Quantcast
Channel: NYPL Blogs
Viewing all 5325 articles
Browse latest View live

Caring for Aging Parents and Yourself

0
0
Caregiver image, Image by Rosie O'Beirne/Creative Commons via Flickr

When you are small, your parents normally take care of you. Time passes, life happens and the years fly by. Slowly, you may begin to realize that your parents can no longer cope with life on their own. One day, you may end up taking care of them. This role-reversal can be overwhelming and very challenging for many of us.

If you need information, emotional and practical support on various aspects of caring for aging parents and caregiving in general, these books, e-books, DVDs and websites may help.

Books

 Caring For Our Aging Parents and Ourselves

A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents—And Ourselves by Jane Gross

This is the author's account of adjusting to her new role of caring for her eight-five-year old mother. In it, she learns to navigate the in and outs of dealing with Medicaid and Medicare, assisted living facilities as well as her own family dynamics. She struggles to do this while coping with her overwhelming feelings of physical and mental exhaustion. Gross also provides practical tips to make the multitude of tasks that go with caring with an aging a parent go a lot more smoothly.

 

Can't We Can't About Something More Pleasant?

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast

Roz Chast,who is a cartoonist, storyteller and an only child, wrote this comic memoir about her role as a caregiver to her aging parents. She describes her parents' relationship with one another, which was always a tad dysfunctional but which becomes seemingly worse. Her dad is coping with dementia and finds himself having to depend more and more on his overbearing wife. Chast describes their rough move from their family home to an institution and all that goes along with it.

The Caregiver's Handbook

The Caregivers Handbook, edited by Joanna Edwards and Martyn Page

This book provides information about various aspects of caregiving for an elderly person at home. Chapters include first aid, personal care, first aid, nursing care and end-of-life care. Tips on how to find professional help are also included.

 

 

 making choices for those who can't, caregivers, elderly, aged parents

The Caregiver's Path to Compassionate Decision Making : Making Choices for Those Who Can't by Viki Kind

This book is written by Viki Kind, an author who wrote an NYPL blog post titled "Care-grieving." Kind's book is geared toward the caregiver or health professional who is struggling to make respectful and compassionate decisions for their loved ones when they can no longer take care of themselves. You will find advice on topics such as how to determine whether the loved one or the patient still has the capacity to make their own decisions. You will also learn important questions to ask healthcare facilities and medical professionals in regard to the best way to care for your loved one. Sensitive and painful end-of-life issues are addressed by the author in an empathic and compassionate way.

 taking care of mom and dad-- and you

The Daughter Trap : Taking Care of Mom and Dad—and You by Laurel Kennedy

This book addresses particular issues that daughters face when caring for their aging parents. Common issues that grown daughters who are a part of the “sandwich generation” are addressed. These issues include the emotional and practical challenges involved with caring for their aging parents while running a household, working full time and raising children or helping out their adult children. Kennedy also provides advice and solutions to various dilemmas faced by adult children and their parents.

 guide to legal, financial, and health care issues

You and Your Aging Parents : Guide to Legal, Financial, and Health Care Issues by The American Bar Association

This book, published by the American Bar Association, is a comprehensive resource guide to various legal matters surrounding the care of aging parents. The topics that are covered include power of attorney, income, healthcare and housing. Emotional aspects of caring for aging parents are also covered.

 

E-books

 A Guide for Stressed-Out ChildrenCoping with Your Difficult Older Parent: A Guide for Stressed-Out Childrenby Grace Lebow & Barbara Kane, with Irwin Lebow

Do you have difficulty in getting along with your aging parent or parents? Do you find that you are treated with hostility or are bombarded with never ending or unreasonable demands? This book is filled with tips from professionals on how to handle challenging conversations with your parents. Sample conversations on various topics are included.

You'd Better Not Die or I'll Kill YouYou'd Better Not Die or I'll Kill You: A Caregiver's Survival Guide to Keeping You in Good Health and Good Spirits by Jane Heller

Jane Heller, a best-selling novelist, wrote a funny and informative guide to caregiving. Even though she wrote about caring for her chronically ill husband, a person caring for their aging parents can get tips on how to communicate effectively and negotiate with medical staff. Tips from other caregivers and professionals in this field are also included.

DVDs

Caring for Mom & Dad, a Larkin McPhee Production for WGBH Boston ; written and directed by Larkin McPhee ; producer, Larkin McPhee A PBS video on the adult children caring for aging parents

Caring for Mom & Dad, a Larkin McPhee Production for WGBH Boston; written and directed by Larkin McPhee; producer, Larkin McPhee

A PBS video on the adult children caring for aging parents. It illustrates the phenomenon of the current demographic shift taking place regarding the large number of retiring baby boomers that are going to require care and facing the challenge of who will care for them.

 

 A Guide to Positive Growth When Caring for Aging Parents, produced by Paraclete Video Productions ; producer, Charity Spatzeck-Olsen ; director, Hans Spatzeck-Olsen

When Your Parent Needs You: A Guide to Positive Growth When Caring for Aging Parents, produced by Paraclete Video Productions; producer, Charity Spatzeck-Olsen; director, Hans Spatzeck-Olsen.

This video illustrates both the challenges that come along with caring for aging parents through interviews with caregivers and experts on aging. It also highlights the spiritual and emotional lessons the adult children can learn while doing it.

 

Online Resources

Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders, New York City, Inc: Support group
This is the support group page of Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders, New York City, Inc. It also provides information on all types of caregiver's support groups throughout the five boroughs.

Caregiving.com
This website is an online support community for caregivers. There are online chats, articles, blog posts, podcasts for caregivers on this site. There are also free videos and webinars.

Dorot Telephone: "Telephone Support Groups"
DOROT, an organization which aims to relieve social isolation among the elderly, has telephone support groups for caregivers. To participate, you may register by calling DOROT at 212-769–2850 or toll–free at 877-819–9147.

Net of Care: Information and Resources for Caregivers
This website, created by the Beth Israel University Hospital, provides information and help for caregivers in NYC. There are downloadable pdf guides such as “Navigating “The System” and “Where to Find Help”.

NYC Caregiver Resource Center
Are you caring for an older 60+ adult and can you use a little help and information?
This website strives to provide the latest information on caregiving and to connect individuals with caregiving resources in New York City. The “Caring for Self” page on this website that addresses the needs of the caregivers themselves.

New York City Department for the Aging - Caregiver Support Resources
This page provides links and resources on a variety of topics related to caregiving. It also provides links to organizations in New York City and nationwide which provide assistance.

PBS Caregiving for Your Parents
This PBS produced webpage provides a wealth of information on self-care for the caregiver including links to support groups and information on respite care. This page is a part of the "Caregiver's Handbook" on this site. This provides information on various aspects of caregivers, from handling financial issues, legal issues and homecare.


Delicious Reads from December's Open Book Night

0
0

With the holidays at our doorstep, there’s one thing that’s sure to be on everyone’s mind: food! So naturally, this December we here at Mid-Manhattan decided to dedicate our monthly Open Book Night to a discussion of favorite food or cooking related books. We heard a variety of wonderful suggestions, from personal meditations on vegetarianism and excellent vegan cookbooks to sentimental cooking guides of yesteryear and novels with juicy plots that ruminate on the centrality of food in daily life. Read below to find some delicious books to savor after the holiday feasts are over!

Ovenly

The mood was jolly in the corner room, as we began our book social by discussing various culinary delights here in New York—one patron discussed her never-ending quest to find the perfect croissant here in Manhattan, and the various bakeries she’s tried in the area. New York City has a wealth of distinguished bakers and excellent bakeries. Check out this list of cookbooks filled with award-winning recipes by New York’s best celebrity bakers. For literary cookie recipes beloved by staff here at the Mid-Manhattan library, check out "Cookie Lit".

National Geographic Kids Cookbook

Joy, one of our book lovers at this month’s event, brought two lovely food-related books that carried a lot of sentimental value to her; one from her childhood, and one that has helped her to become an expert cook as an adult. The first was her copy of Better Homes’ Junior Cookbook, which she’s had since she was a kid. Originally published in 1963, her edition of the Junior Cookbook is filled with kitschy illustrations and easy recipes, like pancakes and cookies that are perfect for getting young people interested in learning the art cooking. Joy couldn’t emphasize enough just how much she loves to cook—her encouraging and enthusiastic words were enough to make any novice interested in playing in the kitchen. A more current cookbook perfect for young people interested in culinary pursuits is National Geographic’s Kids Cookbook, a colorful book filled with kid-friendly recipes for treats and healthy snacks.

Joy also brought a much larger tome, The Food of the Western World, a thorough and comprehensive volume that features helpful definitions of just about anything you could come across in the kitchen, supermarket, and beyond. The library has a wide ranging collection of food reference materials available online, notably The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, The Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, and the What’s on the Menu? collection of historical New York City menus.

Kitchens of the Great Midwest

Our next reader, Elizabeth, shared with us a book called Great Kitchens of the Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal, a new novel that reads much like a collection of short stories centered around a young, beautiful chef named Eva. Filled with foods (and people) both extraordinarily rare and comfortingly common, Kitchens of the Great Midwest is a fun and fast read that packs an emotionally intelligent punch. Each chapter’s title is a food item that is central to the characters and events in the chapters, so the first chapter, “lutefisk,” allowed us to put Joy’s encyclopedia to the test. Suffice it to say that unless you come from an ultra-traditional Scandinavian family, you won’t see this fermented fish dish at your holiday table!

Ani's Raw Food Kitchen

Speaking of unusual recipes, another reader, Karon, who is a dedicated vegan,  brought up one of her favorite cookbooks,Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen, a book of simple, fast, and easy recipes that enable busy people to eat healthy. Karon had a lot to say about the raw food movement, she described the details of some of the challenges (hard-to-find ingredients) and benefits (health, ethical rewards) of eating vegan and raw, and encouraged our room full of readers and eaters to give it a try. We even used our handy encyclopedia to look up her favorite vegan condiment, Natto, a savory slime made from fermented soybeans!

