In celebration of our exhibition, The 75th Anniversary of the American Negro Theatre, Canada Lee, who hosted the groundbreaking  New World A-Coming radio program, is remembered by Dr. Keith Hunter, Co-Founder of Harlem Cultural Archives:

Harlem-raised Canada Lee, who the New York Times once called “the greatest Negro actor of his day” has been almost totally forgotten in recent history. After dropping out of eighth grade to pursue a life as a jockey, Lee became disenchanted with his life so he took up professional boxing. But he was forced to retire from boxing due to a devastating injury that left him blind in one eye.

Lee began acting when his friend suggested he do a reading, and soon found himself protecting a young maverick director named Orson Welles, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship. Welles would later become an important director and advocate for the American Negro Theatre (ANT) and black performers. Lee was passionate about justice for those who had been marginalized, having seen firsthand the many lives challenged by the Great Depression. Early in his acting career, he garnered the role of Bigger Thomas in the stage performance of Richard Wright’s Native Son. He performed in front of thousands in theaters across the country, which he frequently had to pressure to reject segregated seating. This role and the play’s critique of black life had a profound impact on his future career.

The actor portrayed a variety of characters and was a vehement opponent of demeaning roles for African-American actors and actresses. Lee brought this resolve to every theater and film presentation of which he was a part. Interestingly, he was also the first African-American actor to perform in whiteface while doing Shakespeare. Even when forced to play traditionally stereotypical roles, critics always noted the respect he would bring to the role.

A man of immense love and talent, Lee was instrumental to many performers from the American Negro Theatre, who he helped become successful professional actors. Always outspoken and generous in his support of the downtrodden, he and fellow ANT alum Sidney Poitier snuck into Apartheid South Africa in the late 1940s as indentured servants in order to film the motion picture, Cry the Beloved Country. Following his exposure to the daily trauma of African life, he became even more critical of the world’s injustices and spoke out on the radio and in other public appearances.

As Lee became more of an activist, the government witch hunt that would define the McCarthy era, threatened to destroy his life and that of many performers and truth-seekers in the country including close friends Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson and W.E.B. DuBois. While Lee was never a member of the communist party, many people like himself who spoke truth were targeted for their critique of American injustice. It was believed that the leaders of America were fearful that African Americans would embrace communism as an alternative to the daily injustices they faced in this country. Lee had actively campaigned for the United States to defeat Hitler in World War ll, but that same congress eventually took away his livelihood and his passport.

Today the legacy of Canada Lee lives on in the work of American Negro Theatre alumni like Harry Belafonte, who continues to advocate for honorable portrayals of black life in theater and in film.

Voting with their library cards, New Yorkers have picked out the most popular summer reads—the 10 books most frequently checked out from the New York Public Library between June 1 and August 31. This list includes print books from collections in NYPL’s 92 branches, spread all across the city.

And if you’re among the busy summer readers who’ve already gotten through all the titles on this list, here are some suggestions for other books you might enjoy. Happy almost-fall!

#1 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 Express by Agatha Christie

The Son by Jo Nesbø

#2 For readers who enjoyed Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee, more Southern Gothic fiction:

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evilby John Berendt

Nothing Gold Can Stayby Ron Rash

The Violent Bear It Awayby Flannery O’Connor

#3 For readers who enjoyed Truth or Die by James Patterson, the 2015 RUSA shortlist in the Adrenaline category:

Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

The Runner by Patrick Lee

Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Koryta

#4 For readers who enjoyed In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume, more intergenerational novels:

Panic in a Suitcase by Yelena Akhtiorskaya

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Married Love and Other Stories by Tessa Hadley

#5 For readers who enjoyed Grey by E.L. James, more novels about sexual dominance and submission:

The Submissive by Tara Sue Me

Bared to You by Sylvia Day

Beautiful Oblivion by Jamie McGuire

#6 For readers who enjoyed 14th Deadly Sin by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, more women detectives:

Now You See Me by S.J. Bolton

Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes

Rage Against the Dying by Becky Masterman

#7 For readers who enjoyed Countryby Danielle Steel, more romances featuring country musicians:

Small Town Girl by LaVyrle Spencer

Sweet Harmony by LuAnn McLane

Hillbilly Rockstar by Lorelai James

#8 For readers who enjoyed Memory Man by David Baldacci, more mysteries dealing with memory:

Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Lost by Michael Robotham

#9 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

#10 For readers who enjoyed The Stranger by Harlan Coben, more fast-paced techno-thrillers:

Ripper by Isabel Allende

A Philosophical Investigation by Philip Kerr

Spiral by Paul McEuen

 

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

And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for 100 new recommendations every month!

As the anniversary of Leo Tolstoy's death approches, one thing comes to mind when we think of the preeminent Russian novelist: War and Peaceand giant doorstopper novels.

We love 1000+-page books here at NYPL—but we also love to see our favorite long-form writers apply their talents to shorter pieces.

So we asked our expert library staff to pick out their favorite short pieces (poems, essays, short stories, novellas) by authors primarily known for their longer works.

Poetry

With his poem “Instructions,” fantasy author Neil Gaiman gives readers the do’s and don’ts for discovering the magical and how to still get home safe and sound IF that’s what they want.

From the back garden you will be able to see the wild wood.
The deep well you walk past leads down to Winter’s realm;
There is another land at the bottom of it.
If you turn around here,
you can walk back, safely;
you will lose no face. I will think no less of you.

You can find the poem in the collection of retold fairy tales A Wolf at the Door (2000) and the beautifully illustrated picture book Instructions (2010). —Anne Rouyer, Mulberry Street

Thomas Hardy is best known for writing some (moderately) long novels (Tess of the D’urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd, and Jude The Obscure are three of his most famous works), but he also wrote poetry all his life, in many forms.  One of his loveliest poems begins:  

If it’s ever spring again,
Spring again,
I shall go where went I when
Down the moor-cock splashed, and hen,
Seeing me not, amid their flounder,
Standing with my arm around her;
If it’s ever spring again,
Spring again,
I shall go where went I then.

