Free Resources to Use: The Library in Carlsbad, New Mexico

What's it About? About.com

2011-10-18T09:02:00.002-06:00

Have you ever surfed over to About.com?
If not, check it out; this site is supreme for
looking up lots and lots of interesting
topics.

Give it a try and expand your horizons
while deepening your knowledge. I hope
that you find it as interesting and as
useful as I do.

See you there. :)
Bob Hoff
10/18/11

about.com

Betty White's...

2011-10-18T07:09:00.003-06:00

...new book--If you ask me: and of course you won't

Body and mind. Growing older -- On reflection -- Health -- Senses -- Humor -- Enthusiasm -- Hollywood stories. Hot in Cleveland -- Saturday night live -- Awards -- Name-dropping -- Turning down roles -- Carl Reiner -- The red carpet -- The proposal -- Lost Valentine -- Letters. Interviews (Redford) -- Writer's block -- Fans and fanmail -- Stagecraft. Ranger -- On stage fright -- On plum roles (and typcasting) -- Cast chemistry -- Stand up? -- The craft -- Television -- Love and friendship. Full circle -- Dating du jour -- Loss -- Friendships -- Agent Jeff -- - Animal kingdom. Butterscotch -- Koko -- Stuffed animals -- Beethoven -- Pet adoption -- Speaking animal -- State of affairs. Names -- Dining room table -- Entourage -- Poker -- Modern technology (thoroughly modern Betty?) -- Children -- Since you asked -- Integrity -- Advice column -- I'm 89?.

If you like the humor of Betty White (and who doesn't?) check out this book--above.

Betty White at Wikipedia

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Importance of reading

----------------------------------------------------

I love books and reading; how about you, my friend?

The Self-Taught Blogger-- or I'm Blogging This

2011-10-10T16:44:00.001-06:00

I'm teaching myself blogging and have been doing that since I
retired from the National Park Service in 2005.

I have been teaching myself blogging the old fashioned way:
by looking up "how to information," then by using that information
in doing blogs. This method is slow, but steady. Sometimes, what
slows my progress at is when I start other blogs and they grow into
All my Children.

At one point my children numbered around twenty, so when I work on one post, the other blogs may languish. Such diversity gives me pleasure and more experience at different types and contents of blog posts and technique. I also am glad about that.

So when I am not blogging here, I am probably blogging somewhere else. Or playing with my grandson. Or reading. Or doing chores. Or resting my fingers/ hands/wrists. Or brain. Or one of my favorite activities: procrastination

Yep, I'm probably just doing something different, just like you all do daily throughout your days.

That's the meat of what I wanted to say.

Back later.

Bob Hoff
10/10/11

same kind of different as me (book title)

2011-05-26T18:55:00.000-06:00

The co-author relates how he was held under plantation-style slavery until he fled in the 1960s and suffered homelessness for an additional eighteen years before the wife of the other co-author, an art dealer accustomed to privilege, intervened.

A book about modern slavery, homelessness, an art dealer, courage in fighting cancer, and love of fellow man. A true story of religion and people touching other people's lives. BH

(From Amazon.com)
Meet Denver, a man raised under plantation-style slavery in Louisiana in the 1960s; a man who escaped, hopping a train to wander, homeless, for eighteen years on the streets of Dallas, Texas. No longer a slave, Denver's life was still hopeless-until God moved. First came a godly woman who prayed, listened, and obeyed. And then came her husband, Ron, an international arts dealer at home in a world of Armani-suited millionaires. And then they all came together.

But slavery takes many forms. Deborah discovers that she has cancer. In the face of possible death, she charges her husband to rescue Denver. Who will be saved, and who will be lost? What is the future for these unlikely three? What is God doing?

Same Kind of Different As Me is the emotional tale of their story: a telling of pain and laughter, doubt and tears, dug out between the bondages of this earth and the free possibility of heaven. No reader or listener will ever forget it.

4 stars out of 5

Reading/Books Quotes Korner

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.