On a similar note, our next reader, Ginny, shared with the groupHealing with Whole Foods, a guidebook for holistic eating that informs readers all about how to eat the right foods to keep your body at optimal health. She also prescribed a diet heavy in vegetables and light on meat. This book, which is inspired by traditional Asian cuisine, even offers advice on what to eat to heal your body, whether you’re suffering from a head cold or a more severe chronic disease.

Eating Animals

All this talk about alternative eating brought up the broader subject of vegetarianism, and the ethics of eating meat. While we had both vegans and carnivores in the room we were able to have an interesting discussion about the pros and cons of both ways of eating, culminating in one reader’s suggestion of Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals, which respectfully weighs the sentimental value of traditional food that uses animal meat and other byproducts against the moral incentives for choosing a vegetarian or vegan way of life. This book, with its in-depth exploration of the warmth of family around holiday dinner tables (usually with a big turkey at the center), provides some excellent insight into the choice to become vegetarian, is a fitting read during the holidays and beyond.

In celebration of the New Year, next month’s theme for Open Book Night is “In With the New!” Join us in the corner room at 6 PM on Friday, January 8 with your favorite books about fresh starts and new beginnings.  Is there a book that helped you explore or learn something new? Have you discovered a new author you’re dying to talk about? Are you reading the latest bestsellers? Come tell us about your favorite new reads!

Upcoming Open Book Nights

Past Open Book Nights

Click to see the list of books discussed.

NYPL's Most Popular Check Outs of 2015

0
0

NYPL

Over 20 million items are circulated through our network of 92 libraries each year, and among those items there are both expected front-runners and a few interesting surprises every year. For your perusal, we've compiled lists of the top books checked out systemwide and in The Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island in 2015. Jodi Picoult's Leaving Time was the winner of the number one spot across the system. You can also check out this interactive map to see which title was number one at each of our branches:

Top 10 Books Systemwide

  1. Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult
  2. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
  3. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
  4. NYPD Red 3 by Marshall Karp and James Patterson
  5. Prodigal Son by Danielle Steel
  6. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
  7. Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham
  8. In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume
  9. The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
  10. Grey by E. L. James

Top 10 Books in the Bronx

  1. TASC: Test Assessing Secondary Completion: Strategies, Practice, & Review
  2. NYPD Red 3 by Marshall Karp and James Patterson
  3. Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult
  4. Prodigal Son by Danielle Steel
  5. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
  6. The Family Business 3 by Carl Weber
  7. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
  8. Pegasus by Danielle Steel
  9. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
  10. Grey by E.L. James

Top 10 Books in Manhattan

  1. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
  2. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
  3. Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham
  4. Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult
  5. The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
  6. In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume
  7. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson
  8. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
  9. NYPD Red 3 by Marshall Karp and James Patterson
  10. Yes Please by Amy Poehler

Top 10 Books in Staten Island

  1. NYPD Red 3 by Marshall Karp and James Patterson
  2. Prodigal Son by Danielle Steel
  3. Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult
  4. Pegasus by Danielle Steel
  5. Country by Danielle Steel
  6. Undercover by Danielle Steel
  7. Hush by Karen Robards
  8. The Job 3 by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg
  9. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
  10. In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume

A Personal Trip to Star Wars: The Force Awakens

0
0

Star Wars

My hearing aids were off for the night so in silence I watched the Star Destroyer glide like a shark after the princess’s outmatched corvette. The stormtroopers blasted grim-faced men defending the corridors, and then a huge, midnight menace strode through the smoke to survey the carnage with a nonchalant turn of his helmet before continuing down the hall. Hooked I was.

My older son and I mainlined the original trilogy and the prequels last month to prepare for the new movie. Will it have the same impact on him as the originals did on my generation? Did JJ Abrams craft a movie my son will reminisce about with friends decades down the road? Those are not questions for me to answer. I can tell you where to find everything you need to prep for your trip to the cinema (hint: there’s a branch in nearly every neighborhood). Stroll memory lane with me.

While the original trilogy had an atomic impact on popculture, it was much more personal for me. I wore hearing aids and was a science fiction fan while growing up in the 80s and 90s. I needed all the help I could get and Star Wars was one of those things I turned to for respite. It was easy for me to fall into the story of a dejected kid from Podunk Planet who saves the universe; even if he can’t read.

Even after the furor died down in the mid-80s, Star Wars was there for me. The toys packed in my parents’ attic helped me pass rainy afternoons. My younger brother, also deaf, and I would re-enact the Battle of Hoth. Then, that oldest of storytelling mediums came through for me: a book.

Hugo-winning author Timothy Zahn told Luke, Leia and Han’s story long after Endor. Heir to the Empire started a flood of new material and suddenly Star Wars was cool again. For other fans, the new stuff slaked the drought between original and prequel movies. For me, it made a three-day trip to Florida pass in no time as I followed Thrawn’s sinistermachinations against the New Republic. The Expanded Universe was here and brought triumph and tragedy with it.

I devoured it all, a Sarlacc hungry for more. I bought books, borrowed them from the library, snagged paperbacks in the drugstore.  Then came the hype for The Phantom Menace. People can revile this movie all they like. It helped me forget, just for a few hours, my father’s bypass and the resultant stress on the family.  Attack of the Clones was a date movie for me and my future-wife upon release. We even enjoyed Revenge of the Sith when it came out and, after the first two prequels, I agree with those who felt the Jedi Order had it coming.

What I and many fellow fans did not see coming was Disney’s purchase of the franchise and announcement of Episode VII. Before this was even hinted at, we showed my older son, four at the time, the original movie. His response? “I was rooting for Darth Vader.” Fortunately he did not root for Kylo Ren when we saw the new flick. He joined in the applause with everyone else when Han boarded the Falcon and he cheered at the end while I got dust in my eye. Twice. The lightsaber has been passed to the new generation. While he won’t have the challenges growing up that my brother and I did, I hope he takes the movies as close to heart. Maybe a trip to the library for some of the newbooks is in order. Do come in some time. This librarian would love a spirited discussion about a time long ago, in a galaxy far far away.

動動脖子, 頸椎不痛 || Chinese Book for Neck Pain

0
0

動動脖子, 頸椎不痛 || Dong dong bo zi, jing zhui bu tong
 
Chi 617.53 Dong dong   動動脖子, 頸椎不痛
南京: 江蘇科技出版社,  2013   ISBN : 9787553717944

动动脖子大家好!有幾個月沒有上博客圈了,因為不是這裡痛,就是那裡酸。坐辦公室的我們,平時不怎麼注意自已的健康,時間久了,頭痛頭暈,頸椎不舒服,肩膀僵硬等毛病就出現了。生活,要自己忙。苦累,要自己扛。淚水,要自己藏。風雨,要自己擋。滋味,要自己嘗。不能因工作太忙,而忽略自己的健康。如何緩解自己逐漸不適的身軀?圖書館裡有不少這類的書籍,這本“動動脖子,頸椎不痛” 的書, 我發現很好,不但因為圖畫鮮明,容易理解,而且動作簡單,一看就會做,可以改善關節的功能和舒緩身體緊繃的肌肉。

例如:每天早晚用拇指按莊風池穴8次

風池穴,位於頭後部,枕骨之下,項部肌肉隆起外緣的凹陷處。兩手放在頭後枕部,雙側拇指第一節掌指面按於同側風池穴上,順時針,逆時針合旋轉按壓8次。 p37

Special Thanks goes to Hung-yun Chang at Mid-Manhattan Library and Maria Fung in Collection Development for All their help with this blog post. 

Readings for New Year's Resolutions

0
0
 1588010
A happy New Year. Image ID: 1588010

USA.gov provides a listing of popular New Year's Resolutions and related government resources to help you meet any of these goals. The Library is also a great place to find information to help you start off the New Year on the right foot.

What are you going to focus on this year?

And one more just from us:

The new year is also a great time to think about a project or plan you want to accomplish. With that concept in mind, I created a book list of the genre I like to think of as the "One Year Challenge." (For a while there it seemed like anyone could get a book deal with a blog and an outrageous idea about how to spend 12 months!)

So Many Books
 1587964
A happy New Year. Image ID: 1587964

Another type of resolution you could make is to embark on something called a "365 project." Do something—anything—but the same thing every day for a year. Draw a picture, take a snapshot, jot a short journal entry, or write a poem—do whatever it is you enjoy that will help jump start your creativity or help you improve your technique. You can post your project on specifically designed websites, Flickr (see groups/366photos; groups/365days), Facebook, Twitter, or your own blog

Have you read and enjoyed another "One Year Challenge"? What is your resolution for the year? (Posting here might just make you feel more accountable for it later on.) Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

I am finding that having access to great ebooks is helping me with my personal resolution to read more; with the Kindle app installed on my iPad and iPhone, it syncs to the last page I've read on either device. As my colleague says, reading on your phone is great because you can have an emergency book with you at all times!

Whatever your plans for the year, wishing you 366 happy days!

Podcast #92: Nico Muhly and Ira Glass on Composers and the Internet

0
0

Subscribe on iTunes.

Nico Muhly is the youngest composer ever to have his work performed at the Metropolitan Opera. Recently, he joined Ira Glass, best known as the host of This American Life, to discuss his new opera Two Boys. This week, for the New York Public Library Podcast, we're proud to present Nico Muhly and Ira Glass on composing music, Bach, and the Internet. 