That poem can be found in The Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Hardy.—Wayne Roylance, Selection Team

Novellas

Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick, also wrote a novella called Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street, which appears in his collection of short stories The Piazza Tales.  Symbolism of death, separation and isolation is woven throughout the story of a ghost-like young man who cannot seem to be reached by any of his peers, and who refuses to communicate with them, even though he is always present at the building where they work.  While Bartleby is a sad story, the numerous complex themes hinted at throughout the novella make it an engaging read. —Christina Lebec, Bronx Library Center

I recommend William T. Vollman’s Whores for Gloria. Vollman is known for paperweight giants, but Whores for Gloria, a novella at 154 pages, may serve many as an introduction to Vollman’s intimidating body of work. The novella follows an alcoholic Vietnam vet named Jimmy who is on a quest for an idealized woman (named Gloria) who may or may not exist. Vollman’s dizzying surreal portrait of a frantic nobody wandering San Francisco’s Tenderloin district in search for “stories” is both darkly engaging and deliciously repellent. —Andrew Fairweather, Seward Park

Jared Diamond—best known for his scientific tomes on species and cultures, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies—published a short book for a younger set in 2014. The Third Chimpanzee for Young People: On the Evolution and Future of the Human Animalis a thought-provoking and notably accessible examination of human evolution and nature. —Miriam Tuliao, Selection Team

Essays

David Foster Wallace, best known for his mammoth novel Infinite Jest, is easily one of my favorite writers. He’s thoughtful, sensitive, and super smart, with a bit of a countercultural edge. I love his essays as much as his fiction. My favorite is “E Unibas Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction,” which tackles topics like commercialism and cynicism in American popular culture. You can find it in his collection of essays, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. —Nancy Aravecz, Mid-Manhattan Library

I would second David Foster Wallace, but my favorite essay in that collection is ”Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All,” which tells of a visit he made to the Illinois State Fair. I nearly choked laughing, having suffered through many state fairs while my son was in 4H. —Maura Muller, Volunteer Office

Joyce Carol Oates is a master of the short story and her book reviews are read with avidity, but her short nonfiction work, “On Boxing,” is one of the works for which she’s known best. Given her mastery of the written word, her lyrical prose at once captures the technical aspects of this most ancient and revered of sports and the poetry of action within the boxing ring. —Virginia Bartow, Rare Books

Short Stories

I love James Joyce’s collection of short stories, Dubliners. Being forced to pick a favorite, I have to go with “The Dead.” That moment when Gretta is frozen at the top of the stairs by hearing a song that a long-ago lover, now dead, used to sing to her. And just how wrong her husband Gabriel is about everything. —Lynn Lobash, Readers Services

Lauren Groff is predominantly known for her fascinating novels like Fates and Furies, but Delicate Edible Birds is her collection of perfectly crafted short stories. The last story is a harrowing account of a group of journalists trapped by a sadistic farmer in a barn in Nazi Germany and the sacrifices they have to make to survive. —Caitlyn Colman-McGaw, Young Adult Programming

Stephen King is well known for his supernatural horror tomes, but one of my favorite stories by him is in his short story collection Night Shift. ”The Last Rung on the Ladder” is a beautifully built story that slowly lures you into a past childhood that is breathless and brilliant… then turns the knife into your heart at the end.  It remains vivid in my mind from the day I heard it read aloud. —Stephanie Whelan, Seward Park

Great suggestion, Stephanie! Night Shift is a wonderful short story collection, I have read many stories from it for Story Time for Grown-Ups. I particularly like “The Graveyard Shift” and “The Boogeyman.” And King does have some looong works likeInsomnia (800 pages) and 11/22/63 (849 pages). —Lois M. Moore, Mid-Manhattan

I love Haruki Murakami’s short story “On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning.”  It and other of his short stories can be found in The Elephant Vanishes.—Leslie Bernstein, Mott Haven

Science-fiction writers spend a lot of words creating new civilizations. But a few of the 1940s and 1950s magazines ran 1-page or less stories. They demanded strong plots with almost no descriptions, which can produce quite a wallop. I like this anthology of very short stories by science fiction writers who usually produced very long epics. —Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, Exhibitions

Thomas Mann is known for weighty tomes such as The Magic Mountain and the Biblical tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers, but he also wrote exquisite short works of fiction. Two of my favorites are about life crises of writers: “Tonio Kröger,” a Bildungsromanin miniature, and “Death in Venice,” which tells of the last days of the celebrated Gustav von Aschenbach, who after a life of emotional discipline finally allows himself to indulge in a passion so boundless it can only be sated in death. Both will be found in these collections. —Kathie Coblentz, Rare Books

Harlan Ellison is not famous for writing doorstops but the man is prolific, with a prodigious body of work spanning fiction and science fiction, novels, novellas, short stories, television scripts, film scripts and even a continuing credit on the series Babylon 5. One short story of his that’s always stuck in my memory is “Soldier from Tomorrow.” Found in The Essential Ellison, it is the tale of accidental time-traveler Qarlo Clobreggny, an infantryman from a dystopian future of chronic warfare. —Joshua Soule, Spuyten Duyvil





 

I love William Faulkner’s "A Rose for Emily" (found in Selected Short Stories of William Faulkner and other collections) ever since I read it in high school—and let me tell you, that was a few decades back. “The man himself lay on the bed”—that line still gives me chills. —Danita Nichols, Inwood

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

And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for 100 new recommendations every month!

Twenty-five years ago, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched into orbit around the earth. In that time, it has sent back more than a million images, many startling, like the “Pillars of Creation” in the Eagle Nebula. The massive columns of the Pillars, seen in the image below, are up to five light years long. That is over twice the width of our solar system. Inside them, stars are being created from gas and dust, hence their name. This is how our sun was formed.

But the Pillars of Creation may no longer exist. There is evidence to suggest that a shockwave from a nearby supernova destroyed them 6,000 years ago. But it will take a thousand years for the light from that time to reach us and show what happened.

From exploding stars to colliding galaxies, the photos from Hubble make us aware of the staggering immensity of the universe. The glimpse of eternity that these sublime images offer can arouse anxiety, even terror. In the words of Schopenhauer, when “we lose ourselves in the contemplation of the infinite extent of the world in space and time…or indeed when the night sky actually brings countless worlds before our eyes, so that we become forcibly aware of the immensity of the world-then we feel ourselves reduced to nothing…like drops in the ocean…” 1

The images of Hubble are best described as "sublime," as defined by the 18th century philosopher Edmund Burke. For Burke, the sublime always has an element of terror. “Indeed terror is in all cases whatsoever…the ruling principle of the sublime.” 2 This is very different from our everyday usage where the sublime usually means the elevated, the majestic, or simply the beautiful.

For Burke, the sublime, in its highest degree, causes astonishment, a state in which our whole attention is captured and our reason suspended, as we are seized by horror. The sublime is essentially our emotional reaction to an object of terror. Anything suggestive of tremendous power or infinity, for instance, the ocean, violent storms, earthquakes, the Milky Way, towering mountains, and deep chasms can be sublime.

