that it would keep snowing for almost a week, and that it would be impossible for them to leave their school.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Every thirty days, a new boy is delivered to the Glade.  Some of them have lived there for years, and they believe that the only way to escape is through the maze that surrounds them.  No one has succeeded yet, but many boys have died trying.

All the Truth That’s In Me by Julie Berry
Judith was held captive for two years by a man who made sure she would never talk about what happened.  When she got back to her town, her silence turned her into an outcast.

Pointe by Brandy Colbert
Theo is planning to take her ballet plans to the next level and become a professional dancer.  But everything changes when her friend Donovan suddenly returns after he disappeared four years earlier.

The Fall by Bethany Griffin
Madeleine Usher is eighteen years old, and she’s just been been buried alive.  But that’s not where the story begins.  The story started generations ago, when the Usher family was cursed.

The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks
Linus was a runaway who was living on the streets until the day he woke up in an underground bunker.  Soon he is one of six captives living in this space, six people who are being watched by someone who is playing mind games with them.

Bone Gap by Laura Ruby
Roza is a beautiful girl who was kidnapped by a mysterious man.  Finn was the only witness, but since he wasn’t able to identify the man he can’t forgive himself.  And many of the people in the town don’t forgive him, either.

This post is Part 1 of an ongoing Research Guide to New York City Guidebooks in the collections of the Milstein Division of United States History, Local History & Genealogy.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Archetypes
• Giovanni da Verrazzano
• Henry Hudson
• Adriaen van der Donck
• Daniel Denton
• Last Notes
• Bibliographic Guide

Introduction

The first guidebooks to New York City were written by the navigators, explorers, and crewmen who sailed west from Europe across the Atlantic Ocean in the 16^th and 17^th centuries. These written works were often not intended for publication and took various literary forms, such as the famous 1524 letter by Giovanni Verrazzano to the King of France, describing the coasts of the New World, or the log jotted by Robert Juet, a ship’s mate on the Half Moon under Master Henry Hudson. Published works were called “descriptions,” “true relations,” or “peregrinations.” These written works, no matter where nor when, share the essential characteristics of a guidebook, which, for new visitors to a subject place, is to describe, recommend, and promote.

In the English language, the first published account of the harbor flowing between the islands of New York and New Jersey, written with the express purpose of addressing the public, is A Brief Description of New York, formerly called New Netherlands (1670), by Daniel Denton. Denton was preceded by a handful of “relations,” or descriptions, of the New York Bay region by Dutch authors whom often never visited the lands about which they wrote. These travelogues and descriptions are well anthologized in Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664, edited by J. Franklin Jameson in 1909 for the tercentennial of Henry Hudson surf-cleaving the river west of the Mannados.

Western Europe, trudging out of the Middle Ages, was a geopolitical pressure cooker of warring, spying, and freebooting, in addition to exploring, inventing and freethinking. Giovanni Battista Ramusio, a Venetian annalist of exploration narratives, including the writings of Marco Polo, published the Verrazzano letter in 1556. In England, the reading public of the late 16^th and early 17^th century learned of the expanding known world in the accounts anthologized by Richard Hakluyt, a geographer described in the Encyclopedia of the Renaissance as a “propagandist for overseas enterprise,” championing the forward guard of English exploration and trade. Hakluyt was the first to publish an English translation of the Verrazzano letter. Samuel Purchas, a successor of Hakylut, published in 1625 the five book series Purchas His Pilgrimes, notably containing accounts of the four voyages of Henry Hudson.

Emanuel Van Meteren was Dutch consul in London and a cousin of famed archetypal atlasmaker Abraham Ortelius. Van Meteren met with Henry Hudson in London after the third voyage, and includes first person anecdotal information about the Skipper in his later edition of History of the Netherlanders.

The first maps of the New York region show much Dutch nomenclature that did not stick, like the Mauritius River, Wilhelmus River, and Godenis Bay. The accuracy of maps evolved as cartographers sailed west themselves or corresponded with world explorers to gain scientific measurements about the new lands.

The skilled cosmography of Verrazzano and nautical acumen of Robert Juet are reflected in each seaman’s written works, which recordings were for the benefit of captains and cartographers. Amsterdam was home to one of the more famous mapmakers of the early 17^th century, Peter Plancius, a Calvinist scrutinizer-of-globes with whom Hudson caucused personally in Latin before his 1609 voyage. Hudson is also said to have consorted with Jodocus Hondius, an engraver whose atlases were known for evocative calligraphy.

The traveler who uses a guidebook without maps will spend most of the trip lost.

Archetypes

The Rare Book Division at NYPL holds a scarce copy of what is understood as the first travel narrative published in Western Europe. The Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam by Bernhard von Breydenbach describes a journey east to the Holy Land. The volume, composed in Latin and later translated into French, was printed in 1486 and features vivid color woodblock illustrations of Venice and Jerusalem that detail costumes, commercial activity, architecture, and xenolinguistics.

Christian folklore depicts sixth century monk St. Brendan, Abbot of Clonfert, as having journeyed to unsettled western lands from Ireland on the back of a flippered sea giant.

“Brendan loved perpetual mortification,

According to his synod and his flock;

Seven years he spent on the great whale’s back;

It was a distressing mode of mortification.”

The literate public in Western Europe could read about the exploits of world peregrinators in the anthology volumes compiled and edited by Ramusio, Hakluyt, and Purchas. In 1596, The Voyage of John Huygen van Linschoten to the East Indies was an adventuresome two volumes that described customs, geography, sailing-routes, and “wares, marchandises, trades, waightes, myntes, and prices” of India, Indonesia, and the Far East. The Voyage was a best seller, translated to English in 1598, and likely a major provocation to organize for the future merchants of the Dutch East India Company.

Cosmographer

History has accepted that the first written account of the New York Harbor region, in any language, is the letter from Giovanni “Janus” di Pier Andrea di Bernardo da Verrazzano to King Francis I, datemarked July 8, 1524. Writing in Italian from Dieppe, France, just north of Le Havre, which port would evolve as a major embarkation point for passenger vessels carrying immigrants to New York in the late 19^th century, Verrazzano reports a voyage along the coast of Florida north to Newfoundland, the “land which the Lusitanians found long ago.” Multiple copies of the original draft were transcribed and at some point translated into French legible for the King, whom was traveling in the south of France that summer. It is not known when the King received the correspondence, and the original has not survived. The most reliable extant transcription was discovered in Rome and determined to be a copy dispatched to financial backers of the expedition in Lyons and Rome.

The letter by Verrazzano “is the earliest description known to exist of the shores of the United States.” The Master and crew of the Dauphine encountered "a new land which had never been seen before by any man, either Ancient or modern." Scholars have noted the literary and nautical sophistication of the Captain’s paragraphs.

Indigenous inhabitants set "huge fires" along the seashore, signaling to Verrazzano and crew that the land was populated. Sailing north along the coast and stopping briefly along the way at the Delmarva Peninsula, the men ventured inland and found an old woman and a young woman, each with a group of children, deduced by some scholars to be Nanticoke. They gave the old woman food but leisurely took "the boy from the old woman to carry back to France." Verrazzano says that they also intended to "take the young woman, who was very beautiful and tall, but it was impossible... because of the loud cries she uttered.” Violent encounters are expressed as blankly as if measuring fathoms or describing plant life. The woman contested the genteel kidnapping until the men abandoned her to the woods, and “took only the boy."

The description of what is understood to be New York Harbor is one paragraph. "I will now tell Your Majesty about it, and describe the situation and nature of this land.” With “about 30 small boats” and “innumerable people aboard," the locale is "densely populated," an observation that would likewise apply almost five hundred years later. The land itself, an eternal, prime, vital source in both the history and future of NYC, is noted less for its real estate promise than the "signs of minerals" which Verrazzano surmises were "not without some properties of value." The Delaware tribes who greeted the sailors were "dressed in birds' feathers of various color and they came toward us joyfully, uttering loud cries of wonderment..." Just like Halston’s table at Studio…

"I shall now tell Your Majesty briefly what we were able to learn of their life and customs..." Verrazzano describes the sartorial patterns, the “rich lynx skins,” hair braidings, and jewelry made of red stones and blue crystals and copper sheets. While the Delawares emphasize pageantry and self-adornment, they are not vain. When the crew offered mirrors to trade, the Indians “would look at them quickly, and then refuse them, laughing.” And though these possessions might be traded and treasured, the Indians “are very generous and gave away all they have.” The Western Europeans perceive the lack of narcissism and the absence of selfishness in the Delawares as savagery.

Verrazzano highlights physical details of the men and women, noting facial geometries, height, and skin color. The sea captain, as with his successor navigators, presumes “they have neither religion nor laws” and “do not know of a First Cause or Author… nor any kind of idolatry.” The crew sees no houses of worship and do not interpret any behavior as an act of prayer. Still, Verrazzano admits that these assumptions result from his inability to understand the indigenous languages. Some of the tribesmen stave any engagement with the Europeans, and signal from the shores that the ship not anchor but continue moving. In a footnote, Verrazzano relates to the king how these men treated the newcomers mockingly by dropping their garments to moon the ship.