Nico Muhly and Ira Glass
Nico Muhly and Ira Glass

As a young man, Muhly worked for Philip Glass. He admired the way in which Glass's compositions underscore the movement of time as musical:

"One of the things that’s fascinating about Philip’s music is that it can be simultaneously very fast and very slow, where the actual activity on the surface of the water is incredibly quick but then there’s this secondary piece of information that is glacial. And in some cases, you know, in his really early work, like most of which made in the late seventies and early eighties, is—when I say glacial, I mean it actually doesn’t move at all. It’s basically a single—a single sort of drone thing that can go on for, you know, forty minutes or whatever. There will be activity on top of it but the harmonic structure is the same. Or it feels like for me I always think about it as, you know, if you’re flying over a landscape, it feels like you’re moving very slowly although you’re actually moving very quickly and then there’s this other kinetic information inside the airplane cabin of, you know, screaming people and the clinking of forks and all that. And, you know, with Philip’s early music you get the sense of an acute awareness of how to deeply the passage of time itself as a musical thing."

Muhly shared how bleak many composers' lives have been, pointing to Bach's extraordinary life as a father of and ambitious artist:

"I find composer biographies tend to be a little macabre. It’s usually about syphilis and straight people. But with Bach it’s amazing because he’s so overworked, and they didn’t have quite enough money to pay him so they paid him in beer. There were a couple of years when he was literally paid in, like, cases—kegs of ale, he had more children than fingers and toes, which is amazing. He had crazy deadlines and not just for church music, but for chamber music, and other stuff he was writing for fun. And, you know, there are pieces that it’s clear he’s just writing it to keep the kids out of his hair. Right? Where instead of being like, 'Daddy, will you play with me?' He’s like, 'Why don’t you learn this?'"

The plot of Two Boys is very much centered around an era in which social interaction increasingly occurs online. Muhly warned of the dangers of internet intimacy:

"You find yourself in situations of unexpected like emotional closeness with people. You send someone an e-mail saying, 'Hey, how’s it going?' and then they’re like—then they say all this horrible stuff about their family, and then you write back and you’re like, 'Oh my God, I’m so sorry,' then you sort of tell them another thing, and then they tell you another thing and then all of a sudden very, very quickly you’re in this, you’re in what feels like a kind of you’re—you have like a certain almost emotional commitment to someone. You’ve uncovered the rock and you put the things back in. That’s the most mixed metaphor ever."

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

Let's Toast

0
0
Why do we clink glasses while drinking a toast? Image ID: 1519507
Why do we clink glasses while drinking a toast? Image ID: 1519507

What is a toast? How do you toast someone?

A toast is a ritual in Western culture in which a drink is taken in honor of someone or to express general goodwill. It's a noun and a verb. "I gave a short toast and then we toasted with champagne."

History of the Toast

According to The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, "There is a connection between the toast you eat and the toast you make with a raised glass." Torrere  is Latin for ‘to parch, scorch, dry up’. The English word evolved to describe the process of parching or browning bread over a fire.

In Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable you can read about the tradition of the "loving cup" or "grace cup," a vessel that is shared communally around a table, passed from guest to guest. The strongly brewed beverage inside would be flavored with lemon peel, nutmeg, sugar—and very dark toast.

In the late 17th century, a practice arose in which a drinker would name a lady and request that all the people present drink her health. The lady's name would then flavor the drink like the pieces of spiced toast.

Yum!

According to Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia, the tradition may also have been formed around the concept of pledging protection to fellow warriors. When individual glasses came into vogue, replacing communal goblets, the clinking of glasses together signified that everyone was sharing the same liquid.

Now that you know the historical and linguistic background, what happens if you are asked to give a toast?

Toast Etiquette

Emily Post's Etiquette has several pages about the niceties of toasting. In more formal environments, as in the past, toasts are first proposed by the host. Today, it is more likely and just as polite for one of the guests to toast first, to thank the host for gathering everyone together.

A old wives' tale warns never to toast with water because of bad luck/drowning. Both Emily Post and Letitia Baldrige in New Manners for New Times disagree. If you are avoiding alcohol for any reason at all, feel free to hoist your glass of soda, water, or juice. You can also hold to your lips without sipping, or raise your hand as though holding a glass.

What to do if you are the object of a toast?

Smile, remain seated and say thank you. You may then choose to follow up with a toast of your own!

 

We wonder whether it's worth the risk! "Can you make a toast with water?" #letmelibrarianthatforyou

A photo posted by The New York Public Library (@nypl) on

Books on Toasting

Toasts

The Oxford Companion to Beer has a long article on drinking customs.

How To Write Wedding Speeches & Toasts by Barbara Jeffrey and Natasha Reed

To The Happy Couple: Creating A Great Wedding Toast With Style by Sarah Mcelwain

Toasts: The Illustrated Book Of Drinking Poems, Salty Salutations, Eloquent Epithets & Vivid Verbosity

Toasts: Over 1,500 Of The Best Toasts, Sentiments, Blessings, And Graces compiled by Paul Dickson

Toasting Around the World

If you want to impress a new friend or find yourself in another country, you might need to know what to say besides "Cheers." Check this list of languages to toast in on Omniglot and learn to say "Happy New Year" at The Huffington Post. Fluent in 3 Months also provides an in-depth description of toasting traditions in different languages and cultures.

Consider studying up on Mango Languages for your longer speeches.

Digitized Books via HathiTrust

Images from Digital Collections

NEW YEARS DAY DINNER [held by] MAGNOLIA HOTEL [at] "ST. AUGUSTINE, FL" (HOTEL;) Image ID: 476418
NEW YEARS DAY DINNER [held by] MAGNOLIA HOTEL [at] "ST. AUGUSTINE, FL" (HOTEL;) Image ID: 476418
A happy New Year. Image ID: 1588012
A happy New Year. Image ID: 1588012
Elaine May and Mike Nichols in New Year's eve publicity shoot for the stage production An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May. Image ID: 5199487
Elaine May and Mike Nichols in New Year's eve publicity shoot for the stage production An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May. Image ID: 5199487
A happy New Year. Image ID: 1588020
A happy New Year. Image ID: 1588020

To Your Health!


The Poetics of Blog Posts: Contemporary Poetry

0
0
The New Testament

The New Testament by Jericho Brown
Without resorting to hyperbole, Jericho Brown is one of my favorite contemporary poets and I know I am not alone in that sentiment. He has won multiple awards, and his poetry has shown up in anthologies, magazines and other literary avenues. With that said, this is only his second book to be issued. Jericho Brown is a must read for anyone with questions and anyone who seeks out the trivialities and great importance that are held with "identities." Let's also say that this cover image is a great capture of what Jericho Brown is about, it is sensual and yet tough, an image filled with questions and lacking definitive answers.

Starting off with a James Baldwin quote he moves on to Poem 1 of Part 1 of The New Testament "Colosseum" stating "I don't remember how I hurt myself/the pain mine/Long enough for me/To lose the wound that invented it/As none of us knows the beauty/Of our own eyes/Until a man tells us they are/Why God made brown." Psalm after psalm, verse after verse, Brown works to redeem our lives as we are, throwing his own lightning bolts down from the heavens to jilt us into believing in his words and how they seek to comfort ourselves and confront ourselves. He dares to take on police abuse, neighbors that refuse to say hi, homophobia, the past and the present. He nods his head to Langston Hughes who gets his own title, "Langston's Blues." This all feels natural in Jericho Brown's re-imagining of religion.
 
"Another Elegy" confronts the past, which is ever spiraling down. "Always be closing,/Said our favorite professor before/He let the gun go off in his mouth./I turned 29 the way any man turns /In his sleep, unaware of the earth/Moving beneath him, its plates in/Their places, a dated disagreement."  
 
All the while, Brown continues to dismantle the systems which keep us apart, and transcends the locale. He might have Shreveport in his heart, but he is too aware of the problems in the world that settle there. He serves god as love, and he serves the lovers in his life, as he serves us all through his words. Though, his words strike hard, and make us afraid of reality, and make us recognize how we shy away from conflict, they also strengthen us and provide confidence to continue on in this world, full of conflict, and yet full of mesmerizing wonder.
 
"In the film we keep watching, Nina takes Darius to a steppers ball.
Lovers hustle, slide, and dip as if none of them has a brother in prison."
 
Jericho is preaching here race relations, all while being a critical theorist, a film studies major and a poet at his best. He continues:

"I eat with humans who think any book full of black characters is about race.
A book full of white characters examines insanity—but never in prison."
 
Jericho's gospel is one I will be praising and returning to, he shouts to the Holy Ghost who is the people all around, and he knows how to preach a fiery medium. He is honest, candid and writes with sincerity of belief in his words. What more can you ask of The New Testament?
 
War of the Foxes

War of the Foxes by Richard Siken
Another second release for Copper Canyon, comes with Richard Siken, a Yale Series of Young War of the Foxes divulges in the simple to expand on the more difficult. Siken paints, a term he frequents, words onto the page and we are left with a whole work of art to consider, both individual and as a whole, forcing us to meditate structure, resonance and relation. Is Siken musing on the truth of the world, or trying to find his own peace. He does not speak in superlatives, or grandiose language which only allows for his poetry to flow steady, not seeking to show off, but rather seeking to impress. Words float around from poem to poem, subtly making the impression that there is an understanding to all of these poems, if you seek. Being doomed, being wrong, being clever, being a ghost, being surprised, searching are just some of the many ways we are living our lives and just some of the ways Siken represents what life is. I hesitate to call Siken a poet that seeks to bring joy, but the opposite would not be that he seeks to bring doom or death, merely he continues in trying to bring.

After reading this, one gets the notion that Siken has his hands in other artistic endeavors, and he is constantly  referencing painting, purpose and nature.
 
We are brought into Siken's mind, Siken the poet, Siken the painter, Siken the questioner. Siken is asking us "Why build a room you can live in? Why build a shed for your fears? The life of the body is a nightmare." Yet, we seek to share our answers, with only ourselves. He goes on, "This is my hand over his face, which isn't his face anymore, revising. I made a shape of the shape he made, subtracted what he shared with anyone else." We are only left, merely reduced to the idea of life as a vision, and a revision.
 
Siken's world is one where the moon is fractured to be buried, and where ghosts asks questions, a world constantly asking questions seeking more, and dissatisfied when we do not get what we want, but what is it that we truly want, Siken surmises. The penultimate poem is a lullaby followed by the concluding poem "The Painting that Includes all Paintings" which only begs the question that Siken seeks to ask and re-ask, where does all of our Truths lead? 
 