But of all the things that provoke terror, and hence the sublime, it is infinity that is the truest source. “Infinity…is the most genuine effect, and truest test of the sublime.” 3 > Nothing affects us more than the ideas of eternity and infinity. “Infinity commonly inspires feelings of awe, futility, and fear. Who as a child did not lie in bed filled with a slowly mounting terror while sinking into the idea of a universe that goes on and on, forever and ever?” 4

If the sublime has its origin in the terrible, why can it be experienced with wonder and delight rather than fear and trembling? This is possible, according to Burke, when terror is encountered at a distance, from a position of safety: “terror is a passion which always produces Delight when it does not press too close.” 5. For instance, the terror of being on the ocean in the middle of a raging storm can, when safely viewed from land, be sublime. Given enough distance terrifying things can cause “a sort of delightful horror, a sort of tranquility tinged with horror.” 6.

From Closed World to Infinite Universe

For Aristotle and the thinkers of the Middle Ages who followed his lead, the earth was the immobile center of the universe. The sun, the moon, the planets and the stars were embedded in nine crystalline spheres that rotated around the earth. The outermost sphere formed the boundary of the universe.

With the astronomical discoveries of the 16^th and 17^th centuries, the idea of an orderly and harmonious universe gave way to the infinite universe of Newton. The Aristotelian and Copernican view of the world as finite, closed, and hierarchically ordered was replaced by a mathematical universe, infinite in space and time.

Blaise Pascal, writing in the 17^th century, is the first to face and express the experience of living in this new universe without center or limits. “When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill…cast into the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant and which know me not, I am frightened…” 7

Most pre-modern societies identified with and felt a part of an orderly, purposeful universe. That is no longer believable. We now find ourselves lost in an infinite universe. From believing we were the center of creation, our earth, solar system and sun now seem quite ordinary. Our star is but one of almost 200 billion stars in the Milky Way, our galaxy just one of over a 100 billion other galaxies. When we contemplate this vastness, the future death of our sun and with it life on earth, our lives can seem utterly insignificant, like drops in a cosmic ocean. How is it possible to feel at home in this vast, indifferent universe?

Two qualifications: (1) although the universe has been expanding for almost 14 billion years, we do not know if the universe will expand forever or contract. But even if the universe should prove to be finite, its unimaginable immensity would make it seem infinite to us and inspire the same fear suffered by Pascal. (2) In much of the universe conditions are hostile to life as we know it. So it is possible that the earth is unique in being the only planet with life.

The more we learn about the universe the more unimaginable it becomes. Knowing that there are some 300 sextillion stars in the universe (that is a 3 followed by 23 zeroes) does not mean we can imagine it. Such numbers are as incomprehensible to the astronomer as to the layperson; they make one dizzy, induce vertigo.

It should be kept in mind that the pictures of Hubble do not simply mirror reality. “We could never see the galaxies, nebulae, and stars as they are portrayed in the Hubble images, not only because our vision does not equal the telescope, but also because the pictures themselves require human intervention…By adding color, changing the contrast, and composing the scenes, astronomers make visible… [what] would be otherwise obscured. The results do not mirror the cosmos, but necessarily reinterpret ... it.” 8

More than pretty pictures, the images from Hubble have forever changed the way we look at the universe. They can disturb our complacency and awaken us to a reality larger than the cares of everyday life. In explaining Goethe’s idea of what it means to be human, Pierre Hadot writes, “To be fully human means having the courage to become aware of what is terrible, unfathomable, and enigmatic in the world…and not to refuse the…anguish that seize human beings in the face of mystery…and which produces as much admiration as terror.” 9

The anxiety we feel about the universe is nicely captured in this comic strip from Calvin and Hobbes:  Calvin and Hobbes, April 23, 1995.

A six minute video, with new images of the Pillars of Creation, can viewed at spacetelescope.org. Click Hubblecast 82.

Giles Sparrow's Hubble, (London: Quercus, 2014) is recommended for its fantastic photographs. The book is 12" x 14" and the photographs are huge.

1. Arthur Schopenhauer, vol.1, The World as Will and Representation, trans. Christopher Janaway, et. al. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 39, 230.

2. Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, ed. James Boulton (New York: Routledge Classics, 2008), 58.

3. Ibid., Burke, 73, II, 8.

4. Rudy Rucker, Infinity and the Mind: the Science and Philosophy of the Infinite, (Boston : Birkhäuser, 1982), 2

5. Ibid., Burke, 46, I,14.

6. Ibid., Burke, 134, IV, 7.

7. Blaise Pascal, Pensées , trans. A. Krailsheimer, ( Hammondsworth, England, Penguin Books, 1966), 68, 48.

8. Elizabeth Kessler,“Pretty Sublime” in Beyond the Finite: the Sublime in Art and Science, Roald Hoffmann and Iain Boyd Whyte, eds. (New York : Oxford University Press, 2010), 72.

9. Pierre Hadot, The Veil of Isis: An Essay on the History of the Idea of Nature, trans. Michael Chase (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2006), 281.

Learning to ride a bike is a childhood rite of passage. Here a few titles to encourage kids through the many falls it takes  to those reach those glorious, autonomous loops around the block or the park. 

The Girl and the Bicycle by Mark Pett

A wordless picture book about a child’s plan to earn money to buy a bicycle that takes a surprising turn.

Bike On, Bearby Cynthea Liu

A book in the library tells Bear how to learn to ride a book in four easy steps, the last being “don’t think too much about it.”

Bug on a Bikeby Chris Monroe

In this rhyming text, a string of critters join bug on his bike ride to an unknown destination.

Blue Rabbit and the Runaway Wheel  by Christopher Wormell

In this adventure, Rabbit runs over a rock and looses his wheel. Along the road to find it, he meets Squirrel, Badger and Tortoise.

Sally Jean, the Bicycle Queenby Cari Best

The story of a can-do girl, Sally Jean, who sees opportunity where others might see roadblocks.

Everyone Can Learn to Ride a Bicycleby Christopher Raschka

The most practical book on the list for kids learning to ride a bike, but also artful and encouraging. 

Duck on a Bikeby David Shannon

A duck riding a bike has great influence around the farmyard.

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.

And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for 100 new recommendations every month!

Cadbury, the lemon beagle at the Paws and Claws Pet Store, beckons to Veronica Morgan. She loves him a lot, and she visits him often at the store. Sometimes, with trepidation, she fears that another person has bought him. Ray, the owner of the store, wants her to take him off of his hands. Veronica loves Cadbury's wet kisses and his enthusiasm. She longs to be together forever with him... if only her parents would agree. 