The letter ends with a highly technical “cosmographical index,” where longitudinal and latitudinal detail, spherical mathematics, “the motion of the sun,” and rising tides support a study of the measurement of the earth. In his letter, Verrazzano nods to the radical shift occurring in the perception of the “opinion of all the ancients, who certainly believed that our Western Ocean was joined to the Eastern Ocean of India without any land in between. Aristotle supports this theory by arguments of various analogies, but this opinion is quite contrary to that of the moderns, and has been proven false by experience.” The cosmographer is aware of the intrepid intellectual revolution ignited by seafaring world exploration.

"He was the first to explore the gap between the Spanish ventures to the south and the English enterprises to the north,” says one historian, and “the first commander to bring back anything resembling a detailed account of the natives of North America.” He christened the regions of New York bay Nouvelle-Angouleme, after the French city and seat of counts in the patrilineage of King Francis I. The bay was named for the King’s sister, Margarita, “who surpasses all matrons in modesty and intellect.”

Before the 1524 voyage, Verrazzano is said to have prospered as a “corsair,” or pirate, for French interests. The account of his last voyage, in 1528, was recorded by historian Paolo Giovio, whom heard it firsthand from Verrazzano’s brother, Gerolamo, and which was later augmented in verse form by Giovio’s nephew. In the West Indies, with six crewmen, the Florentine “disembarked on a deserted island…

… which seemed covered with tall trees.. The men were “taken by cruel people who suddenly attacked them. They were killed, laid on the ground, cut into pieces and eaten down to the smallest bones by those people. And there also was Verrazzano’s brother who saw the ground red with his brother’s blood, but could give no help, being aboard the ship… such a sad death had the seeker of new lands.” (Wroth, p.259)

Tough Captain

Henry Hudson embarked on four voyages to find a north Atlantic passage to Asia, sailing north, northeast, west at forty-two degrees, and finally northwest, where the English captain perished.

“They were… the first Europeans to document entry into the Delaware Bay, and to explore what came to be called New Netherland and the Hudson River… In spots Juet speaks directly to future explorers with navigational tips… and even suggests a good location to site a city…”

In 1610, as part of a new edition of the History of the Netherlanders, a multivolume work first published in 1605, Emanuel van Meteren, the Dutch consul in England, first published an account of Henry Hudson’s voyage to the New World. In addition to Meteren’s personal encounters with Hudson, the chapter was based on the 1609 journal by Half Moon captain’s mate Robert Juet. An “elderly man, cynical, skeptical, and dangerous,” the Englishman Juet would have “a sinister influence on Hudson’s fortunes.” Juet’s journal has become the canonical work in reference to the famed voyage, Hudson’s third of four in search of an alternate, northerly route to Asia. Van Meteren’s publication is an early 17^th century example of a primary sourcework related to the subject of description and travel employed for historical efficacy.

Meteren’s narrative is not commercial in intent; he is a chronicler, and in the few paragraphs devoted to the Half Moon voyage to what Americans would later call New York Bay, the reader learns that Hudson led a nasty crew whom were seasoned by tropical weather, unfit for artic climates, cruel to the Indians, and intolerant of their obdurate Captain. Comprised of Dutch and English ethnicities, each band of swabbies often expressed with prejudice vulgar metaphors relating to primate species against one another.

On his first and second voyages, Hudson sailed as an agent of the Muscovy Company, based in London, which conducted trade with Russia and was founded upon a geopolitical friendship between Queen Elizabeth and Ivan the Terrible. Hudson believed he might sail directly through the North Pole, which he and Calvinist cartographer Peter Plancius anticipated as a region of melting ice and warmer climates as a result of the six months’ midnight sun between the vernal and fall equinoxes. Hudson failed in proving this theory, and on the next trip sailed north to Nova Zembla. The ship’s log which Hudson wrote on this excursion has been published. The crew slaughtered walruses, claimed to have seen a mermaid, and, increasingly hungry and cold, pressured the skipper to turn back when the ship reached the Lofoten Islands.

Returning a second time with little fanfare, Hudson lost favor with the Muscovy Company, but was soon invited to the Netherlands by the directors of the Dutch East India Company, “the seventeen gentlemen.” The Company held a trade monopoly on the long and perilous southern routes to Asian markets, and eagerly sought to advance any potential routes north. In addition, the United Netherlands—the territories which severed allegiance from Spain in 1576, causing ongoing regional conflict—were brokering an armistice with Spain. The Dutch were apprehensive that the agreement would demand that Spain share trade routes to Asia. When van Meteren, who liaisoned with Hudson in London, arranged for the explorer to visit the growing cosmopolis of Amsterdam, the “seventeen gentlemen” were not all in agreement that Hudson was the right choice. Some were suspect of the communications Hudson had recently received from Pierre Jeannin, Minister to Henry IV of France, in collusion with a formerly ostracized director of the Dutch East India Company; but it was a short-lived courtship. Though England and the Netherlands were enemies in world trade, and a British explorer sailing for the Dutch in the 1600s was akin to a Russian astronaut during the Cold War flying to the moon in an American rocketship, the two nations shared the greater enemy of Spain, which superpower each nation might beat to the rich trade in the “land of spicery” if a northwest route was trailblazed.

The voyage began north, with no intention of a westernly direction. The Half Moon later turned south from the unnavigable ice waters Hudson believed would have taken him and his crew to India. At “Nova Francie” the crew seized provisions from the indigenous people “by force,” and Hudson directed the ship westward.

The Juet journal “called the attention of the Dutch to the desirableness of the North River region and its value for the fur-trade.” Like Verrazzano, Juet is technical, describing time and space in fathoms, hourglasses, degrees, leagues and soundings. The land is “high and pleasant.” From the coastal waters, he crew catch mullets a foot and a half in length and sting-rays that take four men to haul on deck. “The people of the Country” come aboard the ship and trade green tobacco and maize for knives and beads.

Crossing the mouth of the harbor, five men in canoes scouted the upper bay and paddled through the Kill van Kull, an area running between Staten Island and Bayonne which Juet describes as having “very sweet smells.” The men are then “set upon by two Canoes” carrying a total of 26 Indians. Juet details the bellicose exchange between the parties in the same bloodless monotone as sea-depth or weather conditions. “…One man was slaine in the fight, which was an English-man, named John Colman, with an arrow shot into his throat.” Juet does not say what triggered the confrontation. The next day Colman was buried at the shores of what is said to be Sandy Hook. Hudson’s crew renamed the place Colman’s Point.

Not unlike an episode of Mad Men, tobacco and alcohol abound. First contact with the indigenous tribes relied on the trade in the nicotine weed, less perhaps as a commodity than as an object of goodwill in the art of giftmanship. But even when the Indians made a “shew of love,” offering up other tradestuffs like oysters and beans, Juet repeats that “we durst not trust them.” Juet tells how the crew invited several Indians to the ship to get them drunk on wine and “aqua vitae,” testing “whether they had any treacherie in them.” It is determined that they do not. Still, the crew somehow manages to capture two Indians, one of whom is later released while the dives overboard in escape.

One of the "people of the Mountaynes" canoes along the ship’s stern and steals pillows, shirts and “bandaleeres” from Juet’s room through the cabin window. In the ensuing pandemonium, the Delaware burglar is shot dead through the chest while the Half Moon cook chops off the hands of an abettor.

Nineteen days in Half Moon reached the future site of Albany. After trading knives and beads “amicably” with tribes along the upper Hudson and clashing with arrow-shooting canoemen at the lower, the skipper, sensing well the increasingly mutinous agitations of the crew, favored sailing back towards England rather than turning north to “winter in Newfoundland.” The increasing presence of freshwater proved that the river was not a trans-oceanic passage.

Anticipating a brief layover before continuing to Amsterdam, where his wife and children dwelled, Hudson docked at the port of Dartmouth on the southern coast of Great Britain. Having traded dispatches with the East India Company, and bunking for over a month on the berthed Half Moon, Hudson was soon detained by English government authorities, forbidden future communication with the Netherlands, and restricted from re-embarking. The journals, maps and charts produced on his third voyage were confiscated. As a result, Stokes relates how subsequent coastal maps of the New York region made in England were much more accurately detailed, including a 1624 map that first makes reference to the “Hudson” river. Dutch maps lacked the benefit of Hudson’s intelligence, seized like atomic secrets by enemy nations in World War II.