The Feel Trio
The Feel Trio by Fred Moten
My first introduction to Fred Moten was a gift to me by a friend and was the complete opposite of poetry. Thus I was surprised to see, and little did I know, that Fred Moten is a poet as well, and Letter Press Editions has brought us his newest and National Book Award Finalist book, The Feel Trio. Unsurprised I am, to know it deals with jazz, and the black aesthetics within a modern day capturing by the author.  
 
Fred Moten treats poetry as a history lesson, one to jump in and get involved with. He transforms poetry into music, and makes you read to the beat. He also jams it full of emotion and power, constantly making you read without any set notion of where he will be going. Moten drops names and references, but does not do so in a way that tries to garner respect and admiration for his knowledge, but to continue to acknowledge and explore, to help invigorate his knowledge into the minds of the reader. 
 
"that's how fluxhall west got started, in head start. guerillas measured rhythm cloth for horus, dwight trible sang without a song" Fluxhall West or Fluxus being the multi-media international conglomeration of avant-garde artists, Dwight Trible being a legendary jazz singer who sang with the likes of Pharaoh Sanders. Of course, Moten works his poetry so that these conceptual ideas and people are put into the power of his two lines of poetry.
 
At times Moten veers off into three different voices on a page, and this is where he replicates the trio that he is bringing to life. They are a whole, bringing a unified message, and at certain times each voice will wax poetic on their understanding of the world. 
 
"Communism is how you get nasty with enjoyment. good morning/is the new catastrophe of our boulevard. so you gave up what you/ never had and now you're a collection agency."
 
"we give shit away to hurt people and build poor shelters that move/and wrap around/we love to hold the continual failure in one another"
 
On page 27  Moten states "the way orchestra sound in birmingham/that's my sound. I belong to that sound/all the time, everyday. how bound am I by music!" and continues to pick up later "but you have to wait for the sound of the/theory of sound and fold it between/hands and presence in the upper room like folded/a folded dream."  This is what we are presented with throughout the whole of the book, Moten's theory of music and its perpetuation of life and the power held in verse: "put fertile culture and unguarded/sediment from an island dairy/in a mixer with some stock arrangements from the extra pieces. call it the fugitive slave act."
 
and page 83: "the diluted/ gravity of edward witten ran but still and held but fly/like in the curly curve of never starting or stay with/her repeating to go where cities burn each other/quietly."

He creates a stunning collection that is sure to make your eyes flow with rhythm. A must check out, Moten stands strong in his theory and creative flow. "this is/my teacher's blue black portrait, turned away when the jam is paused, in depth and pitch to ornament my cell."

"I call the other one beauty in sets to mark how you blow/rings through"

This Blue Novel

This Blue Novel by Valerie Mejer Caso
As Raúl Zurita states in his introduction, "I knew nothing of her book, and hardly an hour later, closing it, my life was another."

From the first line "Yesterday, I traced the line I'll cross tomorrow." to the last line, Mejer talks in the "I", the "this", yet creates a universality. 
 
This Blue Novel is an intriguing look at the moment contained within poetry, rather than relying on what is happening on the outside. It is a look at how poetry can create and define its own history, through weaving poetics and history together. In this book, Mejer blends this with autobiographical past, to create a unique space of relation. She creates a space, of copying and of change. 
 
"On a stairway wall the portrait/of Dona Isabel de Porcel bore witness to the Fall./As if God we a lady,/mute observer in long gloves." and further down "Maybe this God glances at the copy/with two skirmishing cats/and startles at their bristling fur."
 
Mejer Caso focuses a lot on the idea of copy, of change and of meaning, through language, through history, through our knowledge and forces us to expose our own selves to reconcile mirror images and differences.
 
"To save Snow White, the hunter lied/and handed over the heart of a wild boar./That lie is language./That lie is this blue novel."
 
"You'll ask me, then how will I ascend?/and I'll console you with that story about starting at a fixed point/while I transcribe, into a legible language, smoke signals,/and with that act, the fundamental will filter,/irremediably, through cracks in the page."
 
Accompanied by 8 black and white photos, and a beautiful cover and back, we are reading 26 poems and a postscript, which seek to show, this is not merely poetry, but a story, and that Mejer Caso seeks to connect this bridge, not just poetry as an emotional outlet, but a way to tell a story, whether in the underlying narrative or in the breaths that are not spoken. 
 
"Dates are clean daggers/that pen a foreign language." Mejer Caso states and we know, we are all but held up to a certain destiny, God or none, that life is going to continue and all of our lives build their own stories.
 
The first line of the postscript truly captures the work at hand, "History enters with the image." and with this image Valerie Mejer Caso has changed how we can perceive historical texts, poetry and philosophy. She changes the dynamics of the word and the image, showing how they both are necessary for conjuring up a story and place. 
 
Diana's Tree
Diana's Tree by Alejandra Pizarnik
Diana's Tree by Alejandra Pizarnik, with an introduction by Octavio Paz and translated by Yvette Siegert, is a rare treat in the world of poetry. In and of itself, Diana's tree are brief philosophical lamentations and conversations with the reader. Amongst each other, they are the branches of Diana's Tree, known as the philosopher's tree because of its alchemy and mineral essence in the tree itself and as stated in the notes at the end, Diana's Tree "a kind of tree which throwing out branches will represent natural vegetation." And as Yvette Siegert shows us, with a little bit of research on this tree, you find that Diana was the term used for silver, and as such Argentina's root is derived from the word silver, Argentina also being the place Pizarnik was from. 
 
Knowing a bit about Pizarnik's background, enhances the poems. She was a daughter of Jewish immigrants, a painter, an expat of Argentina to Paris, and hung around with many other names like Cortazar, Paz and Chacel, and in 1972 committed suicide. In this way, we can look at the thirty eight verses Pizarnik contemplates as a composition of her own tree, in which she is the poet alchemist yearning as all alchemists do, for the perfect combination, to make perfect and concise a knowledge, while pushing forward. 
 
Some passages:
16.
you have built your house
you have feathered your birds
you have beaten against the wind 
with your own bones
 
you have finished on your own
what no on started
 
8.
An illuminated memory, a gallery haunted by
           the shadow of what I wait for.
It's not true that it will come. It's not true that it won't.
 
21.
I've been born so much
and suffered twice as much
in the memories of the here and there
 
This is an important piece of poetry and as such, much be sought out alongside Pizarnik's others works. 
As the title suggests, this work of poetry, is about interventions in writing, in speaking, in listening. We are intervening in our reading and those of us who read this in English are reading through another intervention and response put forth by the translator Jen Hofer. Even within this structure of intervening we get pieces of poetry from Hector Viel Temperley, an Argentine poet, whose words are clearly reaching audiences past his death in 1987 and Jose Marti, Cuban
 
Inside the text, we are yelled at, we are whispered to, told secrets, given orders and guided towards a new view in which we are left wondering where to go next. We are reading poems that sometimes have a structure and other times are building themselves as they leaving us on the tips of authorial intent.
 
Pg. 71 

"I am only my country
 
I'M GOING TO INTERVENE IN YOU
UNTIL I DIE
 
Books hurt me
because I don't know how to cry
 
We have to kill the book
and put it in the museum"
 
Later on page 107:
"I am not a dove. I am not a flag. I am still living. Hate gives us hope: the sign could be fletting. When I approach your history my writing bursts.      This morning no one can be a flower."
 
"Danger is crossing a street with a flag rippling
No a sculpture drawing your name"
 
"For a time my task was to dig because I believed devotedly that something awaited me under the earth. All I found was trash. Trash."
 
What Dorantes and Sanchez do, is create an arsenal of voices, that are being hurled at us on the page, whether shouted, whispered, passing by, etc. In doing so, they are intervening our lives, they are creating an action poem that is constantly changing and taking place every time it is opened. The different verses here connect at many different times, and though they also form a creative body, they also force a reconciliation with poetry, the kind that makes you emotionally yearn for multiple moments. 

Check Out the New Children's Programs at George Bruce

0
0

George Bruce Story TimeGuess what?! We've got new programs for children (and their caregivers) at the George Bruce Library

Both are storytime themed programs that encourage child and caregiver participation, and foster new relationships, by being able to meet and interact with other local children and their caregivers. A win-win for everyone! 

Here are the details for all the programs...

Babies Book Club (Children 0-18 months) is a 30 minute lapsit program using songs, rhymes and stories to introduce little ones to the joys of reading.  Kids in this club receive a free book in the last session every month. 

Toddler Storytime (Children 18-36 months) is a 40 minute program with age geared stories, songs and activites perfect for caregiver and child, especially kids learning to walk and talk. 

PreSchool Storytime (Children 3-5) uses stories and activites to foster literacy readiness for school, and gain interest in reading via play, stories, conversation, and songs.

Please note the following: 

Pre-registration is required for all storytime programs.  This can be done in person at the branch, by phone or online registration. (Be sure to search and select the program for which you want to register)

Caregivers must accompany children during the storytime programs. We encourage children and caregivers to participate in our storytime programs!

Register and come see the great work we do here promoting literacy to kids at George Bruce.

11 Podcast Episodes from 2015 That Will Get You Hooked

0
0

We started the New York Public Library podcast in 2014. Once again this year, guest after guest has kept us intrigued, delighted, and hungry for more. We've received advice from a Supreme Court Justice, gotten the inside scoop on Mad Men from its creator, and taken book recommendations from a rock star. Whether you're new to the NYPL podcast or already a subscriber, we hope you enjoy some of our favorite podcast episodes from 2015. Tell us the episodes you loved in the comment section below.