And then her dreams come true! One day, an ecstatic Veronica finds Cadbury (named after the candy) bounding up to her in her very own house! She cannot believe that her parents bought the dog. Cadbury becomes fast friends with Fitzy, a small, very hyper and loud dog. For Halloween, the kids dress Fitzy as a bride and Cadbury as a groom. Everything was going swimmingly until Fitzy chomps on Melody's dress!

The Good, the Bad and the Beagle by Catherine Lloyd Burns, 2014

• Catherine Lloyd Burns' web site
• Books about dogs

El mes de la Herencia Hispana se celebra del 15 de septiembre al 15 de octubre. El lema de este año es “Honrando nuestra Herencia. Construyendo Nuestro Futuro” (Hispanic Heritage Month). Para celebrar, presentamos a continuación una lista de recientes novelas e historias reales originalmente escritas por destacados autores latinoamericanos y celebridades de nuestro mundo hispano. Esta lista también está disponible en formato PDF. 

A qué venimos? ¡A triunfar!
Eddie Sotelo
“Cómo encontré mi voz entre la esperanza, la fuerza y la determinación.”

El amante japonés

Isabel Allende

En esta nueva novela de Isabel Allende, Ichimel, un jardinero japonés y la joven Alma Velasco se envuelven en una apasionada historia de amor que recorre varios escenarios épicos  y el paso del tiempo no parece calmar. 

El caballero del jubón amarillo
Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Obra reimpresa de las famosas aventuras del capitán Alatriste y su amor por María de Castro, la hermosa y distinguida actriz de la época de oro, también cortejada por Felipe IV, rey de España y Portugal.

Gigoló: el amor tiene un precio
J. de la Rosa
María empleó los servicios del gigoló Allen y ambos pasaron una noche de pasión cuando su novio estaba de viaje, pero Allen quién ha estado en su busca desde entonces reaparece tres años después cuando María está a punto de casarse. Ahora María deberá decidir el rumbo de su vida.

Falsas apariencias
Noelia Amarillo
El día de las brujas no ha tenido un buen comienzo para Luka después de su vergonzoso encuentro con un hombre en la estación de gasolina, pero todo puede cambiar en la noche cuando se viste de robot y se encuentra con el mismo hombre vestido de Drácula.

Gotas de alegría para el alma
Hernandes Dias Lopes
“365 reflexiones diarias.”

El libro de los americanos desconocidos
Cristina Henríquez
Una historia de amor y amistad entre dos familias y sus luchas por lograr sus sueños.

Molina: La historia del padre que crió una improbable dinastía del béisbol
Bengie Molina
Un hijo recuerda a su padre y cuenta la extraordinaria historia de su familia de tres hermanos nacidos en Puerto Rico quienes llegaron a las grandes ligas y a ocho series mundiales del béisbol.

No estás solo
Coalo Zamorano
El autor relata las experiencias de su vida y sobre cómo pudo encontrar la paz y lograr el descanso espiritual que le salvó de sus angustias y profundos estados depresivos.

Perdón
Chiquis Rivera
La hija de la popular y fallecida cantante Jenni Rivera revela la historia de su difícil infancia y vida personal.

La tabla esmeralda
Carla Montero
Konrad, un rico empresario alemán, le pide a Ana investigar el cuadro de un famoso pintor renacentista, pero durante la investigación, ella no solo descubre hechos históricos sobre el antiguo Paris, sino también datos sobre la misteriosa familia encargada de proteger el secreto que durante siglos se ha ocultado tras esta obra.

El tono universal: sacando mi historia a la luz
Carlos Santana
El famoso artista de música rock comparte su historia íntima y traza su trabajosa juventud en México y sus comienzos como guitarrista.

Esta lista también está disponible en formato PDF. Algunas de las obras también pueden estar disponibles en diferentes formatos. Para más información sírvase comunicarse con el bibliotecario de su biblioteca local. Síganos por ¡Twitter! Los amantes de la lectura y escritura podrían además disfrutar del club de libros latinos y la lista de lectura ReadLatinoLit de las Comadres y Compadres (en inglés y español). Para información sobre eventos favor de visitar: Eventos en Español. Más Blog en Español.

A guest post by Mark Schoenfield, Department of English, Vanderbilt University.

Though it makes us blush, we are pleased to present Mark Schoenfield's blog on his time here this summer as one of the Short-Term Fellows. Mark is the sort of reader we always hope for, that is, one who could make use of many of our materials. We hope his take on the transformation of British courtrooms in the era of the French Revolution will be of interest to many of you. —Liz Denlinger, Curator, Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle.

From 1750 to 1830, the legal landscape of Great Britain was significantly transformed. An accusatory form of trial gave way to an adversarial format—which was echoed in the periodical wars of the romantic press. With this, the myth of the ancient English jury, known as the Palladium of Justice, was consolidated to represent juries as objective adjudicators of the truth. With the rise of romantic celebrity culture, lawyers occupied positions of fame by which they moved from ornaments in the courtroom to central participants in both trials and public life; cross-examination entered the juridical space, and helped reconfigure the trial into its modern narrative form, as well as impinging upon literary representations of conflict. Property, once the symbolic grounding of family and community, became a commodity within a commodity culture, as entails were stripped away within courts, while novels relentlessly tracked the foibles of antiquated economic symbols. And yet these dramatic transformations could occur precisely because they were not radical; they covered without fully obscuring a past—call it precedent, tradition, narrative conventions—which continuously peeked through.

The book project, for which I was fortunate enough to be awarded a Short-Term Fellowship at the New York Public Library, explores key legal moments in which the collision of past and present was mediated—in courts and narratives—to produce a halting but ultimately definitive construction of the British citizen into a legal subject. During my two week stay, thanks to the amazing staff of the Pforzheimer Collection—Charlie Carter and Liz Denlinger—I was able to examine legal and literary texts, fiction and non-fiction, many of which will contribute directly to my chapters, and others of which provide a contextual background and supporting role. I made PDFs of 82 rare or unique volumes, pamphlets, broadsides, and manuscripts for which there currently exist no available electronic versions; in addition, I discovered roughly 100 works for which, once found in the NYPL, I was able to locate electronic versions on either public or commercial databases. While I am too early in the project to be certain which materials will be most critical, I thought, to give some sense of my direction, I would discuss some examples, and situate them briefly within drafts of potential chapters. (All texts mentioned below are available in the Pforzheimer Collection or the General Research Division of the NYPL.)