Read more: http://quotationsbook.com/quote/42721/#ixzz1NScktfM7
on Quotations Book

Save Money at Your Public Library 10 Ways to Save Money at the Library

2011-05-22T09:44:00.001-06:00

By Elizabeth Kennedy,
http://childrensbooks.about.com/od/libraries/a/save_money.htm

I love public libraries because I love books, but I also love the public library because I save so much money by using it. As is the case with many public libraries, at the Wichita Public Library library cards are free, and except for overdue fines if we don’t get things back on time, that’s our only cost to use the library. Here are 10 ways our family has saved money at our local public library. There we can:

Borrow books for all ages. The library has board books, picture books, chapter books, novels and nonfiction for kids, as well as fiction and nonfiction for teens and adults, including large print books and other resources for people with visual handicaps.

Enjoy free programs, including storytimes, films, puppet shows and other performances for children, as well as lectures, programs and book clubs for adults.

Check out DVDs of movies instead of buying or renting them. You'll find feature-length movies, including movies based on children's books like Coraline and The Tale of Despereaux, as well as excellent shorter movies based on children’s literature, nature movies for kids, and more.

Get advice from librarians about good books for children, teens and adults. Our library also provides all kinds of reading lists of recommended books, from books for Black History Month to books for specific grade levels. Many public libraries also provide recommended reading lists on their Web sites.

Buy gently used books at the annual Friends of the Library book sale. We have found hardbound children’s books there for as little as 25 cents. It's wonderful to be able to find children's books at bargain prices.

Read magazines. This is big for me because I tend to buy too many magazines. By previewing magazines at the library, I can limit myself to only buying the ones that I want to keep.

Borrow music CDs, from showtunes and popular music to music for kids and classical music.

Enjoy audiobooks for all ages. It’s fun to share an audiobook that the whole family can enjoy while you’re on a long car trip. It’s also nice to gather together as a family and enjoy the classics. Adults and teens also often like listening to audiobooks while they exercise. Many audiobooks for kids come with the print version so kids can read along as they listen. The benefits of audiobooks are many, particularly for struggling readers.

Keep the kids happily occupied – and reading throughout the summer with the library’s summer reading programs. Our library’s program includes all kinds of special activities for younger kids as well as teens. Enjoy summer reading fun at the library.

Borrow framed prints of artwork. That service is available at our main library where free technology classes are also available.

I could go on and on (I haven't even mentioned some of the online resources), but you get the idea. Getting a library card is one of the best investments you’ll ever make. While every public library is different, they all have wonderful resources available. Even if your public library charges a fee for a library card, you'll save lots of money if you take advantage of all of the resources available there.

Frankenstein

2011-05-17T23:11:00.000-06:00

I wrote about Frankenstein and the author Mary Shelley in a August 29, 2007 post on this blog.

Frankenstein_at_a_082907_post

Now that my 20-year old son Erik read it in a literature class last semester and pointed some interesting bits of tid out to me I have read it. These include:

the book is many times better than any Frankenstein movie that he has ever seen (I agree with all these literary tidbits).

the book is superbly written, chock full of suspense, and terrifying surprises lurk on every page.

the book is a wonderful story, and if you have in the region of a normal pulse, will likely keep your attention..

no bolts stick out of the monster's neck.

the book deals with ethics, feelings, and values.

Frankenstein does wantonly and willfully with malice aforethought murder several people in the book. The book explores his major motivations for his killing spree.

The ending will catch you by surprise, I am betting.

So, now, having read it myself, I, along with Erik, recomend that you buy a copy or borrow it from the library and enter the tormented and horrific world of Dr. Victor Frankenstein. And while reading it, buckle up your reading armchair seatbelts. Consider yourself warned.

With the Amazon Kindle, you can get a free Kindle electronic version of this book at:

Free e-book collections at Amazon.com

Note from Blog Author Bob Hoff: While I read Frankenstein two years ago at my son Erik's suggestion, I have a free copy on my new Kindle that I have plans to read soon on the Amazon Kindle that I received on 5/20/11 for my latest (and greatest) birthday.

I love using my new Kindle.