Best Podcasts 2015

Podcast #83: Ta-Nehisi Coates on Theft, Atheism, and History

Khalil Gibran Muhammad and Ta-Nehisi Coates

"I'm black. I'm African-American. there is so much about being African-American, African-American politics, that I don't understand, primarily because in my household Malcolm X was Jesus. And again, that's at the root of this book: the stress on the body. Malcolm's belief, his rage, his seeing black people beat in the street and dogs sicced on black people, said to me the black body, your body, is precious. Your life is as precious as anyone. And you should not give up your life. And you should not give up your body for rights that are already written in the Constitution. It's wrong. It may be that as a matter of actual politics that's what had to happen, but I have never parted with the sense that that is wrong. I can't watch the fiftieth anniversary of the Selma campaign in the same way as other people. I can't even watch the movie Selma in the same way as other people. I mean, I love King's speech — "How Long, Not Long" — I love that speech. I can't feel happy though, I can't share in the sense of triumph and hope that comes out of it because when I see those cops rush those folks for wanting to cross the bridge, I just think it never should have came to that. How did it even come to that? It was wrong. Bloody Sunday was wrong. I can't be redeemed by John Lewis Sterling's career afterward. Those four little girls were killed, and for me there's no afterlife; I'm not going to see them. In my belief system, I'm not going to see them somewhere else. Their bodies were destroyed. And no law that came afterwards, no march that came afterwards, can make me okay with that. I can't draw anything out of my friend Prince Jones' death except, frankly, a great deal of anger. Perhaps some understanding about the world I live in. But I can't be okay with that. This book does not redeem him. This is not redemption. Prince Jones did not die for this book. Prince Jones was killed... his young daughter was rendered fatherless, and I don't want people to forget that. I don't want this to be obscured — forgive me if I offend anybody here — by spirituals, by gospels, by some sense that the arc of history ultimately will reward us. If your life ends, that's where your arc ends. And that is a tremendous tragedy." Read: Between the World and Me

Podcast #89: Gloria Steinem on Sex, Justice, and Magazines

Roberta Kaplan and Gloria Steinem

"Reproductive freedom, reproductive justice, is a fundamental human right like freedom of speech or anything else, so you wouldn’t vote for somebody who’s against freedom of speech, so you know just treat it like the fundamental human right that it truly is. And that means the freedom to have children, as well as not to have children, you know, it really—it’s both things... I dedicated my book to an abortionist, and I’m glad every day that I—maybe I should explain what I mean by that, what I meant, because it’s quite personal, because I think we have to tell the truth personally. Okay, 'This book is dedicated to Dr. John Sharpe of London, who in 1957, a decade before physicians in England could legally perform an abortion for any reason other than the health of a woman, took the considerable risk of referring for an abortion a twenty-two-year-old American on her way to India. Knowing only that she had broken an engagement at home to seek an unknown fate, he said, ‘You must promise me two things. First, you will not tell anyone my name. Second, you will do what you want to do with your life.’ Dear Dr. Sharpe, I believe you, who knew the law was unjust would not mind if I say this so long after your death. I’ve done the best I could with my life. This book is for you.'” Read: My Life on the Road 

Podcast #50: Jay-Z on Hustling and Forgiveness

Jay-Z

"I think the hustler and the freedom fighter are similar in, you know, it’s this anti-countercultural movement. One is about freedom and about having things and about improving your position, and then at some point it gets lost in that translation, and it becomes about greed, and it becomes about adrenaline and it becomes about the excitement—the excitement of getting away with something that you’re not supposed to—I mean, if we’re being honest about it, you know, at some point the excitement of getting away with it, the excitement of driving fancy cars and things. And you know, that level, so the difference to me between a hustler and a freedom fighter is a level of maturity." Read: Decoded 

Podcast #46: Joan Didion on Writing and Revising

Didion and Crosley interview

"Before I start to write, the night before—I mean, when I finish work at the end of the day, I go over the pages, the page that I’ve done that day, and I mark it up. And I mark it up and leave it until the morning, and then I make the corrections in the morning, which gives me a way to start the day... I can have a drink at night. And the drink loosens me up enough to actually mark it up, you know. While you’ll just kind of be tense and not sure. Marking up something is just another way of saying editing it. Because you don’t edit very dramatically when you’re—you’re not very hard on yourself, you’re not very loose with yourself most of the day. Really, I have found the drink actually helps." Read: Blue Nights

Podcast #62: Matthew Weiner on Don Draper's Inner Life

"I don't think I realized this until the end of the show: that Don likes strangers. Don likes winning strangers over. He likes seducing strangers, and that is what advertising is. You're gonna walk down the side of the road, and now we know each other, and once you get to know him, he doesn't like him. We all know people like this." Read: Mad Men

Podcast #75: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Zadie Smith on Race, Writing, and Relationships

Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Adichie

"Clarity's important to me. I forget who said that 'Prose should be as clear as a window pane.' I'm very much in that school, and it's the kind of fiction I like to read. The kind of writing that I like to read is writing that is clear. I think it's very easy to confuse something that's badly written as something that's somehow deep. If something is incomprehensible and the sentences are bad, we're supposed to say, 'Oh that's really deep.' It's not the kind of fiction I like to read, so I guess maybe when I'm editing I'm thinking about that. I'm thinking that the sentences I really admire are sentences that are lucid." Read: Americanah 

Podcast #45: Cheryl Strayed on Wild Success

Strayed banner

"Being a motherfucker is a way of life really. And it really is encompassed in that column. I'm going to try to loosely quote myself. It's about having strength, rather than fragility, or resilience and faith and nerve and really leaning hard into work rather than worry and anxiety... You have to get your ass on the floor and get to work." Read: Wild

Podcast #53: RuPaul on Fantasy, Identity, and Diana Ross

RuPaul LIVE from the NYPL

“Diana [Ross] had it, that thing that cannot be described—still has it. At that time—this was 1965, 1966—the promise, the optimism that her body language has at that point, and the songs, the optimism of the songs, and the joy, it's all there. And that's why I was attracted to it… you know, at that time for brown-skinned people, it was Diana Ross and Billy Cosby were the two people who could be in a room with anybody in the world. They could be there, and it didn't seem like, ‘Oh my God, who are you!?’ And Sammy Davis. Sammy Davis too. But it was important, and she spoke to me with her voice.” Read: Workin' It!

Podcast #82: Patti Smith on Authors She Loves

"The Thief's Journal is my favorite book of Genet's... I love it because he writes my kind of memoir. It's a memoir yet it's completely true and simultaneously completely false, because that's the kind of guy Genet was. But when I say false, I mean that's the part that he transforms truth into art. He elevates it as poetry. I don't even like reading memoirs. People say, 'Who's your favorite memoirist? Whose memoirs do you like?' I hardly ever read them. I like fiction really. Really strange that I should be writing nonfiction, but it just happened." Read: M Train

Podcast #59: Sonia Sotomayor on Education and Color Blindness

sotomayor1

“My adviceand I say it in my bookif you're going to college today, in my situation, find your community who's going to support you, but make sure you learn about the other people in your environment. Make friends with people who are different than you. They will teach you valuable things that you can't even anticipate. Sometimes, and for some people, it's how to use a knife and fork. That sounds strange, but it helps. I had a friend teach me how to do interviews. I had no innate knowledge. I had a parent who couldn't help tell me how to do an interview, and I had a friend who in college took me aside and said, 'This is the kind of research you have to do before you go, and you have to have a list of questions prepared. You have to think about the institution and what's it's mission and what is it that attracts you to it so you can articulate your interest in the job. And then you need to manage to talk about the skills you think you're giving them.' All of these things are things I didn't or wouldn't have known, except because I made friends outside my own circle.” Read: My Beloved World

In Memoriam: Oliver Sacks on Hallucinations

Oliver Sacks LIVE from the NYPL

"The old notion used to be that when you are asleep, the brain shuts down. On the contrary, it is more active in dreaming than at any other time, but it’s a different sort of activity. And this is also true of the perceptual systems. If there’s no visual input, the visual system doesn’t shut down, it becomes hungry, it wants activity, it has to keep going, and it will start to generate images or hallucinations of its own. And one can show, that with visual deprivation or visual impairment, the visual parts of the brain become hyperactive, and in particular those parts of the brain which— which would perceive particular things. There are different parts of the brain involved, say, in the perception of faces, of animals, of landscapes, of lighting, and of this and that, and if one does imaging, as one can do, on someone, while they are experiencing hallucinations, when they say, 'I see a face,' or whatever, or maybe like Rosalie, the greatly enlarged teeth on one side, you will find activity, a sudden surge of activity, in that particular part of the brain. There’s also quite recently been a description of particular cells in the brain which are involved in the perception of, or recognition of, faces, landscapes, and these too become active." Read: On the Move

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

Our Most-Recommended Books of 2015

0
0

Before we launch headlong into a new year of books, here in Readers Services, we thought it might be fun to reflect on the 365234298657 billion books (an exact number) we recommended in 2015.

via GIPHY

Our suggestions for adults are often tailored to an individual’s reading preferences, but some titles check so many boxes—and some we just love so much—that they pop up again and again.

Many of these books aren’t brand-new releases, and it was fun to delve into the Library’s backlist for books that were nonetheless at the forefront of our minds.

Happy reading! Here’s to a bright, book-filled 2016.

Adult Fiction

brief history

Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
A fictional (but very real-feeling) account of events surrounding the attempted assassination of Bob Marley and his family in 1976. Character-driven and exciting.

 

 




 

circle

The Circle by Dave Eggers
A page-turner about a woman hired to work for a ubiquitous Internet company that builds users’ profiles into one massive online presence. Rings a creepy bell, right?

 

 



 

dept of speculation

Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
This meditative, stream-of-consciousness story—about a new mother dealing with her new role in life—is perfect for people looking for an unconventional, language-driven novel. 

 






 

fates furies

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
Our search box auto-fills Groff’s name when we start typing it in—that’s how many times we’ve recommended this book this year. A suspenseful look at a marriage built on lies, told from both partners’ perspectives with a Greek chorus thrown into the mix.