Among the crucial changes for the criminal law was the development of a discourse and understanding of criminal insanity, which mattered both in itself and because of its entwined relationship with the construction of theories of the self, in periodicals and novels and the general conception of intentionality. The public awareness of this issue was heightened both by King George III’s own presumed madness, and two attempts on his life by persons determined mad who ended up in Bedlam, rather than facing criminal punishment. Percy Bysshe Shelley and Thomas Jefferson Hogg made the first of these the fictive author of their Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson, although she was alive—if not entirely well—in Bedlam, where (as Sketches of Bedlam makes clear) madness and criminality were considered deeply interconnected. While these poems address the power structure in Nicholson’s name, she actually wrote her own poem—addressed to George III—which demonstrates a considerably different understanding. This poem exists only in manuscript, and only at the NYPL, and this is the first stanza:

Justice with Mercy
so to Balance the scale
that Charitys Excellence
may never fail

While I may not write directly about this poem in my chapter on the Insanity defense and its effect on other aspects of criminal law, it provides a curious glimpse into the life of crucial figure in its development.

Cases for libel were at once moments for the legal system to regulate public discourse, yet the trial was also an opportunity to debate the public’s right to knowledge. In Hamilton v Stevenson, Printer for The Beacon, where the pursuer took the unusual approach of bringing an action for damages against the printer, because neither author of the article nor publisher of The Beacon were known, the latter responded by alleging the case was “an evident attempt on the part of the pursuer, to fetter the public discussion of the political conduct of public men.” Further, the defendant asked the court to require the pursuer to submit an Oath of Calumny, a by then rare 15^th century procedure, by which Hamilton might be made vulnerable to a counter-action for perjury. The jury found for the pursuer for one shilling, a seeming victory to the defendant, until Hamilton next sued for and was awarded costs by the judge , which were sufficient to topple The Beacon. I hope my reading of this case will demonstrate the complex assumptions about adjudicating truth in the romantic court room, as it at once drew on ancient forms and contemporary norms, and enacted [or maybe: “demonstrated”?] permeability between the court and the press. Property itself, especially as it was structured by the laws of entail, was subject to wide public scrutiny. A particular case involving John Vans Agnew unveils both the early legal assumptions about property as a non-commercial possession and the contemporary insistence on the alienability of land by sale.

The complexity of marriage law with its continually changing nature, as it responds to both perceptions about human desires and laws that govern property, means that it figures in novels, poetry, and the public imagination. The Royal Jester declares its centrality to humor, while the scandals of royal and aristocratic marriages found their way simultaneously into courts and broadsides, settlements and plays (such as The Queen and the Mogul and The Last Moments of Queen Caroline, to which is added The Broken Heart, a Poem). One most curious volume from 1829 that at once displays a rigid legal conception of gender and undermines it with a sympathetic rendering (and use of the masculine pronoun), tells the story of The Female Husband and his wife (pictured here).

I would like to conclude by commending everyone I worked with at the library, starting with Carolyn Broomhead, the director of the Short Term Fellowship program, who got me all set up, and concluding with the nice security guard who let me back into the check room to change into a dry shirt after getting caught in a rain storm on the last day. The Pforzheimer Collection is a remarkable resource for Romanticism, and access to it for scholars is invaluable. It has certainly provided me with rich materials for Palimpsest of Justice.

The 1980s in Austria was a very patriarchal time and place; daughters were accustomed to facing authoritarianism, if not wanton violence, from the male family heads. In addition, it seems that everyone and their brothers were building underground bunkers to retreat to in case of nuclear attack. This was the the tenor of that country when Elisabeth ("Sissi") disappeared in 1984.

Josef Fritzl held his daughter captive as a sex slave from the time she was 18 in 1984 until 2008, when a doctor in a hospital suspected that something unusual was happening with the family. The middle-aged woman sat for an hour in the police station without saying a word. Then, she told a true horror story to the police officers.

In the underground secret torture chamber that Josef Fritzl built in the 1980s, Sissi's father raped and physically assaulted her for 24 years. This resulted in physical injury, trauma and seven children. Some of them were reared upstairs, with Elisabeth serving as the occasional babysitter. Her children, more than anything, are what sustained her throughout the ordeal and kept her soul alive.

I'm No Monster: the Horrifying True Story of Josef Fritzl by Stefanie Marsh and Bojan Pancevski, 2009

Books about sexual assault

H&R Block will present a recruitment on Tuesday, September 15, 2015, 11 am - 2 pm, for Tax Preparer (10 Seasonal openings), at NYC Workforce 1 Career Center, 21 West 125 Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10027. 

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 September 28 to October 9, 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.

Bronx Library Center 5th Annual Job Expo on Wednesday, September 16, 2015, 11 am - 4 pm, for all interested jobseekers, at the Bronx Library Center, 310 East Kingsbridge Road, Concourse Level, Bronx, NY 10459.  Bring multiple copies of your resume and dress in business attire for the event.

New York State Department  of Labor Virtual Career Fair on Thursday, September 17, 2015, 10 am - 1 pm.  This virtual event will feature businesses and jobs statewide.  

Spanish Speaking Resume Writing Workshop  on Thursday, September 17, 2015, 12:30 - 2:30 pm, for all interested jobseekers, and dislocated workers at Flushing Workforce 1 Career Center, 138 60 Barclay Ave, 2nd Floor, Flushing, NY 11355.

SAGEWorks Workshop - Seeking a Job in the Business Management Consulting Industry: A View From the Insider, on Thursday, September 17, 2015, 2 - 3 pm at The SAGE Center, 305 7th Avenue, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10001.

Hotel Syracuse Recruitment Event on Wednesday, September 16, 2015. 

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.

General Works

Plays

Biography

Images

Archives

Need more?

• For Yiddish theater music, see “Finding Yiddish Music: A Quick Online Guide”
• For periodicals, see “A Quick Guide to Jewish Periodicals”

В библиотеку Мid-Manhattanпоступило большое количество новых кулинарных книг. Предлагаем нашим читателям большой ассортимент трудов об отечественной и зарубежной кулинарии.

Кулинарная книга Петровича : советская кухня / Андрей Бильжо

«Кулинарная книга Петровича» – книга про ресторан, людей, культуру, советский быт и самого Андрея Бильжо. Не смотря то что книга находится а кулинарном отделе библиотеки, в основном она содержит воспоминания автора и фотографии деятелей культуры и искусства . Книга замечательно оформлена, но некоторые трудано читать , так как оне напечатаны на фотографиях.