Hudson may have possessed maps forwarded him by cavalier John Smith of Jamestown, Virginia. On his New York voyage, it is surmised that an unknown crewmember may have drafted a map of the harbor that later circulated in London. The map is said to have been obtained furtively by a Spanish diplomat named Velasco and couriered to Spain, where it was discovered in the 1880s in Spanish government archives. On the map, variations of the term from which “Manhattan” derives its Eastern Algonquian etymology are used to identify the areas on either side of the Hudson River. Algonquian linguist Ives Stoddard proves that the correct original meaning of the term is “place for gathering the wood to make bows,” in reference to the abundance of hickory trees at the lower tip of the island. Though “Manhattan was the first Native American place-name to be recorded by Europeans between Chesapeake Bay and the coast of Maine,” the term, at least here, was also ascribed to New Jersey. Likewise, in his mate’s log, Robert Juet refers to the western bank of the river as "Manna-hatta," as if New Jersey was an antecedent in the naming of Manhattan Island. Though Juet likely was just confused, and a strong theory holds that the Velasco map is a fake, the mortification of Manhattanite identity may be permanent.

Johannes De Laet, a Dutch scholar and bibliognost, published a popular series of books on geography and government, the Novus Orbis, which covered the whole of the coastal Americas, from the West Indies to New France. De Laet’s 1625 edition includes passages from the alleged journal of Hudson’s third voyage penned by Henry Hudson himself, and since lost. De Laet was also a director in the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch West India Company, and naturally eager to promote the opportunities of the Company’s new colony. The 1625 edition predated the infamous business agreement between Peter Minuit and Lenni Lenape tribesmen, when the Dutch purchased claim to Manhattan for sixty guilders. Fifteen years earlier, Hudson had signed a contract with the Dutch West India company for 800 guilders. Hudson’s journal is quoted at length, describing ingratiating encounters with the indigenous people, which include a meal of game pigeons and a “fat dog.” Remarks upon the forests, fishlife and Indian manners are excerpted. “It is as pleasant a land as one can tread upon,” says Hudson.

Hudson’s third voyage had brimmed with mutinous attitude. Hudson sailed under the auspices of England a final time, on the ship Discovery, which voyage barely reached the mouth of the Thames before Hudson kicked off one of the crewmembers, for unknown reasons. As ill-will brewed, Hudson unwisely chose to winter in the arctic no man’s land of Hudson Bay, where the crew survived on ptarmigan. Suspecting that Hudson was secretly stashing food for himself, his son, and favored crew, a fractious band of mutineers formed and overtook the captain. Ransacking Hudson’s cabin, the rebels found hidden stores of beer, biscuits, pork, butter, peas and aqua-vitae. Hudson, his son John, and seven sailors were forced into a shallop and shoved off upon the arctic ocean void.

The only sources for what occurred during and after the mutiny are found in exculpatory passages in the journal of Abacuck Prickett, one of the survivors of the fourth voyage; and an incomplete series of documents discovered in the London Public Records Office in the 19^th century concerning the toothless proceedings against the mutineers, none of whom were punished or sentenced. Prickett’s journal presents the writer as innocent, while instigators of the mutiny are cited as the two crewmembers who died en route back to England, Henry Greene, shot by Eskimos, and journalkeeper Robert Juet, who starved to death.

Lawyer Man

A milestone proto-guidebook to New York is A Description of New Netherland, published in 1656 and authored by Manhattan’s first attorney, Adriaen van der Donck (1620-1655). An early firsthand account of the colony and surrounding lands, the Description concludes with an invented conversation between a Dutch “Patriot” and a "New Netherlander" colonist. The Patriot asks, Is the colony prosperous to the homeland? Is it defensible against attacks and piracy? Does it offer "good opportunities for business?”

Naturally, the New Netherlander answers favorably to all three. The priorities of new world expansion are sharply reflected in the "Conversation," in order to play upon the interests of possible settlers and merchants. Before issues of rights, government or law, "trade is the object," says the New Netherlander, "and on trade we must depend." The Netherlands and Spain were battling a global trade war that would soon find Spain supplanted by Great Britain, which nation would surpass the Dutch as a world superpower; not least of its victories would be the peaceful yet forceful ejection of the Dutch from the region to which they were the first Europeans to lay claim.

In laying out the commercial advantages of the colony, the New Netherlander cites business abuses and corruption in the early decades of Dutch West India Company rule. Here, "interest," meaning personal greed, was the toxic influence upon merchants. "Informed persons know that not a quarter of the profit made on company merchandise flowed into the company's coffers, yet when loss was incurred, it was borne by the company alone.”

For biographical and intellectual context related to van der Donck and his works, see the cogent, enlightening introduction by scholarly New Netherlander Russell Shorto, which opens the 2008 edition of the Description. Shorto characterizes the work as a certain prophecy, noting the visions of promise implied in the lawyer’s “raw and rough classic.” With a taxonomic zeal, van der Donck promotes the trade colony to inspire the migration of homeland Dutch. “New Netherland,” the Description opens, “is a very beautiful, pleasant, healthy, and delightful land, where all manner of men can more easily earn a good living and make their way in the world than… any other part of the globe that I know…” Four hundred years later in New York City guidebooks, it is a familiar schpiel.

A New York Tour Guide in New Jersey

“Never any Relation before was published to my knowledge,” writes author Daniel Denton in A Brief Description of New York, published in 1670, six years after the Duke of York claimed New Netherlands for Great Britain and nearly twenty-five years after van der Donck’s Description. Denton is somewhat the English language successor to van der Donck; he enjoys the beauty and prospects of the new lands and hopes people will settle them. It is tempting to exult the Description as the first true guidebook to New York City in English, if one is gripped by superlative framework conditioning. Like van der Donck, Denton wrote with the intention of publishing for a mass audience, and facts are based on his own first person experience.

The work is densely subtitled: … with the Places thereunto Adjoyning. Together with the Manner of its Scituation, Fertility of the Soyle, Healthfulness of the Climate, and the Commodities thence produced. Also Some Directions and Advice to such as shall go thither: An Account of what Commodities they shall take with them. The Profit and Pleasure that may accrew to them thereby. Likewise a Brief Relation of the Customs of the Indians there.

The “Fertility of the Soyle” promotes the economic sustenance of the land, ripe for property; the “Healthfulness of the Climate” eases concerns about the livability of the regions; and the “Commodities thence produced” suggests that the place is good for business.

Denton’s account provides “some Directions and Advice to such as shall go thither,” in support of the “profit and pleasure that may accrew” on behalf of visitors. Though this is the familiar vernacular of guidebooks, Denton is not writing for passing visitors, but permanent settlers. Denton’s guidebook intends to set at ease the fears of potential newcomers vying for a life in the unknown frontier world. Denton casts himself as one seasoned in the ways of the region, as well as “Customs of the Indians there.” This detail might ease fears in Europeans biased as a result of reports of Native American violence against whites, as well as invoke the virtues of exotica about the local inhabitants. Curiosity is tempted, a certain objective, early and unformed anthropology is nodded to. Denton is generally fairminded in his depiction of Indian tribes.

The pamphlet is prefaced “To The Reader,” and unfolds a plainspoken but mystical creed of the traveloguist, a “brief but true relation of a known unknown part of America.” Denton asserts he only writes “but what I have been an eye witness to,” since so much hearsay is bandied about in reference to such phenomena as undiscovered riches in the “Bowels of the earth not yet opened.” Denton signs off that he “desireth to deal impartially with every one.” No European is beneath the opportunity of a trip to the colony of New York.

In the opening paragraphs, Denton describes the geographical boundaries of the colony, “betwixt New England and Mary-land.” The author also includes a pitch for newcomers to acquire lands in New Jersey and form landowning groups, known as Associates, after receiving patent approval from the Governor. By 1670, Jersey had been divided by proprietors into East and West. Denton himself writes his New York book as a founding landholder in Elizabethtown, in East Jersey, after having decamped with other migrants from the future Queens County.

The early paragraphs also plug the military advantages of the region, noting that the “violent stream” at Hell-Gate is a “place of great defence against any enemy,” and that the “Fort at New York” is “one of the best Pieces of Defence in the North parts of America.”

Denton then proceeds to note things practical and sensual. His work confirms that guidebooks will always be viable research resources, the type that take on new life when the initial use has expired, like phonebooks or fire insurance maps. Denton details the abundant fruit, timber, marine life, and herbs native to the habitat, the mulberries and plums and huckleberries; the oak, birch, hazel, maple and cedar trees; the Sheepshead, Perch, Trout, Eels and Whales; and the “Egrimony, Violets, Penniroyal, Alicampane” which support what “the Natives do affirm, that there is no disease common to the Countrey, but may be cured without Materials from other Nations.” The York soil is arable for English grains, tobacco, flax and hemp. Such details, along with the litany of land-dwelling wildlife, paint a portrait of virgin territory, soon adulterated.

Denton indicates a forefather to the Belmont Stakes in Long Island, where because of “fine grass… once a year the best Horses in the Island are brought hither to try their swiftness, and the swiftest rewarded with a silver Cup, two being annually procured for that purpose.” This unexpected reference may possibly be the first to the practice of horseracing in New York.