 

 

 

 

night watch

The Night Watchby Sarah Waters
Amazing characters in the unforgettable setting of London under siege during WWII, and a good pick for readers who love a serious love story.

 

 

 



 

untamed state

An Untamed Stateby Roxane Gay
The first few pages of this novel about a woman who’s kidnapped in Haiti are so realistic and scary that we sometimes issued a warning with this recommendation. An incredible read.

 

 

 



 

vampires

Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell
Fantastical short stories, perfect for readers who are looking for an element of creativity and magical realism. You may never look at animals the same way again.

 

 

 

 

 

we need new names

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
Set partly in Zimbabwe and partly in the United States, this novel about a girl’s emigration is heartbreaking and important and amazing.

 

 

 

 

Sci-Fi/Fantasy

lies of locke lamora

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
One of our go-to titles for readers who were clamoring for more after Game of Thrones. Nothing is an exact GoT match, obviously, but this fantasy series also features memorable characters and an astonishingly complete alternative universe. (And George R.R. Martin himself wrote a blurb for it!)

 

 

 

 

ready player one

Ready Player Oneby Ernest Cline
Ernest Cline’s second young-adult novel came out in 2015, but we couldn’t stop talking about his first foray into the virtual reality of the future. Grown-up gamers love it too.

 

 

 

 

 

sparrow

The Sparrowby Mary Doria Russell
Readers looking for great world building and/or a sensitive, introspective treatment of religion often received this suggestion.

 






 

spiral

Spiral by Paul McEuen
A fast-paced page-turner that incorporates real, fascinating science… sound familiar? This book was one of our favorite readalike recommendations for people who loved The Martian.

 

 

 

 

Nonfiction

empathy exams

The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison
Honest essays that require a little soul-searching on the part of the reader.

 

 

 

 


 

headscarves

Headscarves and Hymens by Mona Eltahawy
An important book told in an important way. Journalist Eltahawy brings the personal and the political together in one fascinating mix.

 






 

missoula

Missoula by Jon Krakauer
Everyone in our lives is sick of hearing us drone on and on about this incredible book, which explores rape on college campuses. Just read it, so we can stop bothering you about it.

 

 

 



 

one of us

One of Us by Åsne Seierstad
This tale of the massacre in Norway grabbed us and wouldn’t let go. We also issue with a “read at your own risk” warning because it’s so disturbing, but it’s an important and all-too-relevant book.

 

 


 

Bonus: Books Recommended TO Us

We love that the current flows both ways: Plenty of readers also give us suggestions about books we should check out!

all the light

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
This WWII story topped a lot of lists this year, including the biggest one of all: the Pulitzer Prize committee’s.

 

 

 

 

 

george

George by Alex Gino
A very smart fellow librarian put this wonderful middle-grade novel about a transgender kid in our hands a few months ago, and we were grateful for it.

 

 

 

 

 

girl all the gifts

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
We’re steeling ourselves to read this creepy zombie story (tagline: "not every gift is a blessing"!) in 2016.

 

 

 

 

 

uncovered

Uncovered by Leah Lax
The autobiography of a woman who left a Hasidic community to join the secular world as a lesbian. We’re starting it today!

 

 

 

 

 

Have trouble reading standard print? Many of these titles are available in formats for patrons with print disabilities.

Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!

Lilian's Favorite Books and DVDs of 2015

0
0

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh is an enthralling love story that was inspired by A Thousand and One Nights. The Wrath and the Dawn tells the story of Khalid and Shahrzad. Shahrzad volunteers to marry the boy-king Khalid to seek revenge for the murder of her best friend. As Shahrzad survives in the palace telling Khalid wondrous tales at night she learns that there is much hidden in the palace…

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard is my #1 book this year! Mare is a Red blood girl who discovers she has powers. In Mare’s world the only one with powers are the silver blood elites. The king forces Mare to hide in plain sight by pretending to be a long lost silver princess engaged to a crown prince… Meanwhile, Mare is secretly helping the Red Rebellion…

An Ember in the Ashesby Sabaa Tahir is told in the dual perspective of Laia and Elias. Laia is a scholar living under the Martial Empire. When her brother is arrested for treason, Laia seeks the help of rebel Scholars to save her brother. Elias is the best soldier in the military academy. Elias has a secret, he wants to be free. He and Laia will work together to fight against the empire.             

  

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas tells the story of the huntress, Feyre who kills a wolf in the woods. Tamlin, High Lord of the faeries comes to seek revenge. Tamlin takes Feyre to the fey world. Feyre begins to develop feelings for Tamlin and she must break a curse or she will lose him forever.                

The Rose Societyby Marie Lu tells the story of Adelina Amouteru who is known by her former friends and enemies as the White Wolf. Adelina has run from Kenettra to start her own society of Young Elites. Adelina’s powers are growing dangerously out of control. Adelina is fueled by her desire for revenge against those who betrayed and abandoned her….

The film Dope is hilarious and clever. “Malcolm is carefully surviving life in a tough neighborhood in Los Angeles while juggling college applications, academic interviews, and the SAT. A chance invitation to an underground party leads him into an adventure that could allow him to go from being a geek, to being dope, to ultimately being himself.”

Job and Employment Links for the Week of January 3

0
0

SAGEWorks Boot Camp - Enrollment Now open for January 4th.  SAGEWorks  assists people 40 years and older in learning relevant, cutting-edge job search skills in a LGBT-friendly environment. This two week training takes place from Monday - Friday, 1/4/16 - 1/15/16 - 9:30 am - to 2:00 pm at the SAGE Center, 305 7th Avenue, New York, NY 10001.

Acacia Network, Inc. will present a recruitment on Tuesday, January 5, 2016, 10 am - 2 pm, for Case Manager (3 openings), Residential Aide (3 openings), at Flushing Workforce 1 Career Center, 138-60 Barclay Avenue, Flushing, NY 11355.

Garrison Protective Services will present a recruitment on Tuesday, January 5, 2016, 10 am - 2 pm, for Security Guard (10 openings) at the New York State Department of Labor - Workforce 1 Career Center, 250 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201.

Spanish Speaking Resume Writing workshop on Thursday, January 7, 2016, 12:30 pm - 2:30 pm for all interested jobseekers and dislocated workers to organize, revise and update resumes at Flushing Workforce 1 Career Center, 138 60 Barclay Ave. 2nd Floor, Flushing, NY 11355.

Simply Gum will present a recruitment on Friday, January 8, 2016, 9 am - 3 pm for Food Production Assistant (10 seasonal openings) at Food Production Facility, 23-23 Borden Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101.

New York Public Library CEIS Mini College and Career Fair Series 2016 on Friday, January 8, 2016, 11 am - 4pm at George Bruce Library, 518 W 125th Street, New York, NY 10027.  Please bring resumes and dress in business attire.

SolarCity Career Opportunities.  The NYS Department of  Labor is prescreening for the following three positions in Buffalo, NY:  Module Technician IIProcess Technician I, Process Technician III.

If you would like to receive information for a future event showcasing employment opportunities at the Hotel Syracuse, please send an email to recruitment.dews@labor.ny.gov with 'Hotel Syracuse" in the subject line. 

Job Postings at New York City Workforce 1.  

Apprenticeship Opportunities in New York City.

affiche le pour

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.

Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW) trains women and places them in careers in the skilled construction, utility, and maintenance trades. It helps women achieve economic independence and a secure future. For information call 212-627-6252 or register online.

Grace Institute provides tuition-free, practical job training in a supportive learning community for underserved New York area women of all ages and from many different backgrounds. For information call 212-832-7605.

Please note this page will be revised when more recruitment events for the week of January 3  become available.

5 of the Costliest Errors In World Series History

0
0
Who's On Worst

Hello! So 2015 is now in the record books.  New Years is just around the corner, and that's typically a time to think positively, right? We all throw in some clichés, start some "new beginnings," and then conjure up a New Year's Resolution to guide you on the way to greatness in the ensuing year. Well, pardon me. I'm afraid I'm not a big believer in the holiday, don't really celebrate it either. The good thing about the upcoming calendar flip is that we're getting a whole new season of baseball come April 3rd! Slate's wiped entirely clean, and everyone starts in the exact same position, tied for first! But yes, I guess the good tidings some people associate with New Years doesn't really translate to me, so let's talk about negative happenings instead. Sorry! I recently looked at Filip Bondy's Who's On Worst. It's chock full of scapegoats and fall guys from baseball lore. And to me, there's no greater stage to botch on than the World Series. So! Without further ado, let's ring in the New Year properly here with 5 of the biggest errors in World Series history. 

1. Daniel Murphy - 2015 World Series, Game 4Why yes, this is still painful, why do you ask? We may never get over some of the particular gaffes the Mets committed in last year's Fall Classic. It's very hard to pinpoint just one particular moment of fail, you have your pick of the litter. You had the botched-fly-ball-turned-inside-the-park-job. The Alex Gordon home run to tie up Game 1 with 2 outs to go. David Wright's 14th inning error. Tyler Clippard's walks. Yoenis Cespedes' gut-wrenching baserunning blunder. Terry Collins letting Matt Harvey stay in after walking Lorenzo Cain. Lucas Duda's offline throw.  Addison Reed's meltdown. Yikes that really is a lot, wow. For all of the beauty the Mets provided us with over the days and weeks preceding the Series, the coach really turned into a pumpkin once the World Series bell rang, and an ugly pumpkin at that. And Daniel Murphy's error in the 8th is as symbolic of that World Series as any other play that went down. Needing 6 outs to tie the Series up, Clippard entered Game 4 to try and hold a one run lead, retired his first man before walking the next two. On came Jeurys Familia to try and douse the flames. He was able to generate a slow ground ball off the bat of Eric Hosmer, only it was completely butchered by Murphy, leading to the tying run coming home. Back to back RBI singles by Mike Moustakas and eventual World Series-MVP Salvador Perez followed that play, and Murphy's bungle will forever be engraved in the minds and hearts of Met fans everywhere. Yes Clippard's control problems and Familia's inability to stop the bleeding didn't help matters, but that error......*sigh*.