Вся Франция : 365 рецептов из всех провинций / Поль Боклюз

Если вы устали от традиционной кухни, то в этой книги вы сможете открыть для себе целый мир новых вкусовых ощущений.
Испанский артишок с костным мозгом и зеленый горошек с утином жиром , телячий зад по- анжуски и салат из черной редьки с орехами поразят ваши вкусовые гланды. Ваше меню для гостей освежит Барабулка по-бонифачисйки и Пуль-о-по. Умение приготовить зайца по-королевски прославит вас среди друзей и знакомых.

Сделано в Италии : гастрономические рецепты. Книга вторая / Ника Белоцерковская

Рецепты в замечательно изданной и красивой подарочной книге переносят нас в далекую Италию.
Автор рассказывает что и как выбирать - овощи, мясо рыбу и рис . Как всегда , автор раскрывает множество больших и маленьких полезных гастро-кулинарных секретов.

Ешьте! : новая книга о вкусной и здоровой пище : завтраки, ланчи, перекусы / Елена Чекалова ; при участии Леонида Парфёнова

Если вы заботитесь о своем здоровье , но не готовы отказаться от вкусной пищи , это книга для вас. Пошаговые рецепты с фотографиями и возможность заменить некоторые продукты рецепта очень обрадуют молодых и начинающих хозяек. Елена рассказывает о том, что нужно ценить качественные продукты и понимать, как их выбирать, разбираться в их свойствах и учитывать смену сезонов, использовать правильные технологии на кухне и заранее думать о том, что будете есть завтра на обед

Воскресные обеды / Ал̈ена Долeтcкая

Если вы считаете себя человеком с изысканным вкусом в людях , интерьерах, и моде и эксперементируете с кулинарными упражениями, то вам придется по душе новая книга бывшего редактора журнала Vogue . Воскресные обеды предназначены для людей из узких кругов , обитающих в просторных , с вкусом обставленных загородных дачах

Восемь тематических обедов на все случаи жизни сопровождаются рецептами и полезными жизненными советами.

Мӧе меню / Вильям Похлебкин

Какое у вас меню на каждый день? Суп-мясо-сладкое ? Что найдется в холодильнике ? Книга Вильяма Похлебкин исследует вопрос пассивного отношения едока к организации своего домашнего питания . Автор научно разрушает теории вегетарианства, мясных диет, питания в фаст-фудах. Он учит есть и готовить дома разнообразную пищу, которую и считает самым правильным меню. Многие советы Вильяма положительно успокоят ваши нервы , как как автор очень положительно относится к жирам и сладостям.

I will admit from the very start that this post will be superficial. I will not be discussing "beautiful language" or "intricate plotting structures" or "compelling characters." Here I am only interested in one thing—the cover art; which is the one thing we're not supposed to judge a book by, right? Well, I'm not really judging the books shown above. I've only read one of them, and I don't plan on reading the others. My sole interest in discussing them is to point out the fact that all of the covers show people from behind.

Because my job entails looking at lots and lots of books that are being published, I sometimes notice trends in cover art. The trend that has piqued my interest most recently is showing a person (or several people) from behind. I first noticed it in fiction that is marketed to women readers. Sandra Dallas's The Last Midwife and Amy Conner'sMillion Dollar Road are perfect examples of this. Other examples include perhaps the most interesting "sub-trend" in this type of cover art, which for lack of a catchy phrase I will call "women from behind at the water's edge." I could easily have done a whole post solely about this, but I'll just point out Susan Lewis's No Place To Hide, Karen Katchur's The Secrets of Lake Road and Lauraine Snelling's Someday Home (bonus points for the dock which is an especially popular image for book designers.)

And while people's backs are especially popular in romance and women's friendship fiction, it also can easily be found in other genres, including mysteries (Anna Lee Huber's A Study in Death and Deanna Raybourn's A Curious Beginning), suspense—where the people are almost always running, though still from behind (Jennifer McMahon's The Night Sister and Tom Harper's Zodiac Station), Christian-themed fiction (Lisa Wingate's The Sea Keeper's Daughters and—again—Snelling's Someday Home), and even literary fiction (Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend and Nadia Hashimi's When the Moon Is Low.)

Why a whole blog post about this? Mostly because I don't know why it's so popular. Is it because the reader is subconsciously supposed to place herself in place of the person on the cover? Or maybe it is solely to add a sense of mystery or curiosity about the character? ("I wonder what that person looks like, I wish they'd turn around.") Or maybe a cover designer started doing it one day several years ago and other designers simply liked the look of it and started doing it themselves? The only thing I know for sure is that I'm definitely over-analyzing this and I should stick to writing about what's inside of the books—which is what I'll do next time. I promise.

As teens return to the school-year grind, they may find comfort in knowing it’s a shared experience—even with their counterparts in far-off fantasy worlds.

Check out five YA back-to-school stories with ethereal characters and otherworldly settings.

Fairy Tale by Cyn Balog
Cam is the star of his high-school football team… and he’s also a fairy. After his 16^th birthday, he begins to grow wings and gets summoned back to the Otherworld, and his girlfriend must figure out how to help him.

Rebel Belle by Rachel Hawkins
When a school janitor bequeaths magical powers upon society-girl Harper Price, she must figure out ways to protect her archenemy from harm—which used to be the last thing she wanted to do. One NYPL reader called this book “’Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ meets Gone with the Wind.”

School Spirits by Rachel Hawkins
Izzy’s new Mississippi high school is haunted, and her family legacy means that she’s duty-bound to investigate.

Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol
This graphic novel tells the story of a girl who just wants to keep her head down and fit in at school, but her new friend—a ghost at the bottom of a well—isn’t making that any easier.

The Bloodlines series by Richelle Mead
Sydney, an alchemist, is sent into hiding at an elite private school to protect a Moroi princess who’s the last surviving relative of a vampire queen. (A spinoff of the Vampire Academy books.)

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

And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for 100 new recommendations every month!

Pat Brown's journey as a criminal profiler began when she agreed to rent a room to a friend's beau as a favor. Walt was odd, to say the least. He seemed to be a child caught in the body of a young man. He liked to dress in dark colors, and he seemed to be enamored with violence. Although he was glib, Walt was a compulsive liar, and he could not hold a job. Then, Anne Kelley was killed on a path that Walt frequently traveled, and he displayed quite unusual behavior in the aftermath of the death. Brown highly suspected that Walt was involved, and she made it her mission to communicate that to the police. After that, her job is done. Profilers provide information about possible suspects; law enforcement solves cases. 