Denton spends a good length describing the Indians, prefacing that “there is now but few upon the island,” and though they “are in no ways hurtful but rather serviceable to the English,” Denton demonstrates ontological pre-American supremacy which bodes somewhat apocalyptically almost 350 years later:

“It is to be admired, how strangely they have decreast by the Hand of God, since the English first setling of those parts… and it hath been generally observed, that where the English come to settle, a Divine Hand makes way for them, by removing or cutting off the Indians either by Wars one with the other, or by some raging mortal Disease.”

17^th century Lenni Lenape tribes of the region play “Foot-ball and Cards,” and while tossing back “strong drink” they play drinking games. Denton casually notes that sometimes these games end in a drunken murder, which might then provoke a revenge murder “unless he purchase his life with money.” The money is made of black, white, and periwinkle shells.

Denton notes the tribes’ sartorial habits; the vital rituals of marriage and death; the peoples’ combat behaviors; the legal system of Council before the Sachem; and the biannual “Conjuration” of the priests, when invocations are made and money is offered to the gods in return for war favors or a successful corn harvest. Naming customs and language patterns are explained, in addition to medicinal practices, the relationships between the sexes, and “their Cantica’s or dancing Matches,” which are portrayed as if a 1960s Happening in a Wooster Street loft space, where facepainted “black and red… with some streaks of white under their eyes,” they “jump and leap up and down without any order, uttering many expressions… wringing of their bodies and faces after a strange manner, sometimes jumping into the fire…”

It is also noteworthy that, divine genocide aside, Denton deliberately impresses the reader of how well the English get along with the Indians, unlike the rapacious and bloody relationship the Indians had had with the Dutch.

Denton concludes the Description by enumerating reasons that settlement is a smart decision. Skilled workers populate the region and one “need not trouble the Shambles for meat, nor Bakers and Brewers for Beer and Bread.” Matched with the elysian natural resources, “where many people in twenty years time never know what sickness is,” Denton argues that “I may say, and say truly, that if there is to be any terrestrial happiness to be had by people of all ranks, especially of an inferior rank, it must certainly be here.” In this first English guidebook to New York, one finds the god-spurred manifest destiny of the white man, the primacy of real estate, and the opportunity for “all ranks” to aspire and succeed. These seedings reflect both the beneficial and malevolent values of future Americans, who, “with God’s blessing, and their own industry, live as happily as any people in the world.”

Last Notes

The genesis of NYC guidebooks is found in these multiform 16th and 17th century literary works, which reflect the exaltation inspired in those whom have had first encounters with the New World. In the letter to the King, the mate’s journal, the intellectual’s travelogue, and the published “true relation,” one simply substitutes the sailing vessel for the red doubledecker tour bus.

Bibliographic Guide

Search the NYPL catalog by subject, using the sample subject headings suggested below. In addition, browse the catalog record of individual titles for likewise subject headings.

Subject Catalog Search

• America -- Discovery and exploration -- Early works to 1800.
• America -- Discovery and exploration – [ETHNICITY].
• EX: America -- Discovery and exploration -- Dutch.
• EX: America -- Discovery and exploration – French.
• New York (State) -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800.
• Voyages and travels -- Early works to 1800.
• Indians of North America -- New York (State) -- Early works to 1800.
• Long Island (N.Y.) -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800.

Chroniclers, Compilers and Cartographers

This is an introductory list of noted Western European mapmakers, and publishers, writers, or anthologizers of exploration narratives in the late Medieval period through the Renaissance.

• Johannes De Laet
• Hakluyt, Richard, 1552?-1616
• Laet, Joannes de, 1581-1649
• Linschoten, Jan Huygen van, 1563-1611
• Ogilby, John, 1600-1676
• Ortelius, Abraham, 1527-1598
• Plancius, Petrus, 1552-1622
• Purchas, Samuel.
• Ramusio, Giovanni Battista, 1485-1557
• Sanson, Nicolas, 1600-1667

Early NYC Exploration & Description & Travel

• Jasper Danckaerts was a Dutchman who kept a journal on his 1679-80 voyage to New York and other colonies.
• Hoffman, Bernard G. From Cabot to Cartier: Sources for a historical ethnography of northeastern North America, 1497-1550. University of Toronto Press. 1961.
• Jameson, F. Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664. Full text online at HathiTrust .
• Weslager, C. A. Dutch explorers, traders, and settlers in the Delaware. 1961. Excellent source of early Dutch narratives and bibliographic records related to the New York and New Jersey region.

Verrazzano

• Codignola, Luca. “Another Look at Verrazzano’s Voyage, 1524.” Journal of the History of the Atlantic Region. University of Genoa.
• Verrazzano, Giovanni da, 1485-1528.
• Verrazzano letter to King Francis I
• Canadian Dictionary entry on Verrazzano.
• Wroth, Lawrence. The Voyages of Giovanni da Verrazzano (1970) by Lawrence Wroth is seems the most prodigious work on the subject, with copious biographical detail and bibliographical explication, and chapters called “What Verrazzano Knew,” and “The Voyage of 1528 in Manuscripts and Printed Books of the Sixteenth Century Literature.” Published for the Pierpont Morgan Library by Yale University Press.

Henry Hudson

• Hudson, Henry, -1611.
• Chadwick, Ian. Thorough and informative website devoted to Hudson by a retired journalist, producer, and devoted Hudsonaut.
• Janvier, Thomas A. Henry Hudson, a brief statement of his aims and his achievements: to which is added a newly-discovered partial record, now first published, of the trial of the mutineers by whom he and others were abandoned to their death. 1909.
• Juet's journal. The voyage of the Half moon from 4 April to 7 November 1609, by Robert Juet. Introduction by John T. Cunningham; edited by Robert M. Lunny .
• Mak & Shorto. 1609: The forgotten history of Hudson, Amsterdam and New York. Henry Hudson 400 Foundation, 2009.
• Mancall, Peter C. Fatal Journey: the final expedition of Henry Hudson, a tale of mutiny and murder in the arctic. NY: Basic Books, 2010.
• Murphy, Henry C. Henry Hudson in Holland. 1859.
• Powys, Llewelyn. Henry Hudson. NY: Harper & Bros. 1928.
• Pritchard, Evan T. Henry Hudson and the Algonquins of New York: native American prophecy & European discovery, 1609. SF: Council Oak Books, 2009.
• Purchas, Samuel. Purchas His Pilgrimes, Vol III includes Hudson’s four voyages, the Juet journal, Hudson’s journal excerpt, and the journal of Abacuck Prickett, mutineer.
• As with most New York historiography, see the Index of Stokes’ Iconography under “Explorers.”

Daniel Denton

• Denton, Daniel
• A brief description of New York: formerly called New Netherlands / by Daniel Denton.

Adriaen van der Donck

• A Description of New Netherland (1656) 2008 ed.
• Remonstrance of New Netherland, and the occurrences there… (1649)
• Shorto, Russell The Island at the Center of the World . NY: Vintage Books. 2005.

2015 marks the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This landmark legislation prohibits discrimination against people with physical or mental impairments, and it changed the lives of millions of people around the world.

NYPL will be celebrating with a special event, People with Disabilities as Creators and Agents of Change, on Saturday, July 25, at the Mid-Manhattan Library.

And in honor of its anniversary, we asked our expert NYPL staff, “What’s your favorite book that features a protagonist with a disability, and why do you like it?”

(Note: In this list, we’re marking each title with its catalog number to show availability in digital talkingbook [DB] and braille [BR] formats for patrons with print disabilities. Titles are available by mail, online, or through an app for eligible individuals. For more information, see the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library.)

Children

I love love love Sharon Draper’s Out of My Mind. Melody proves to the school that she is the smartest kid in class, even though she cannot speak, walk, or write.  Not only does she find a voice and emerge triumphant, but Draper avoids the obvious saccharine ending. DB 71173 —Rebecca Donsky, 67^th Street

Wonder by R.J. Palacio is in my top ten favorite books of all time. Palacio switches narrators every few chapters, authentically capturing the voices of grade school boys and girls and teenagers and parents.  This formula culminates in a circle of love around the main character, and while he will never be “ordinary” in the way he longs to be at the beginning of the book, by the end we feel confident he has a strong bench of love and humor that will help him to forge his way in the world. BR 20338, DB 74228 —Lynn Lobash, Readers Services

Hurt Go Happy by Ginny Rorby. Reading lips is hard, and Joey has struggled it with since she was six.  Men with mustaches and people who mumble are the worst! Joey’s world suddenly opens up when an elderly neighbor begins teaching her sign language. BR 17668, DB 64465 —Louise Lareau, Children’s Center

El Deafo by Cece Bell is the sweet true story of a young girl with a hearing impairment who imagines that her hearing device gives her superpowers.  Told in a graphic novel form, this book is aimed at children, but it’s great for readers of all ages. —Lauren Bradley, George Bruce

One-Handed Catch by Mary Jane Auch. It’s 1946, and Norman has lost his hand in a meat grinder in his father’s butcher’s shop. He keeps his sense of humor as he learns how to do things, such as play baseball, with one hand. DB 64853 —Louise Lareau, Children’s Center