Frankenstein on line at:
Frankenstein

Notice new link to Erik's Horror Movie Reviews on this blog

© Bob Hoff, 2009

Some Recommendations

2011-05-17T19:15:00.001-06:00

I asked Kristin, an on-line friend of mine who has earned her M.A. in a course of study in literature, to recommend her top ten favorite books. She replied,

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

Back Roads by Tawni Odell

She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb

Falling Man by Don Delillo

Mating by Norman Rush

Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks

Ishmael by Daneil Quinn

The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
--KHR--

Thanks, Kristin.
********************
If anyone is interested in any of these books, ask one of our librarians about them. Check to see if they are in our library's card catalog or if they can be borrowed through the Inter-Library loan system.
*********************
Don't know what to read first; try The Kite Runner.

From Publishers Weekly Hosseini's stunning debut novel starts as an eloquent Afghan version of the American immigrant experience in the late 20th century, but betrayal and redemption come to the forefront when the narrator, a writer, returns to his ravaged homeland to rescue the son of his childhood friend after the boy's parents are shot during the Taliban takeover in the mid '90s. Amir, the son of a well-to-do Kabul merchant, is the first-person narrator, who marries, moves to California and becomes a successful novelist. But he remains haunted by a childhood incident in which he betrayed the trust of his best friend, a Hazara boy named Hassan, who receives a brutal beating from some local bullies. After establishing himself in America, Amir learns that the Taliban have murdered Hassan and his wife, raising questions about the fate of his son, Sohrab. Spurred on by childhood guilt, Amir makes the difficult journey to Kabul, only to learn the boy has been enslaved by a former childhood bully who has become a prominent Taliban official. The price Amir must pay to recover the boy is just one of several brilliant, startling plot twists that make this book memorable both as a political chronicle and a deeply personal tale about how childhood choices affect our adult lives. The character studies alone would make this a noteworthy debut, from the portrait of the sensitive, insecure Amir to the multilayered development of his father, Baba, whose sacrifices and scandalous behavior are fully revealed only when Amir returns to Afghanistan and learns the true nature of his relationship to Hassan. Add an incisive, perceptive examination of recent Afghan history and its ramifications in both America and the Middle East, and the result is a complete work of literature that succeeds in exploring the culture of a previously obscure nation that has become a pivot point in the global politics of the new millennium.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

The Kite Runner at Amazon
***************************
The author has a second book out, A Thousand Splendid Suns.

From Booklist
Hosseini's follow-up (ATSS) to his best-selling debut, The Kite Runner (2003) views the plight of Afghanistan during the last half-century through the eyes of two women. Mariam is the illegitimate daughter of a maid and a businessman, who is given away in marriage at 15 to Rasheed, a man three times her age; their union is not a loving one. Laila is born to educated, liberal parents in Kabul the night the Communists take over Afghanistan. Adored by her father but neglected in favor of her older brothers by her mother, Laila finds her true love early on in Tariq, a thoughtful, chivalrous boy who lost a leg in an explosion. But when tensions between the Communists and the mujahideen make the city unsafe, Tariq and his family flee to Pakistan. A devastating tragedy brings Laila to the house of Rasheed and Mariam, where she is forced to make a horrific choice to secure her future. At the heart of the novel is the bond between Mariam and Laila, two very different women brought together by dire circumstances. Unimaginably tragic, Hosseini's magnificent second novel is a sad and beautiful testament to both Afghani suffering and strength. Readers who lost themselves in The Kite Runner will not want to miss this unforgettable follow-up. Kristine HuntleyCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the edition.