• Brown works pro bono on cases as a criminal profiler. She is self-taught from the many library books she has read on the subject, and she teaches courses on the art of psychological profiling.
• Brown lays out how to conduct a criminal investigation in the book, including questioning persons of interest and developing a list of the top suspects.
• She reveals interesting information about psychopaths including how and why they make certain decisions before, during, and after the crime.
• She describes details of many crime scenes that she worked on, how she developed criminal profiles, and the investigations of the cases and their resolutions or lack of closure.
• Brown debunks Hollywood portrayals of serial killers (eg, The Silence of the Lambs) in which profilers are portrayed as psychics of clairvoyants. Profilers cannot identify small details about offenders that are unrelated to the crime.
• Criminal profilers use crime scene evidence and conversations with persons close to the victim to develop likely theories that characterize the suspect(s).
• Crimes are not prosecuted due to politics, prosecutors having too many cases, lack of evidence or police ineptness.

Stranger homicides are the hardest cases to solve by far. However, it is very important to remove homicidal psychopaths from the street in order to protect society. No one deserves to die in a heinous manner, and criminal profiling can help the cops do their vital work.

The Profiler: My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths by Pat Brown with Bob Andelman, 2010

I like the way that the cases are laid out in this book. I love forensic psychology, and I was fascinated by this book. 

• Pat Brown Criminal Profiling Agency
• SHE: Sexual Homicide Exchange
• Books about serial killers

Fall is a great time for observation and refection. In that spirit, NYPL staff members selected their favorite essays to share with you.  Settle in and watch the leaves change and we hope you find something that resonates with you. 

The Cooper Union's Retraining Program for Immigrant Engineers provides admitted participants the opportunity to update their skills and work in their chosen fields by offering them professional courses and job placement assistance free of charge.  The program includes courses in information technology as well as chemical, mechanical, electrical and civil engineering.  All courses are scheduled  around the needs of working professionals during weekday evenings and weekends during the day.

Courses

The program offers more than 20 introductory and high-technology courses designed to bring engineering, computer programming, and business skills of participants up to date.  Over the years, the course offerings have been flexible in reponse to the demands of the job marketplace and the needs of the students.

Courses are held at The Cooper Union's Albert Nerken School of Engineering  at 41 Cooper Square, New York, NY 10003, and are taught by Cooper Union alumni, graduate students and experts.  Courses are offered in fall and spring, and occasionally during winter inter-session or the summer, depending on the funding.  Participants receive 24-30 hours of course time per session.  Classes are varying between two and three hours and the sessions between eight and twelve weeks.

Since its inception the Retraining Program for Immigrant Engineers has taught over 4,300 students and placed more than 2,500 of them in jobs.

Professor Fred L. Fontaine, chairman of the electrical engineering department of Cooper Union Albert Nerken School of Engineering, is the educational director of the program.  Larisa Akerman is the program co-director, and helps students enter the program, get connected to other services they may require, and oversees job placement efforts.

Eligibility

The program welcomes all legal immigrants, seeking re-training in the fields of engineering.  All participants must be permanent residents, and have work authorization.  The program is accepting applications for fall 2015.

Job Placement

Job openings are obtained via the program instructors, professional network, previous program students and referrals from other community organizations, newspaper advertisements, and the internet.

If you would like to advertise a job opening, please contact The Cooper Union at 212-353-4349.

Resources

The program has  a library of video and print resources covering science and technology, mechanical, electrical and civil engineering, chemistry and envoirnmental protection, computer science and job marketing.  Utilizing these, students can improve their English and learn professional terminology and job-hunting skills.

An exciting new release, the fourth novel in the Millennium series, hits number one this week. If you finish it in one sitting and want more, here are some readalikes to get you through the rest of the week.

#1 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz, more Swedish crime fiction:

The Snowman by Jo Nesbo

Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg

Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell

#2 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed The Martian by Andy Weir, more survival stories:

Annihilation by Jeff Vadermeer

The Strainby Guillermo Del Toro

Lock Inby John Scalzi

#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 Express by Agatha Christie

The Sonby Jo Nesbø

#4 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed Purity by Jonathan Franzen, more idealistic character-driven literary fiction:

Fates and Furiesby Lauren Groff

The Circleby Dave Eggers

The Third Child by Marge Piercy

#5 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed Undercover by Danielle Steel, more romantic suspense

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The Lost Key by Catherine Coulter

The Witness by Nora Roberts

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

Subscribe on iTunes.

A winner of five Emmys and two Golden Globes, John Lithgow is one of America's most accomplished actors. He's also the author of the memoir Drama: An Actor’s Education. For this week's episode of the New York Public Library Podcast, we're proud to present John Lithgow discussing Shakespeare, his father, and bedtime stories.

When his father became ill, Lithgow returned to a beloved childhood ritual, reading a bedtime story aloud:

"My father—as I’ve told you, he was a great Shakespearean, he was a great man of the theater, and he had a huge, genial nature, he was very generous-hearted and had a great sense of humor, and when he was eighty-six years old, he’d had an operation, he was very ill, and he was very depressed. He became a different person, and to all appearances he’d lost the will to live, and I found myself in a situation where I was taking care of him and my mom for a whole month trying to work out some sort of care for him in the moment of this crisis and I knew my big job was to simply cheer him up, get him going again, and nothing worked. And I had the bright idea about halfway through my time with him to read them bedtime stories. And it was this big fat book, called Tellers of Tales, that he had used to read us stories when we were all little children, and I looked through their bookcases and I found that book and that evening when they were all tucked into bed, I showed them the book just like little children, told them to pick a story, the way we did. And the story he picked was 'Uncle Fred Flits By,' by P. G. Wodehouse, which I recognized immediately and remembered it was one of our favorite stories, but I’d totally forgotten it."

At his father's funeral, John Lithgow read a passage from Cymbeline, a Shakespearean play about the life of a Celtic king:

"It’s to me the most beautiful thing Shakespeare about death, and death and life, and valuing life while it lasts. The superb thing about this and it speaks just volumes about Shakespeare, is that the entire poem is a joke. This is a poem spoken or sung, it’s called a song, over the body of a young dead man. The two people who are speaking this poem are two brothers who don’t know that the man, number one, is not dead; number two, is not a man, it’s a woman dressed as a man; number three, is their own sister. They don’t know any of this. It’s a big joke on them. And yet they speak the most beautiful, deeply melancholy meditation on death and mourning because they have grown to love this fake man so deeply."

Lithgow still vividly recalls the sound of his father's voice performing Shakespeare with a grand, theatrical bellow:

"I have heard, there are a couple of little scraps of recording tape that capture him from like the early 1950s when he was a much younger man than I performing Brutus in high tragedy and Dr. Caius in low farce in Merry Wives of Windsor, and it’s unbelievably stirring for me to hear that, because I— he, it’s a distant memory, but yes I do. He had a kind of stentorian, kind of grand and old-fashioned way of performing Shakespeare. A lot of it came from the fact that he and his companies acted Shakespeare out of doors with no amplification so it was, 'Once more into the breach, dear friends . . .' It was literally yelled. They had to yell everything the way the Greeks had to yell and yet give it some substance of humanity."