A Corner of the Universe is the story of a young girl named Hattie who spends the summer with her estranged uncle Adam, who is described only as ‘mentally disabled.’ It’s about connecting with family and pushing the boundaries of your own understanding, and it really brings some adult-like emotional processing to a child-accessible book. BR 16894, DB 55807—Alessandra Affinito, Chatham Square

So B. It by Sarah Weeks. When people ask or stare, Heidi simply says her mom has a “dumb” brain, and she has only 23 words in her vocabulary. Heidi has always wondered about her extended family, but she had no way of finding out the answers until she finds a small camera hidden in a drawer. DB 58658 —Louise Lareau, Children’s Center

Young Adult

The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida, translated by David Mitchell and KA Yoshida. In a disability rights movement that rightly proclaims “nothing about us without us,” I wish there were more voices from the autism spectrum, and more young people with disabilities speaking from their present experiences. It’s refreshing to read about this young author’s life with autism at a time when he is probably still deciding what it all means. It’s also a remarkable collaboration between a Japanese-speaking teen and an English translator who is also a parent of someone on the spectrum. Partnerships between generations, and between people with disabilities and their advocate-allies, are vital to building a future that empowers us all. DB 77650 —Chancey Fleet, Andrew Heiskell

The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen. Jessica thinks her life is over when she loses a leg in a car accident. She’s not comforted by the news that she’ll be able to walk with the help of a prosthetic leg. Who cares about walking when you live to run?  I like this book because it brings together three things in life that are near and dear to me: running, disability, and the power of resilience. BR 19489, DB 73998 —Nefertiti Matos, Andrew Heiskell

There’s a simple beauty in Girls Like Us, by Gail Giles, which finds two recent graduates of a special education program placed together in their first independent apartment and learning to navigate the world on their own. Told in alternating narratives, we get their unique voices: the trusting Biddy and the angry, defiant Quincy. We see them struggle, fight, bond and learn to operate in the scary new world they inhabit. It sheds light on the rich inner lives of people who often live just outside of mainstream society. It won a 2014 Schneider Family Book Award and was on NYPL’s Best Books for Teens 2014 list. BR 20605, DB 80270 —Anne Rouyer, Mulberry Street

Winner of the Schneider Family Book Award, Wendy Maas’s A Mango-Shaped Space was my first introduction to the fascinating neurological phenomenon of synesthesia. This unique condition allows our 13-year-old protagonist, Mia, to “see” sounds, letters, numbers, and shapes. Mia shows us just how frustrating, challenging, and beautiful the world is through her senses. Sure to leave you ending up on Google searching for more stories on synesthesia! BRC00737, DB 56666 —Anna Taylor, Children’s Programming

Ron Koertge’s Stoner and Spaz is a telling portrayal of high school life and which describes with frankness, humor, and honesty a powerful and touching relationship between the wild, music-crazy, “bad girl” of the school (Stoner) and a male student with cerebral palsy and a love of (obsession with) cinema (Spaz).  Each character opens the other to new ways of thinking and new areas of interest and their lives are changed forever as a result of this unpredictable relationship.  One of Koertge’s best and an incredibly fast read that is always engaging. DB 55396 —Jeffrey Katz, Chatham Square

The Butterfly Clues by Kate Ellison. Penelope, aka “Lo,” suffers from OCD. She’s drawn to multiples of the number three, repeats the word “banana” for security, and steals things that she hoards and carefully organizes in her attic bedroom. These compulsions intensified after her older brother died, as did her habit of roaming into the seedier neighborhoods of Cleveland. One day, while roaming, she learns that a girl she knows was murdered nearby and discovers some of the dead girl’s jewelry at a flea market. Lo becomes determined to find the killer, which pulls her into underworld of strip clubs, drugs, and crime and also introduces her to a young street artist who offers to help. Along with the twisty mystery and fast-placed story, Ellison includes wonderfully written passages that take you inside Lo’s mind so you see just how it works and how it helps her put the clues together. BRC01482 —Anne Rouyer, Mulberry Street

I’m recommending two young adult novels that incorporate obsessive-compulsive disorder and romance. In OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu, the main characters meet during a blackout, and Bea is able to help Beck with his panic attack because she’s experienced them before. And in The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B by Teresa Toten, Adam falls in love with Robyn the moment she walks into his OCD support group. Both of these books helped me begin to understand just how challenging it would be to live with obsessive-compulsive disorder. DB 77154 —Andrea Lipinski, Kingsbridge

As a person with a disability, this is a loaded question for me, so my response is longer than usual.  I actually don’t tend to read very many books with disabled protagonists, because I frankly, have never found myself in one.  I remember applauding Cynthia Voigt for Izzy Willy-Nilly, about a girl who loses her leg after a horrific car crash, because she did not take the easy way out and have Izzy become homecoming queen at the end. But, if I am being really honest, the disabled character I relate to most is on TV: House, because he never talks about being “lucky” or “fine” with being disabled.  Mostly, he shows that it is really painful and affects almost every aspect of one’s life, and he is OK with people knowing it sucks. For all these reasons, and because he is both scary smart and brutally sarcastic, he is my hero. DB 24508.  —Ronni Krasnow, Morningside Heights

Adult Memoir and Nonfiction

Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller by Georgina Kleege. I grew up resenting Helen Keller for being so ubiquitous that, in some people’s minds, she became a symbol of all blind people. I sat through my high school’s production of The Miracle Worker in a sustained, 90-minute full-body cringe. Georgina Kleege’s letters put words to some of my earliest reactions to popular narratives about Keller, and have helped me to realize that the legacy any of us leaves is not necessarily one that we choose. She interrogates Helen Keller’s legacy, responds to the depiction of Keller as a saint and an object of rehabilitation, and imagines the untold stories and unexamined details of Keller’s private affairs and inner life. BR 16939, DB 63900 —Chancey Fleet, Andrew Heiskell

Laughing at My Nightmare is a memoir written by Shane Burcaw that is truly incredible. Shane is 21 and has been confined to his wheelchair since he was a child because of spinal muscular atrophy. He relies on his family and friends to do simple things like take him to bed and help him in the bathroom. The book is filled with cursing, first encounters with alcohol, romantic desires, and other teenage affairs; it is also an eye-opener to a life-threatening disease, facing adversity, and the hardships of one young man, laughing in the face of his adversity. BR 20816, DB 81567 —Kimberly Bullock, Bronx Library Center

“Everything moved easily. A transit strike was crippling New York, but at that hour you wouldn’t have known it in this slice of the city. I stayed along the curb and pedaled, one more workout ahead of me, one more day of work, one more party tonight. Things were going according to plan. In no time at all, I’d be at the Rock. A second later, I disappeared.” In The Long Run, a veteran firefighter and long-distance athlete stirringly chronicles his transformative journey before and after a life-changing bike accident.  —Miriam Tuliao, BookOps

An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison is a fantastic, unflinching memoir of the professor, researcher, and psychiatrist author's own black holes and manias of manic depression. I recommend the book for clearly showing what it was like inside her head in a compelling and compassionate way, and how she succeeded. I think many readers also appreciate how a successful scientist suffering from psychiatric mood issues illustrates that it's just not about logic. BR 18295, DB 43477 —Jill Rothstein, Andrew Heiskell

Know the Night: A Memoir of Survival in the Small Hours by Maria Mutch is a hypnotic story that explores the isolation that comes with parenting a child with a disability. She focuses on the two-year period in which her son, Gabriel, who is autistic and has Down’s Syndrome, barely slept. You feel tired and sleep-deprived and as if you are floating along with her in this strange world where day and night have been turned upside down. Jazz is the remedy that sometimes soothes Gabriel, while Maria stays sane by reading the journals of Arctic explorer Admiral Richard Byrd and his solitary experiences with the long Antarctic winter of endless night. She weaves her story with Admiral Byrd’s and Gabriel’s into an eloquent and beautiful retelling of two tortuous years. —Maura Muller, Volunteer Office

I was very impressed with the honest, engaging, and sympathetic narrative in the memoir The Buddha and the Borderline by Kiera Van Gelder. In portraying her experience with a difficult and often maligned disorder, she author shows herself in all her flaws and missteps, and then we get to watch the twisty but hopeful way out. It's nice to read about people whose lives are as messy as the real humans you know, and who work it out, but only mostly, and not in a saccharine perfect way. Kudos to her. —Jill Rothstein, Andrew Heiskell

I loved Daniel Tammet’s memoir Born on a Blue Day. Tammet is an autistic savant who also experiences synesthesia. He chronicles growing up and learning about himself with dry humor and clarity, detailing the many high and low points of his childhood and early adulthood. I originally read this book for a poetry class assignment, but it quickly became one of my favorite memoirs. DB 63862 —Alexandria Abenshon, Countee Cullen

Epileptic, a graphic novel by David B., is an autobiographical tale of one boy’s experiences growing up with an epileptic sibling. With an art style that captures the personal struggle of dealing with the invisible, this is an intimate rendering of family, love, and losing battles. —Daniel Norton, Mid-Manhattan