2.Mariano Rivera - 2001 World Series, Game 7 This is a play that often gets forgotten, and understandably so. First let me start off by saying, this was an amazing World Series overall. Maybe the best in my particular lifetime (#IWasntAlivein75), The backdrop of the 9/11 attacks fueled the drama, and there was a plenty of it. No team won a road game  during this Series, The Yankees won Games 3-5 over the Arizona Diamondbacks at old Yankee Stadium all by one run, with the final two games ending via walk-off hits courtesy of Derek Jeter and Alfonso Soriano respectively. Byung-Hyun Kim was a home run-surrendering disaster and couldn't buy a save in the Bronx, and with the city still hurting, all signs pointed to the Yankees helping along the healing process and winning their fourth consecutive title. Right? Wrong, After Arizona walloped the Yankees 15-2 in Game 6, that set the stage for a winner-take-all Game 7 the following night. And the two clubs did not disappoint. Tied 1-1 going into the top of the 8th, Game 5 hero Soriano took a then-in-relief Curt Schilling deep to give the Bombers a 2-1 lead. Fast forward to the 9th, Mo Rivera working his second inning of relief attempted to seal the deal. After allowing a leadoff single to Mark Grace, Damian Miller bunted a ball back to the mound. Rivera had the pinch runner David Dellucci dead to rights, however his throw was poor and ended up in centerfield. The rest was history. Rivera would be able to get a fielder's choice for out #1, but that'd be the final out he would record. Tony Womack laced an RBI double to tie the game, and two batters later Luis Gonzalez recorded one of the most illustrious hits in Series history, hitting the 0-1 offering over the drawn-in infield, crowning the Diamondbacks 2001's World Champions. However one may wonder what would have been had Rivera made the play cleanly on Miller's bunt.

3. Tony Fernandez - 1997 World Series, Game 7- Here's another "Murphyesque" type play, however this one was worse, occurring during a much more pivotal point in both the ballgame, and the Series itself.  So let's set the scene. On one half of this Fall Classic, you had the Cleveland Indians, who were in their second World Series in three years after not participating in postseason play since 1954. On the other side, you had the Florida Marlins, who were in just their fifth year of existence, and had parlayed a Wild Card berth into a National League pennant. This World Series was a seesaw affair in a literal sense of the term, with both clubs trading off wins. Clinging to a one-run lead going into the bottom of the 9th, it looked as if the Indians were going to be the first team to win consecutive games in this Series. However, things did break their way as the Fish were able to manufacture a run off Tribe closer Jose Mesa, with a Craig Counsell sacrifice fly knotting up the score. Two innings later in the bottom of the 11th, Charles Nagy allowed a leadoff single to Bobby Bonilla, and then two batters later, Counsell came to the plate again. Counsell hit what should have been at the very least a ground out to second baseman Tony Fernandez. However Bonilla, on his way to second, may have attempted to shield Fernandez from seeing the ball until the last possible moment. We'll never know if Bonilla's attempt at a distraction was the primary reason or not, but Fernandez booted the ground ball, and three batters later Edgar Renteria stepped to the plate and chopped one up the middle to give the state of Florida their first World Series title. Fun little note, the Marlins manager Jim Leyland was on the other side of one of these plays in the 1992 NLCS, when he was skipper of the Pittsburgh Pirates. His second baseman Jose Lind made a devastating error in the 9th inning of Game 7, opening the door to a dramatic Atlanta Braves victory with the National League pennant on the line.  

4. Bill Buckner - 1986 World Series, Game 6 - Pop quiz hot shot. You're John McNamara, manager of the 1986 Boston Red Sox. You are up three games to two in the World Series and are one win away from ending a "curse" that's presided over the city of Boston's baseball team since 1918. You have a 2-run lead going into the bottom of the 10th inning of a World Series-clinching game. You have Dave Stapleton on your bench. So what do you do? First, who is Dave Stapleton? Stapleton's primary role on the 1986 Red Sox was that of a defensive replacement. He was on the team's roster all season long, but of the 39 games he appeared in, just 8 of them were starts. He appeared in 29 of those games at first base, where he went error-free. During the Sox postseason run, they'd wind up winning 7 games. 4 in the ALCS to clinch the pennant, and the 3 World Series games Boston won, and all of them had Stapleton enter as a midgame defensive replacement for Bill Buckner. So why wasn't he at first base in the bottom of the 10th inning in Game 6? The way the story goes is that McNamara felt that Buckner deserved to be on the field when the Red Sox finally broke the curse. He would never get the opportunity to celebrate. You all know the story by now. After making the first two outs of the inning, the Mets pulled off a stunning rally that included three consecutive singles (the final one being of the run-scoring variety), a game-tying wild pitch, and the most famous "little roller up along first" ever produced, which you can view in all its glory up above. Amazin'!

5. Fred Snodgrass - 1912 World Series, Game 8Wicked name right? Anyway, our fifth and final error brings us way back when, so here we go, it's lesson time. 103 years ago, we had the 1912 World Series featuring the New York Giants and the Boston Red Sox. First thing you're probably wondering is "Why was there a Game 8?" That's because Game 2 was called on account of darkness with the two teams locked in a 6-6 tie through 11 innings. There was no Baseball Commissioner back then, so the World Series (and the entire league itself) was run by what was called the National Commission. It was a two-man show comprised of the Presidents of both the American and National Leagues. They decided that the game would end tied, and the player's wouldn't receive a share of the proceeds from the gates as a result, which was not met favorably. There was so much self-interest between baseball's governing minds way back then, but that's a story for another day. By the time Game 8 rolled around, the Series was tied up 3 all. A nailbiting Series up to this point, the final game was no different. It was tied 1-1 going into the top of the 10th when New York pushed across a run on a Fred Merkle (another of baseball's biggest goats of yesteryear) RBI single. Last licks for the Red Sox in the bottom half, pinch hitter Clyde Engle hit a fly ball to the centerfielder Snodgrass, who outright dropped it allowing Engle to reach second base. Accounts say Snodgrass looked as if he was gearing up for the throw back to the infield too soon, and thus lost his concentration on the catch itself. Next batter Harry Hooper sent another smash to center, though Snodgrass actually made a fine running grab on to record the out (with Engle tagging and heading to third). However, the error would be too much for the Giants to overcome. Ed Yerkes drew a walk, and 1912 MVP Tris Speaker tied the score with an RBI single. Two batters later, Larry Gardner drove Yerkes home on a walk-off sacrifice fly, delivering Boston the World Series championship on the strength of two unearned runs in the extra frame. Snodgrass is forever remembered a century later for his fateful miscue.

So hey! You know who has the most errors in a single World Series? It's former Washington Senators shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh, who committed 8 (!!) in the 7-game Series against the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1925. Thankfully for Roger, his team did prevail that year. For more information on some of baseball's all-time biggest goofups and snafus, check out Filip Bondy's Who's On Worst.


Bed, Bath and Flying Machines: Highlights from SIBL's Public Domain Collection

0
0

This is one of a series of blog posts related to the NYPL Public Domain Release: discover the collections and find inspiration for using them in your own research, teaching, and creative practice. 

 ps_sibl_cd23_404
Front cover. Image ID: ps_sibl_cd23_404

The mission of the New York Public Library is to inspire lifelong learning, advance knowledge, and strengthen our communities. We advance knowledge by providing free and open access to materials and information that reflect New York’s global perspective. We identify, acquire, and preserve these materials but we also intend to inspire interest, expand horizons, and enrich perspectives by building tools that allow us to connect with the world. One of these tools is our Digital Collections, which now includes some 188,000 public domain illustrations which can  be downloaded in high resolution copies and used for whatever you would like.

The Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL) has collected materials in several fields. Some 2,000 public domain images from SIBL in the digital collections represent only some parts of this broad and diverse range of fields. Let’s have a look at some of them.

Detail from The 'Indoro' Embossed (1888)

At the beginning of the 20th century developers and the real estate industry attempted to entice potential middle and upper class tenants to New York City’s “principal high class apartment houses.” In order to achieve that they used albums which featured an apartment house briefly described, and illustrated with an exterior photograph and one or more floor plans. These albums were supplemented by trade catalogs for contemporary plumbing fixtures that may have been part of the modern and  luxury appointments in these apartments. Some of these trade catalogs included products by New York-based company J.L. Mott Iron Works:

The fashion industry has been covered by SIBL for a very long time. Our collection of textile business-related periodicals is almost certainly unsurpassed in scale and scope in one location. Among the special items featured here are manufacturers' catalogs containing real fabric swatches along with sketches showing how the new prints and weaves could be fashioned into seasonably stylish garments. In the past, with the help from the National Endowment for the Humanities, we carried out a large microfilming project to preserve more then 3,700 textile periodicals and monographs. Now you are welcome to view and download illustrations from the following publications:

The spring book of B. Kuppenheimer & Co.
Newest styles for men.

​In addition to providing swatches of fabrics, this publication also shows machinery used to manufacture textiles: The mordant dyestuffs of the farbenfabriken vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co., Elberfeld, and their application to printing and dyeing [1902]

 1130335
Washer and soaper for slubbing printing. Image ID: 1130335

Now, speaking about the use of machinery (before we get to flying objects) you may find these digitized collections to be of interest: 

 1158843
Femme tourneuse. Sur tour a saigner les ebauches. Image ID: 1158843
 1160187
Franklin. Image ID: 1160187

SIBL's collections would not be fairly represented without materials pertaining to the automobile industry. Our collection of manufacturers' catalogs and price lists covers the first three decades of the 20th century, and represents most American and many foreign makes. It is represented here by a 1909 catalog of The Franklin Automobile Company which was an American manufacturer of automobiles that operated from 1902 to 1934 in Syracuse, New York. The company sold about 150,000 luxury cars over the course of its existence. 