You can subscribe to the New York Public Library Podcast to hear more conversations with wonderful artists, writers, and intellectuals. Join the conversation today!

We're really "branching" out into new forms of art at Mulberry Street Library with our latest exhibition by neighborhood artist Tony Jannetti. Jannetti's exhibit, called "The Not-Seen Ubiquitous - Visual Works by Tony Jannetti" is on view at Mulberry Street branch through October 31, 2015.

Jannetti utilizes tree branches and vines that are woven into sculptural forms, that have embraced our library's walls on the Ground Floor. Other works are prints of natural forms that have been abstracted by digital manipulation. I spoke with Tony recently about his work.

Your work in this exhibit deals with natural themes using both actual objects gathered from nature (branches) and also digital images of woods and streams. Can you talk a little about how this work came about, and what it means to you?

The “branches” work is something I was taken with and started exploring as a teenager. However, my mother did not see it as I did. I came home from school to discover my incipient collection thrown out in the woods behind our house. I worked in landscape through my senior year of college (Pratt). Most of those paintings were given away or stolen. I stepped away from it through my journeyman years, opting instead for a more analytic approach to my work. Landscape as subject matter slowly revived through my friendship with artist Joe DiGiorgio, and subsequently while at my place upstate. I was in the process of moving my studio upstate. It was a lean period work—and money-wise, and I was at frayed ends about making work. A large number of branches got dumped in my yard. I got upset at first, then immediately decided it was art material. And so it came to be. Those works are from the mid-2000s (none of those works are in this show). I am always surprised in a moment by something I see in a landscape or in a plant or tree. It’s always a source of wonder. And the analytic aspect of it all remains.

What kinds of media do you like to work in and explore?

I spent earlier years in watercolor, printmaking, sculpture, and collage. Somewhere in the nineties, I started feeling a greater rift between myself and all the media I had been working with. As far back as the '80s, I was aware that artists were using the computer to prepare studies from which they worked in oil painting and sculpture. In the early 21st, I decided to throw myself into digital artmaking wholeheartedly, and that’s where I am now. At first I explored abstracted graphic treatments of numbers (not included in this installation, and another area for exhibition). Initially, I considered the computer an assist to printmaking, and it is, but it has grown beyond that as I continue to work. I credit Fred Gutzeit’s use of the computer back in the 1990s as the nudge I needed.

You credit Duchamp as being an influence in conceiving of this show in this particular neighborhood, can you explain his relationship to Little Italy and what that means to you as an artist?

I would credit Duchamp for being the one artist whose thought process continues to tickle my own creative thinking. Consider the time during which he made his works, his thinking is clear, and timeless, still so present-tense. Would I be hanging sections of vines as art if he had not created his readymades a century ago, or had not dropped a meter of string onto pieces of wood? This neighborhood is one he visited regularly; he must have found some charm here. It has become my own neighborhood. I have family roots and connections to streets and buildings, most of them now gone; I live nearby and have been here for 40+ years. The Pierre Cabanne book, recommended to me by Brooke Alexander, was a delightful read. I was reading it at the same time I arrived and began exploring the area. I don’t recall whether it was Judy Linn, then on Elizabeth Street, who pointed out the cemetery across the street, with its iron doors and chain holes that allowed us to peer into it. It’s something any curious person would be sure to find. I do know it was Judy who knew of the Duchamp work in Philadelphia. I joined her and some college friends at the Philadelphia Museum, and it was she who guided me to that posthumous work.

Who else are some of your major artistic influences and inspirations?

OK, at this moment (and this is a mish-mash): Jasper Johns, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Saul Steinberg, Joseph Cornell, Joyce Wieland, through whom I met Michael Snow, and through him, learned of Philip Glass, Steve Reich. More immediately and personally, Judy Linn, ace photographer from the start, the late dancer Lee Connor, Meredith Monk, Ping Chong, Thomas Nozkowski, Joyce Robins, Robert Mapplethorpe, Fred Gutzeit, and Joseph DiGiorgio. They are mix of inspirations and influences!

How did you become involved in the arts in this community?

I was very lucky, though I didn’t realize it at the time. I landed here because it was then inexpensive to live and work, space was affordable, and there was an existing community of artists all around in a city bursting as the world’s art center. Friends from school were in this neighborhood, the East Village and Lower East Side. Everything was walkable. Galleries in SoHo were a new phenomenon. It was where my generation landed.

How have you seen it change over the years?

Generally speaking, the rough edges are being smoothed over as more affluent types discover our neighborhoods and bring their changes. I recall an illustration from a school book that featured the Old St. Patrick’s school building heading up a story about Mother Cabrini. Was she here in this neighborhood? The school is gone, and will now be home to very wealthy people. The city renews itself, but seems to be ossifying in the process. That’s probably a misperception. The loss of the mixture of ethnicities and classes is to be mourned. The odd inspiration is a bit more elusive. While it’s more difficult to activate that creative impulse now than previously, I’m glad the impulse is still there. Some of the works in the installation are from the greater neighborhood.

What attracted you to displaying your work in a public library?

Artist Fred Gutzeit had a show here and is an old friend. He asked me to help moving his paintings back to his studio, which is across the street from me. Coincidentally, Fred had bought a house upstate in the same hamlet I had a place in, quite by chance. I was unaware of the practice of showing at a library, aside from the wonderful works that grace(d) the 42nd Street library. And, I hadn’t shown any work in the city in almost two decades, and I was finally beginning to make progress with the digital works. The library has these wonderfully inviting areas on which to hang work, and I thought a small show could easily work where I might present some new ideas. I originally conceived a different kind of show, but the first opening available was far enough into the future that I developed an entirely different range of work that is on view.

What are you reading right now?

The New Yorker. My subscription had expired and now I am trying to catch up. And there’s a stack of books awaiting opening. Tracking the Serpent, poems by Janine Pommy Vega, a reread of How to Write by Gertrude Stein, works about the Catskills by Norman Van Valkenburgh; several books by John McPhee, two by David McCullough, a book on Ellsworth Kelly, and I want to reread Tristram Shandy. (No! I didn’t view that film… impossible to translate that book to film). However, videos do tend to pull me away from books. Most recently I’ve been watching social consciousness Japanese films from the 1950s and the films of Robert Bresson. He’s so good!