Adult Fiction

My all-time favorite is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. While giving profound insight into the operations of one person’s autistic mind, it highlights how brilliant that mind can be. BR 15215, DB 56893 —Jean Harripersaud, Bronx Library Center

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. In this 1960s classic, Ken Kesey’s hero is Randle Patrick McMurphy, a boisterous, brawling, fun-loving rebel who swaggers into the world of a mental hospital and takes over. A lusty, life-affirming paranoid schizophrenic, McMurphy rallies the other patients around him by challenging the dictatorship of Nurse Ratched. He promotes gambling in the ward, smuggles in wine and women, and openly defies the rules at every turn. But this defiance, which starts as a sport, soon develops into a grim struggle, an all-out war between two relentless opponents. BR 12698, DB56351—Nefertiti Matos, Andrew Heiskell

Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn. It’s a thrilling literary mystery told from the perspective Lionel Essrog, a self-described “freakshow with Tourette’s.” This twisty-turny novel is packed with gangsters, yogis, tough New Yorkers, and plenty of love and murder. Lionel’s disability gets him into trouble just as much as it keeps him out of it, and it makes for a really fun read—especially if you like books that play around with language in creative and challenging ways. DB 49231 —Nancy Aravecz, Mid-Manhattan

The “godspoken” in Orson Scott Card’s Xenocide (the sequel to Ender’s Game) are humans with genetically engineered super-intelligence. They suffer from debilitating obsessive-compulsive disorder as they seek the truth behind a missing star fleet sent to wipe out the world of Lusitania. BRC00247, DB 34265—Joshua Soule, Spuyten Duyvil

Lock In by John Scalzi. I’ve always reveled in the power of speculative fiction to carry current trends forward into strange territory. Lock In explores the idea that any tool can be used for liberation or for mayhem; essentially, it’s a story about assistive technology turned deadly. It also explores the definition of disability, and the idea that some accommodations of disability can become so desirable that nondisabled people covet them. I loved this book for being so believably set in a near-future whose politics, language around disability, and struggles with the use of technology are eerily close to our own. Minor spoiler alert: When you get to the end of this book, ask yourself whether Chris is a man or a woman. Then Google it! DB 79538 —Chancey Fleet, Andrew Heiskell

Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your picks! Leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend.

Welcome to the second week of July's Reader's Den. In keeping with this year's theme of Superheroes, we're taking on a different approach: seeing a 'hero' from multiple perspectives. There is a saying that “one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." What one person sees as a hero, another sees as a villain. Two women in Karen Abbott's Civil War novel, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, fit this category very nicely: Belle Boyd and Rose O'Neal Greenhow, both of whom worked for the Confederacy. To the Union, they were considered spies and traitors, but to the Confederates, these women were lauded as heroes.

Belle Boyd

Maria Isabella "Belle" Boyd was born to a prosperous Southern family in Martinsburg, Virginia (now in West Virginia) in 1844. She began her spying career at 17, when she shot a Union Soldier who had drunkenly harrassed both her and her mother using “language as offensive as it is possible to conceive.”  By 1862, she had become well known to Northern authorities and was quite open about her activities, which included  serving as a courier, stealing weapons from Union troops, and acquiring quinine for malaria. She once secretly observed a Northern general's war council and transmitted the details to Stonewall Jackson's headquarters. (She also developed affections for him, which he did not reciprocate.)

Though Belle was captured many times, she was only imprisoned twice. While in prison, she devised a unique way to communicate with the outside involving a  compatriat, rubber ball, and bow and arrow. She wound up fleeing to  England until the war was over, after being part of prisoner exchanges. While in England, she became an actress. After the war, she returned to America and wrote her biography, Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison. She died in 1900.

Rose O’Neal Greenhow

Rose O'Neal Greenhow was a wealthy  Washington, D.C. widow,  who was originally from Maryland. She moved in important political circles and cultivated ties with high-ranking military and political personnel and used  these relationships to pass along key military information to the Confederacy at the beginning of the war. In early 1861, she took over control of a pro-Southern spy network in Washington, D.C. that had been run by Thomas Jordan. She learned how to send codes using Ciphers,  window shades, hand fans, and her own needlework. She won a major coup by supplying intelligence on Union troop movements that is said to have helped the Confederate army win the First Bull Run in July 1861. Had the Confederacy lost this battle,  the war would have been over.

Greenhow continued spying until she was captured by the Pinkertons and thrown into Old Capital Prison, which had been a relative’s boarding house in her youth. Her daughter was allowed to stay with her. She continued to send messages until she was banished to Richmond in 1862 and spent the remainder of the war in Europe trying to get French and British Support for the Confederacy. She penned her memoir, My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition Rule at Washington in London. In 1864, while returning to America, her boat sank, and she drowned. She was later buried with military honors in Oakdale Cemetary in Wilmington, North Carolina.

An Italian family has supper, East Side, New York City, 1915. Image ID 464293

Over four million Italians entered the United States between 1880-1930. Are your ancestors among them?

To get started exploring your Italian roots, you can begin as you would with all family history research:

Start with what you know, find out what your family knows, and use genealogical records to work your way backwards and uncover the unknown.

Both United States records and family knowledge are essential in revealing what is arguably the most important piece in progressing with your Italian genealogy quest: your ancestors’ town of birth. Italian records are kept at the local level, so this elusive detail is necessary for locating ancestors prior to their immigration to the United States.

Though your research will undoubtedly take you to many libraries, archives, and records repositories, the following resources will help you discover generations of Italian ancestors—all without having to leave your home.

This select list of websites will help you search for records of your family and guide you in locating Italian repositories where records are stored.

FamilySearch

An Italian family sits for its portrait in a Chicago tenement near the Hull House, 1910. Image ID 464271

FamilySearch is the largest source of online records for Italian genealogical research (Powell). Explore the Italy research page to find records of births, marriages, deaths, Catholic Church records, censuses, military conscriptions, and more. You will need to know your family's ancestral town to search many of these records, as only some collections are indexed and searchable by name.

If you are not yet ready to research Italian records, FamilySearch also provides access to a range of United States records, including censuses, passenger lists, vital records indexes, and many others. See tips for Italian genealogical research in FamilySearch’s Wiki and Learning Center.

Italian Passenger List Indexes

The National Archives provides access to the Italians to America Passenger Data File, 1855-1900. This collection is an index of over 800,000 passengers to the U.S., who identified their country of origin as Italy or an Italian region.

A group of Italians in the railroad waiting room, Ellis Island, 1905. Image ID 212054

Records may include each passenger's name, age, town of last residence, destination, sex, occupation, literacy, and country of origin, among other details. This data is also available through Steve Morse’s One Step website.

Portale Antenati

The Portale Antenati (The Ancestors Portal) offers access to records held in State Archives throughout Italy, including civil registration documents and military records. Though some State Archives’ records have yet to be digitized and indexed, this portal also includes contact information and collection details for each archive.

Comuni-Italiani

Comuni-Italiani provides information and statistics on Italy's regions, provinces, and municipalities, and is a useful tool for locating Town Archives throughout Italy. Because Italian towns and parishes created nearly all genealogically useful records, your research will most likely lead you to the Town Vital Records Office for the community where your ancestors lived.

An Italian family en route to Ellis Island. Image ID 212020

Use Comuni-Italiani to find the contact information of municipal offices throughout Italy. This resource provides a list of all towns in each province, and may assist you in locating ancestral towns for your family.

Italian Catholic Church Directories

Church records can be immensely helpful in your Italian genealogy research. Unlike civil records, church records were recorded systematically and uninterruptedly since the 1500s.

With knowledge of your family’s ancestral town, you may search for town parishes through ChiesaCattolica.it, the website of the Italian Catholic Church. The parish search engine, Parrocchie.it can also be used to locate churches throughout Italy. While these directories only provide information on active parishes, records of churches that are no longer in use might have been transferred to a nearby church, such as the town’s Mother Church or cathedral.

A group of Italian street laborers, working under the Sixth Avenue Elevated Railway, New York City, 1910. Image ID 464269

Attend the library’s class: Italian Genealogy Resources: Finding Records for an Italian Ancestor to learn more about the history of Italian immigration and record keeping, how to find your family’s ancestral town using U.S. records, and how to begin research with Italian records.

For strategies on beginning family history research, attend the Genealogy Essentials: Getting Started class or stop by the Milstein Division to get started.