Khaled_Hosseini at Wikipedia
********************

Books/Reading Quotations Korner

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.
Oscar Wilde

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
Benjamin Franklin

Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere.
Mary Schmich

But really, it was reading that led me to writing. And in particular, reading the American classics like Twain who taught me at an early age that ordinary lives of ordinary people can be made into high art.
Russell Banks

Brainyquote.com

"Dreams from My Father" by Barack Obama

2008-12-11T15:58:00.009-07:00

So after reading President-Elect Barack Obama's book The Audacity of Hope, which book do you think that I headed for next? Well, this is a tricky question, because I was actually reading several books at once. First, I do want to admit that I gave up on Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham because while Maugham's insights on people seem wonderfully real and thought-provoking and his clarity of writing is a treat in itself, in the end, I finally couldn't stand the sadness of the story anymore. Will I finish OHB someday? I might, but I don't know for sure

Yes, I was drawn to the earlier book that Barack Obama had written, the one that promised to tell more about his personal life, his Mother, his Father, grandparents, sisters, brothers--Dreams from My Father. I found the personal story of his life intensely interesting and his willingness to share his personal feelings extraordinary compared to the inability of many men that I know to do so. I recommend this book highly to anyone interested in the background of our new President

From Preface to 2004 edition:

Almost a decade has passed since this book was first published. As I mention in the original introduction, the opportunity to write the book came while I was in law school, the result of my election as the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. In the wake of some modest publicity, I received an advance from a publisher and went to work with the belief that the story of my family, and my efforts to understand that story, might speak in some way to the fissures of race that have characterized the American experience, as well as the fluid state of identity -- the leaps through time, the collision of cultures -- that mark our modern life.

Like most first-time authors, I was filled with hope and despair upon the book’s publication -- hope that the book might succeed beyond my youthful dreams, despair that I had failed to say anything worth saying. The reality fell somewhere in between. The reviews were mildly favorable. People actually showed up at the readings my publisher arranged. The sales were underwhelming. And, after a few months, I went on with the business of my life, certain that my career as an author would be short-lived, but glad to have survived the process with my dignity more or less intact.

I had little time for reflection over the next ten years. I ran a voter registration project in the 1992 election cycle, began a civil rights practice, and started teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago. My wife and I bought a house, were blessed with two gorgeous, healthy, and mischievous daughters, and struggled to pay the bills. When a seat in the state legislature opened up in 1996, some friends persuaded me to run for the office, and I won. I had been warned, before taking office, that state politics lacks the glamour of its Washington counterpart; one labors largely in obscurity, mostly on topics that mean a great deal to some but that the average man or woman on the street can safely ignore (the regulation of mobile homes, say, or the tax consequences of farm equipment depreciation). Nonetheless, I found the work satisfying, mostly because the scale of state politics allows for concrete results -- an expansion of health insurance for poor children, or a reform of laws that send innocent men to death row -- within a meaningful time frame. And too, because within the capitol building of a big, industrial state, one sees every day the face of a nation in constant conversation: inner-city mothers and corn and bean farmers, immigrant day laborers alongside suburban investment bankers -- all jostling to be heard, all ready to tell their stories.

A few months ago, I won the Democratic nomination for a seat as the U.S. senator from Illinois. It was a difficult race, in a crowded field of well-funded, skilled, and prominent candidates; without organizational backing or personal wealth, a black man with a funny name, I was considered a long shot. And so, when I won a majority of the votes in the Democratic primary, winning in white areas as well as black, in the suburbs as well as Chicago, the reaction that followed echoed the response to my election to the Law Review. Mainstream commentators expressed surprise and genuine hope that my victory signaled a broader change in our racial politics. Within the black community, there was a sense of pride regarding my accomplishment, a pride mingled with frustration that fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education and forty years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, we should still be celebrating the possibility (and only the possibility, for I have a tough general election coming up) that I might be the sole African American -- and only the third since Reconstruction -- to serve in the Senate. My family, friends, and I were mildly bewildered by the attention, and constantly aware of the gulf between the hard sheen of media reports and the messy, mundane realities of life as it is truly lived.

Just as that spate of publicity prompted my publisher’s interest a decade ago, so has this fresh round of news clippings encouraged the book’s re-publication. For the first time in many years, I’ve pulled out a copy and read a few chapters to see how much my voice may have changed over time. I confess to wincing every so often at a poorly chosen word, a mangled sentence, an expression of emotion that seems indulgent or overly practiced. I have the urge to cut the book by fifty pages or so, possessed as I am with a keener appreciation for brevity. I cannot honestly say, however, that the voice in this book is not mine -- that I would tell the story much differently today than I did ten years ago, even if certain passages have proven to be inconvenient politically, the grist for pundit commentary and opposition research.