 1160188
Type H Touring-car. Image ID: 1160188

Now, let's look at these flying machines that I promised at the beginning. The following illustrations are from a publication by Comte de La Vaulx, Paul Tissandier, and Charles Dollfus L'aéronautique des origines à 1922.  Enjoy the flight.

 1693446
L'aéro-montgolfière d'Orlandi. Aquarelle. Image ID: 1693446
 1693472
Estampe anglaise de 1843 représentant l'aèroplane d'Henson dans un vol supposé aux environs de Londres. Image ID: 1693472
 1693507
Vol de Wilbur Wright accompli à Pau, en janvier 1909, avec son élève Paul Tissandier. Image ID: 1693507
 1693495
Chasse à courre en dirigeable. Caricature d'Albert Guillaume, inspirée par les expériences de Santos-Dumont,1901, parue dans l'Assiette au Beurre. Image ID: 1693495
 1693482
Le ballon dirigeable l'Aigle, construit en 1834 par le comte de Lennox. Image ID: 1693482

 

Podcast #94: Sharon Olds and Cynthia Nixon on Dickinson, First Drafts, and Selfhood

0
0

Subscribe on iTunes.

Sharon Olds is the winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award. The author of twelve collections of poetry, including Stag's Leap and Satan Says, Olds served as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2006 to 2012. Recently, she was joined at the Library by Cynthia Nixon, the Tony, Emmy, and Grammy-winning actress best known for her role as Miranda on Sex and the City. This week for the New York Public Library Podcast, we're pleased to present Sharon Olds and Cynthia Nixon discussing Emily Dickinson, first drafts, and selfhood.

Sharon Olds and Cynthia Nixon

Nixon began the event by asking whether Olds remembered the first time she read an Emily Dickinson poem.

"I think," Olds said, "I don't. But I'm sure that it was in an old-fashioned school book with commas instead of the dashes, so I wouldn't really have been reading an Emily Dickinson poem at all really yet until I saw a page with that swoosh swoosh swoosh, that rush of passion."

Nixon's introduction to the poet was somewhat different, mediated through the performances of Julie Harris:

"I think I was exposed to it very early, of course in school, but also Julie Harris played Emily Dickinson on stage and then on television in The Belle of Amherst, this one person play about Emily Dickinson which now seems a little dated when you watch it even though Julie Harris is wonderful. But we also a record at home of Julie Harris reading selected poems and letters of Emily Dickinson."

Olds explained that when she writes, she attempts precision immediately. When precision isn't possible, for example when a word can't be recalled, she omits rather than using a placeholder, which can alter the course of the poem:

"Freewriting: I don't do that. I like to get the right words, if I can, the first time, so I cross out while I'm writing, because if I put in a word to hold the place of another word, the music of the word I've just used, it does something slightly different from that which is that it calls to all the words that rhyme with it to come to the poem. It just has its own life, like things in biology just have their own species... [I put] a line underneath if I just can't think of the word when I know I need a word there. The sound of it, the musicality. Many poets are just so, so musical. I'm not the most musical, but I am somewhat so that I don't try to rhyme, but my poems have a lot of rhyme inside them, so that if later I think, 'That's not the right word at all,' I take it out and later in the poem there are all these words that say, 'You called us to you with that word!' and then the whole thing's just tragic."

In response to an audience question about the personal and public, Olds described her poetic practice as a form of self inquiry rather than a simple representation of a monolithic self:

"I think that I've written a lot to find out who I am and to try to pile up evidence that I'm not that sinner who was going to go to hell. So it's partly as if I'm a persona poet all along in a way. I do want to tell the truth, and I do want to come out of that oppressive religious, patriarchy etc... I'm trying to be accurate, but I also am hoping that it will turn out when I'm accurate that I'm an ordinary enough, good enough person."

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

2,000 Public Domain Prints Available From the Jerome Robbins Dance Division

0
0

This is one of a series of blog posts related to the NYPL Public Domain Release: discover the collections and find inspiration for using them in your own research, teaching, and creative practice. 

The Jerome Robbins Dance Division has been working on a multi-year project to digitize the approximately 2,000 public domain prints in its collection. The Division collects "prints depicting dance," covering a wide range of subjects, including portraits of dancers, dance performances and rehearsals, 17th century spectacle and horse ballet, 19th century advertisements showing dance, and satire. The prints can include sheet music, plates from books, and prints that were formally released as prints. In short, if it shows someone or something dancing, it fits within our collecting scope.

I am pleased to show some of my favorites prints in order to provide a glimpse into the wide range of our public domain prints depicting dance. 

Loie Fuller dancing.
Folies-Bergère, La Loïe Fuller. Circa 1897.

Depicts Loïe Fuller dancing, full length to left of left foot, right foot raised behind, her head thrown back. Her arms are outstretched and she holds a billowing multi-colored scarf. Dry stamp "Les Maîtres de l'Affiche" bottom right corner. Lithographic reproduction of Chéret's larger 1893 poster. Call number *MGZFB Ful L 1.

A scene from the pageant preceding the fête Le Combat à la barrière. The print depicts the entry of three nobles on a giant dolphin.
Entrée des sieurs de Vroncourt, Tyllon et Mariment, 1627.

Etching by Jacques Callott. A scene from the pageant preceding the fête Le Combat à la barrière. The print depicts the entry of three nobles on a giant dolphin. Call number *MGZFA-17 Cal J Com 3.

Louise Fitzjames, a tall and excessively thin dancer, depicted as a stalk of asparagus. Fitzjames dances in front of five other dancers depicted as vegetables.
Melle. Fitz-James, de l'Académie royale de musique, rôle d'une asperge dans un ballet de légumes. Circa 1837.

Louise Fitzjames, a tall and thin dancer, depicted as a stalk of asparagus. Fitzjames dances in front of five other dancers depicted as vegetables. Call number *MGZFB Fit L C 1.

Depicts Nijinsky in leafy costume of the Spectre. The dancer executes a leap, legs assembled in the air and body curved to his right. The name Nijinsky is cut into the block and appears left.
Le spectre de la rose by Valentine Hugo, 1912.

Woodcut depicting Nijinsky in leafy costume of the Spectre. The dancer executes a leap, legs assembled in the air and body curved to his right. The name Nijinsky is cut into the block and appears left. Call number *MGZFB Nij V Spe 1.

16 Laugh Out Loud #InternetABook Titles

0
0

The hashtag game #InternetABook asks you to internet-ify your favorite books. At NYPL, we love a pun almost as much as we love books, so we've created a few of our own and selected some of the finest contributions on Twitter. Follow us on Twitter at @nypl and share your #InternetABook Tweets with us!

internetabook14

Tuesdays with Morrie
internetabook15

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
internetabook16

Green Eggs and Ham
internetabook1

Anne of Green Gablesinternetabook2

The Picture of Dorian Gray
internetabook3

The Old Man and the Sea
internetabook4

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
internetabook5

Eat, Pray, Love
internetabook6

James and the Giant Peach
internetabook7

Lolita
internetabook8

The Postman Always Rings Twice
internetabook9

The Phantom Tollbooth
internetabook10

Alice in Wonderland
internetabook11

Cloud Atlas
internetabook12

Far From the Madding Crowd
internetabook13

The Summer David Bowie Made Me Cry (And Why I'm Grateful)

0
0

In the summer of 1981, the most lucrative option for me to make money was to stay in my college town and work the graveyard shift at the local IBM factory.  The work wasn't strenuous, but it was maddeningly mind-numbing. Basically, my job was to place huge copper sheets on a machine that would pumice them to achieve a nice, dull finish. At the other end of the machine, my co-worker, an extremely conservative divinity student whose cherubic face belied his harsh thoughts on the welfare system, would pull them off and stack them up. That's it. That’s all we did for seven hours a day, five days a week, with an hour for lunch (or whatever term you would use for a meal at 3 AM). That work environment, combined with a work schedule of 11 PM to 7 AM, put my head in a very strange temporal and existential space.  For one thing, I never experienced days ending. They just sort of drifted along, merging into the next day. I'd go to sleep at 8 AM on Tuesday, wake up in the afternoon (still Tuesday), putter around downtown Binghamton with a scraggle of friends, and then head off to work at 10:30 (still Tuesday);  And during my shift, the next day would arrive, although I could never sense the change. The days all merged for me.

Why am I telling you all this?  Because the one thing that I considered to be my lifeline that summer—the one thing that kept me reasonably grounded during the three months of my psychic funk—was David Bowie’s albumHeroes.  I had bought the album when it came out several years earlier and listened to and enjoyed it very much.  And then I bought other albums that I would also listen to and some I would enjoy and some not so much.  But one day in June, I woke up early in the afternoon (still Tuesday), and I dug Heroes out from my record pile and put it the stereo.  I lay down on the living room floor and listened to it—both sides.  Now there are a lot of great songs on Heroes: “Joe The Lion,” “Heroes,” “Sons of the Silent Age” all stand out.  All were widely played on your local college radio station.  But the songs that meant the most to me—at least during that summer—were the three least commercial tracks on the album: “Sense of Doubt,” “Moss Garden,” and “Neuköln.”  While I initially listened to the whole album, eventually I would play just those three tracks.  Those tracks became vital to me.  As I listened to them they defined exactly how I felt that summer—they were literally the sonic representation of my state of mind: the ominous piano chords of "Sense of Doubt", the cacophonous saxophone on "Neuköln", and most importantly, the sense of peace at the center of "Moss Garden.”  Listening to them was like looking at myself in the mirror—not in a superficial, narcissistic sense—more in the sense that you are really looking hard at yourself, trying to see the real you. 

I would listen to those three songs every day.  I had to.  Like I said, they were my lifeline.  And sometimes—not every time, but often enough—I cried as I listened; not because I was sad, but because it was cathartic. So, I’m grateful to David Bowie.  I’m grateful that his music could speak to me in such a personal way, but more importantly, I’m grateful that he could make me cry.

Viewing all 5325 articles
Browse latest View live


Latest Images