Further Reading

Italian Genealogy Handbooks

• Finding Italian Roots: The Complete Guide for Americans
• A Genealogist's Guide to Discovering Your Italian Ancestors
• Italian Genealogical Records: How to Use Italian Civil, Ecclesiastical & Other Records in Family History Research

Handbooks for Getting Started

• Finding your Roots: Easy-to-do Genealogy and Family History
• Crash Course in Genealogy
• Family History 101: A Beginner's Guide to Finding Your Ancestors

Mulberry Street Library is proud to host a one-of-a-kind art exhibit: Reflections: Rebecca and Sasha Rubenstein. Mother and daughter Rebecca and Sasha Rubenstein love to draw, paint, take photos and visit museums together. Sasha is four years old and she brings a unique perspective to her artwork; whether she’s drawing super heroes or taking photographs of their dog Weezy, there is joy and freshness in her work that reminds her Mom of why at a young age she wanted to become an artist herself. Art remains a major part of Rebecca’s life these days, in conjunction with being a librarian and a writer.  The exhibit is on view through September 12 on the Children's Floor (L1) at Mulberry Street Library. 

I spoke with Rebecca and Sasha recently about their art-making. 

Tell us a little a bit about your background as an artist? Who are some of your greatest inspirations? What mediums do you like to work in?

I have enjoyed drawing and painting for as long as I can remember. Art helped me relax, it helped me focus (as it still does today). My parents encouraged my creative spirit and also found joy in artistic endeavors themselves—my mom was a photographer and quilter and my dad is a writer and poet. Fast forward a few years to undergraduate school—I spent some of my junior year at an art school and traveled around Italy. After this experience I knew I wanted to further explore art and all the creative freedom it offered me. In 2000 I entered Pratt Institute’s MFA program and while there I began to discover possibilities of making art on the computer via use of a Wacom tablet and a scanner. I employ some of these techniques into my art making practice today. I mix the digital techniques with physical art materials—colored pencils, paint sticks and acrylics because, to me, nothing can replace the real stuff! My greatest inspirations are artists who can take their favorite materials to their fullest potential- to where the viewer right away recognizes something in their work that they can connect with and this stays with them. 

You work as a reporter for The Library As Incubator Project, what motivates you to write about art in the library? What about showing art in the library makes it a meaningful experience for you?

Most people go to libraries to do things like read, browse the shelves, do computer work but they don’t realize that many libraries (especially these days) offer more then that. I am happy to support the work that LAIP does—focusing on the creative activities of libraries. And the desire to share information and ideas is something I think that artists and librarians have a lot in common. And sharing is something mothers and daughters do often as well. This show highlights our love of books and at the same time speaks to the bond we have formed through making art together. I am happy to exhibit our work specifically at the Mulberry Street Library because I was an intern at this library and I think they do amazing work showcasing community artists.

You are an artist, a librarian, and a Mom—tell us about how you manage this amazing balancing act!

Well, it’s an adventure! But the fact that Sasha and I create art and read together makes it fun. We also carve out lots of time for adventures like going to parks, museums and movies.

How did you introduce Sasha to art-making?

My husband, Paul and I encouraged her to draw and paint as early as two years old. We’ve dedicated a corner of our living room as her art space and my art space is right next to her’s. Paul is a musician and he has introduced both of us to new modes of music making and has helped us develop an appreciation for music from all over the world.

For Sasha: What do you like to take photos of and draw pictures of?

I like to take photos of my super hero drawings and I like to take pictures of my dog, Weezy. Weezy has a camera and we like taking pictures together. I like to draw pictures of Mommy and me at the Y.

What are some of your favorite stories and characters?

My favorite stories are Spiderman comic books and Frog and Toad and Batman and Wonder Woman and Batgirl.

So you've just read Paper Towns or maybe you've seen the movie or maybe you're waiting to read it and need to something else read in the meantime, well, in any case, I'm here to help! Paper Towns is story of Quentin, who has loved his quirky, vivacious, beautiful neighbor Margo from afar for years, until one night when she crawls through his bedroom window needing his help. It's the story of what happens when the person we've always wanted (or needed) comes into our lives like a whirlwind and changes everything. It's also the story of what happens when we learn that this "dream" person is more than who thought they were or knew them to be. Along the way it's filled with great friends, indelible truths, unforgettable adventure and one great road trip. 

So here are other books filled with all those things that you liked in Paper Towns: friends, road trips, elusive and mysterious dream girls (and dream boys) who force us out of our comfort zones and universal truths about life, love and living in the moment.

Since You Been Gone by Morgan Matson - It was Sloane who yanked Emily out of her shell and made life 100% interesting. But right before what should have been the most epic summer, Sloane just…disappears. All she leaves behind is a to-do list. It contains stuff like: apple picking night, dance, kiss a stranger and go skinny dipping. Emily thinks that if she finishes the list Sloane will come back.

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven - When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom.

Finding Parisby Joy Preble - Sisters Leo and Paris Hollings have only ever had each other to rely on. Until Paris ditches Leo at the Heartbreak Hotel Diner. Outside, Leo finds a cryptic note from Paris—a clue. Is it some kind of game? Where is Paris, and why has she disappeared? Leo follows a string of clues through Vegas and beyond. But the search for the truth is not a straight line.

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green - When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type happens to be girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun--but no Katherines.

The Museum of Intangible Things by Wendy Wunder - Hannah and Zoe haven’t had much in their lives, but they’ve always had each other. So when Zoe tells Hannah she needs to get out of their down-and-out New Jersey town they pile into Hannah’s beat-up old Le Mans and head west. Zoe tells Hannah she wants more for her. She wants her to live bigger, dream grander, aim higher.

Right of Way by Lauren Barnholdt - Here are Peyton and Jace, meeting on vacation. Click! It’s awesome, it’s easy, it’s romantic. This is the real deal. Unless it isn’t.

Wherever Nina Lies by Lynn Weingarten - Nina was beautiful, wild & adored by her younger sister, Ellie. But, one day, Nina disappeared. 2 years later, everyone has given up hope that Nina will return, but Ellie knows her sister is out there.

You Are Here by Jennifer E. Smith - When Emma finds a birth certificate for a twin brother she never knew she had, along with a death certificate dated just two days later, she realizes why she never felt quite whole. She sets off on a trip, along with her neighbor Peter, to visit her brother's grave.

Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard - Bria's a good girl trying to go bad. Rowan's a bad boy trying to stay good. As they travel across a panorama of Mayan villages, remote Belizean islands, and hostels plagued with jungle beasties, they discover what they've got in common: both seek to leave behind the old versions of themselves.

Manicpixiedreamgirl by Tom Leveen - Tyler can't seem to focus on the here and now, his girlfriend, his friends the memories of his dream girl, Becky, keep intruding. Before the night is over, Ty might just find the nerve to stop all the obsessing and finally take action.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith - Hadley, travelling to London for father's second wedding, misses her flight by 4 minutes, which means she meets Oliver who' s cute, charming and British. Suddenly, her long dreaded trip isn't as bad as she thought it'd be.

Looking for Alaska by John Green - Miles Halter heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson - Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways… until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later years are Jude's.

How My Summer Went Up in Flames by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski - Rosie never intended to set her cheating ex-boyfriend’s car on fire. And she never thought her attempts to make amends could be considered stalking. So when she’s served with a temporary restraining order on the first day of summer vacation, her parents send her on a trip to get her out of town and to keep her out of trouble.

Let's Get Lost by Adi Al Said - Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia find a friend in Leila. And when Leila leaves them, their lives are forever changed. But it is during Leila's own 4,268-mile journey that she discovers the most important truth—sometimes, what you need most is right where you started. And maybe the only way to find what you're looking for is to get lost along the way.

It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini - Stressed to succeed at all costs NYC teen, Craig attempts suicide it gets him gets him checked into a mental hospital, where his new neighbors include a transsexual sex addict, a girl who has scarred her own face with scissors, and the self-elected President Armelio.

Joyride by Anna Banks - A popular guy and a shy girl with a secret become unlikely accomplices for midnight pranking, and are soon in over their heads—with the law and with each other.

No Place to Fall by Joy Robin Brown - Amber Vaughn is a good girl. She sings solos at church, babysits her nephew after school, and spends every Friday night hanging out at her best friend Devon’s house. Devon’s older (and unavailable) brother, Will, helps Amber prepare for her one chance to try out for a hypercompetitive arts school. But the more time Will and Amber spend together, the more complicated their relationship becomes… and Amber starts to wonder if she’s such a good girl, after all.

Two Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt - There are two sides to every breakup. Jordan and Courtney were an unlikely high school couple but they worked. Now they're going to the same college and driving together to school. But then Jordan dumps Courtney and it's too late to call off the trip. But things aren't exactly what they seem. Luckily, they plenty of time on the road to work it out.

Even in Paradise by Chelsey Philpot - Charlotte is the quiet girl a St. Anne'd Academy and certainly never expects she’ll be friends with the the new girl, the beautiful Julia Buchanan. But almost immediately, she is drawn into the larger than-life-new girl’s world—a world of midnight rendezvous, dazzling parties, palatial vacation homes, and fizzy champagne cocktails. And then Charlotte meets, and begins falling for, Julia’s handsome older brother, Sebastian.

Kiss the Morning Star by Elissa Janine Hoole - A year after her mother’s tragic death, Anna has no plans – beyond her need to put a lot of miles between herself and the past. With her friend Kat, a battered copy of Kerouac’s DHARMA BUMS, and a car with a dodgy oil filter, the girls set out on an epic road trip across the USA. Maybe somewhere along the way they’ll prove or disprove the existence of God. Maybe they’ll even get meet someone…

Kissing in America by Margo Rabb - NYC girl Eva, who is still grieving the death of her father in a plane crash, bonds with Will who understands grief and loves poetry. When he suddenly moves cross-country, Eva concocts a road trip with her bff Annie to visit him. As she travels America, hopeless romantic Eva discovers the truth about love.

Just One Day by Gayle Forman - When straight-laced Allyson meets free-spirtited, actor Willem in England on the last day of her European tour, she impulsively takes him up on his offer to show her Paris. A whirlwind 24 hours of romance and adventure follows but it all ends when Allyson wakes up and Willem is gone without a trace.

Just One Year by Gayle Forman - When Willem wakes up in a hospital bed he doesn't remember where he is, he just remembers that he needs to find a girl named "Lulu" who he had just spent the day with in Paris. Something about that day makes him think that they're meant to be together. He'll spend a year travelling the world looking for her and questioning the hands of fate.

The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour - Colby and his best friend Bev have always had plans to tour with her band after graduation and then go to Europe but that all changes with Bev tells him that she's made her own plans—to go to college —without him. They'll have one last summer together, one last road trip playing small towns and dive bars as they struggle to figure out what's next.

Amy and Roger's Epic Detours - Roger is helping Amy drive her family's car from California to Connecticut. Amy is still reeling from the death of her father in a car accident and can't drive and Roger is dealing with his own heartache. It'll be a journey with plenty of baggage, great playlists and plenty of pit stops.

Crazyby Amy Reed - Connor knows that Izzy will never fall in love with him the way he's fallen for her. But somehow he's been let into her crazy, exhilarating world and become her closest confidante. But the closer they get, the more Connor realizes that Izzy's frenetic energy is pushing her into a dark place and he may not be able to help her.

I Was Here by Gayle Forman - When Cody's vivacious, music loving friend Meg commits suicide, Cody embarks on journey to retrace her friend's steps and learns that she may not have known her friend as well as she thought she did. 

While curating Head Shots, we looked for unusual formats that performers believed would represent their careers better than the standard portrait.  Or, at least, catch the attention of the producer or theater manager.  Last week’s post discussed stereograms, which were common for landscapes and scenes, but rare for portraits.  In this post, we look at two unusual examples of triptychs, which combine headshots with character portraits.

The format derived from religious relics and paintings, with notable examples in medieval ivories and murals.  The photographic variant began to show up in the 1870s with family portraits.  They may have been made with progressive sittings.  The photographer would shoot the central figure, then mask it (in a circle or oval shape) on the negative and photograph the other two figures on either side.  In some cases, they were taken before a family member left home for military duty or immigration.   Since the central figure did not need to be present for the second sitting, triptychs could also be used for mourning portraits.  They linked to the tradition of painting or photographing families with portraits of late family members. 

Engraving technologies made manipulation of images more common.  The Print Collection has a great example of a commercial Disraeli memorial with a cameo portrait and slogan “Mourned alike by peer and peasant.” (ID-1108444).   By 1906, the date of the two Head Shots examples, half tones had made it easy and inexpensive to combine images and texts onto pages or postcards. 

Bertha Kalich was a star of the Yiddish theater in Poland and, after 1895, North America.  Here Collection is in the Billy Rose Theatre Division.  Her triptych shows her in two of her signature roles of strong, noble “modern” women.  She starred in Jacob Gordon’s Yiddish-language dramatization of The Kreutzer Sonata (1902-) and in the English-language production by Langdon Mitchell, after 1906.  It was directed by Harrison Gray Fiske, who had urged her to work in English.  The other play represented is an adaptation of Maeterlinck’s  Monna Vanna. 

The E. S. Willard triptych shows the actor in two melodramas—Rudyard Kipling’s  Man Who Was and Henry Arthur Jones’s The Middleman.  The smooth face in the cameo stands in contrast to the contorted poses in his character roles.  Willard is also the focus of the Picture Pictorial pages shown in the gallery as an example of steel plate engraving. 

A highly anticipated prequel and sequel this week! If either or both leave you wanting more, we've got you covered. Enjoy!

#1 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee, more Southern gothic:

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

Nothing Gold Can Stay by Ron Rash

The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O’Connor

#2 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed Grey by E.L. James, more novels about sexual dominance and submission:

The Lover by Marguerite Duras

Henry and June by Anais Nin

The Key by Junʼichirō Tanizaki

#3 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, more suspense novels told from multiple perspectives:

And Then There Was One by Patricia Gussin

Murder on the Orient Expressby Agatha Christie

The Son by Jo Nesbø

#4 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed Armada by Ernest Cline, more gamer books:

Reamde by Neal Stephenson

For the Win by Cory Doctorow

Deadly Pink by Vivian Vande Velde
 

#5 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, more titles with blind protagonists.

Homer & Langley by E.L. Doctorow

How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall

What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt

Alexandre Dumas—born on this date in 1824—dreamed up one of the most famous trios in history: The Three Musketeers, who’ve been swashbuckling their way into readers’ hearts for over a century.

In his honor, we came up with some more classic literary trios. Have any to add? Let us know in the comments.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione
The Boy Who Lived never could have defeated Voldemort without his faithful sidekicks.

The three witches
Double, double, toil and trouble
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

Katniss, Peeta, and Gale
A dystopian YA love triangle for the ages…

Darcy, Wickham, and Elizabeth
… and an Austenite love triangle for the ages…

Catherine, Heathcliff, and Edgar
… and a Gothic love triangle for the ages…

Arthur, Gwenhwyfar, and Lancelot
… and a feminist retelling of the Knights of the Round Table love triangle for the ages.

Frodo, Samwise, and The Ring
A loving friendship that couldn’t even be destroyed by the most precious, destructive possession in the world.

Bella, Edward, and Jacob
Yeah, we went there. Sparkly!

The three bears, the three little pigs, three billy goats gruff, etc.
Trios abound in fairy tales.

Tom, Huck, and Becky Thatcher
Going adventuring is better with two friends.

Virginia Woolf, Clarissa Vaughn, and Laura Brown
A trio that transcends space and time.

The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future
Because Ebenezer Scrooge never would have learned his lesson with only TWO apparitional visitors.

Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your picks! Leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend.

Welcome to Part 3 of the Reader's Den in July. In Part 2 we showed the two women who spied for the Confederacy in Karen Abbott's book Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy. In this post we will show two women who spied for the Union, sometimes behind enemy lines. We will be accepting questions for the author to be posted in our wrap up at the end of the month. Please write them in the comments section!

Sarah Edmonds, via Wikimedia CommonsEmma Edmonds

Emma Edmonds was born in Canada as Sarah Emma Edmondson. She would change her last name after she fled her native New Brunswick to escape both a bad family situation and an arranged marriage. She became a successful bible salesman in the United States under the guise of “Frank Thompson” and enlisted in the 2nd Michigan Infantry. She participated in the First Battle of Bull Run, helping to cover retreating soldiers, and as a hospital attendant. She distinguished herself and was promoted to mail carrier and spy, going behind enemy lines disguised as slaves (male and female), and once as an Irish woman.

She broke her leg as a courier at Second Manassas (a permanent injury) and relayed messages at the Battle of Fredericksburg. She deserted the army in early 1863 after contracting malaria, as she did not want to be found out by doctors. She would return as a female nurse in 1863, working at a Washington D.C. hospital until the end of the war. In 1864 she wrote her memoirNurse and Spy in the Union Army. She revealed herself years later, in 1886, to get her Army pension and to get her deserter status revoked. In 1897 she was the only women inducted into the Grand Army of the Republic.

Elizabeth Van Lew

Elizabeth Van Lew was from a prominent Richmond family, but she had Yankee roots and had been educated in the North, which made her a opponent of both slavery and secession. Van Lew received permission to visit Libby Prison, in Richmond, and through her efforts she freed prisoners of war, smuggled money and other items into the prison, and carried information out. She developed a intricate cipher system, hid messages, created safe houses, and hid escaped prisoners in a secret room in her family mansion. She snuck her servant Mary Elizabeth Bowser, an educated freed slave, into the Confederate White House under the guise of "Ellen Bond." In 1865, Van Lew supplied information about Confederate troop movements which enabled Grant to win at Five Forks, one of the last major battles of the Civil War. When Richmond fell in 1864 she was the first one to raise the Union Flag.

Many could say she was one of the most important and successful spies during the Civil War, running over a dozen people in her network by 1864. One story even jokes that she could get a morning Richmond paper to the Union Lines the same day it came out. Her spying and Union sympathies made her the target of Confederate officials, but she was never captured or put in prison as they could never find any definitive proof against her. Elizabeth Van Lew became Postmaster in Richmond in 1869, and did much to modernize the postal service in that city. But she would forever be an outcast for what she did during the war.