What has changed, of course, dramatically, decisively, is the context in which the book might now be read. I began writing against a backdrop of Silicon Valley and a booming stock market; the collapse of the Berlin Wall; Mandela -- in slow, sturdy steps -- emerging from prison to lead a country; the signing of peace accords in Oslo. Domestically, our cultural debates -- around guns and abortion and rap lyrics -- seemed so fierce precisely because Bill Clinton’s Third Way, a scaled-back welfare state without grand ambition but without sharp edges, seemed to describe a broad, underlying consensus on bread-and-butter issues, a consensus to which even George W. Bush’s first campaign, with its “compassionate conservatism,” would have to give a nod. Internationally, writers announced the end of history, the ascendance of free markets and liberal democracy, the replacement of old hatreds and wars between nations with virtual communities and battles for market share.

And then, on September 11, 2001, the world fractured.

It’s beyond my skill as a writer to capture that day, and the days that would follow -- the planes, like specters, vanishing into steel and glass; the slow-motion cascade of the towers crumbling into themselves; the ash-covered figures wandering the streets; the anguish and the fear. Nor do I pretend to understand the stark nihilism that drove the terrorists that day and that drives their brethren still. My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another’s heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those who would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction.

What I do know is that history returned that day with a vengeance; that, in fact, as Faulkner reminds us, the past is never dead and buried -- it isn’t even past. This collective history, this past, directly touches my own. Not merely because the bombs of Al Qaeda have marked, with an eerie precision, some of the landscapes of my life -- the buildings and roads and faces of Nairobi, Bali, Manhattan; not merely because, as a consequence of 9/11, my name is an irresistible target of mocking websites from overzealous Republican operatives. But also because the underlying struggle -- between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us -- is the struggle set forth, on a miniature scale, in this book.

I know, I have seen, the desperation and disorder of the powerless: how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much the same way as it does the lives of children on Chicago’s South Side, how narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammeled fury, how easily they slip into violence and despair. I know that the response of the powerful to this disorder -- alternating as it does between a dull complacency and, when the disorder spills out of its proscribed confines, a steady, unthinking application of force, of longer prison sentences and more sophisticated military hardware -- is inadequate to the task. I know that the hardening of lines, the embrace of fundamentalism and tribe, dooms us all.

And so what was a more interior, intimate effort on my part, to understand this struggle and to find my place in it, has converged with a broader public debate, a debate in which I am professionally engaged, one that will shape our lives and the lives of our children for many years to come.

The policy implications of all this are a topic for another book. Let me end instead on a more personal note. Most of the characters in this book remain a part of my life, albeit in varying degrees -- a function of work, children, geography, and turns of fate.

The exception is my mother, whom we lost, with a brutal swiftness, to cancer a few months after this book was published.

She had spent the previous ten years doing what she loved. She traveled the world, working in the distant villages of Asia and Africa, helping women buy a sewing machine or a milk cow or an education that might give them a foothold in the world’s economy. She gathered friends from high and low, took long walks, stared at the moon, and foraged through the local markets of Delhi or Marrakesh for some trifle, a scarf or stone carving that would make her laugh or please the eye. She wrote reports, read novels, pestered her children, and dreamed of grandchildren.

We saw each other frequently, our bond unbroken. During the writing of this book, she would read the drafts, correcting stories that I had misunderstood, careful not to comment on my characterizations of her but quick to explain or defend the less flattering aspects of my father’s character. She managed her illness with grace and good humor, and she helped my sister and me push on with our lives, despite our dread, our denials, our sudden constrictions of the heart.

I think sometimes that had I known she would not survive her illness, I might have written a different book -- less a meditation...

Quotations from Barack Obama

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

Community colleges play an important role in helping people transition between careers by providing the retooling they need to take on a new career.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

I don't care whether you're driving a hybrid or an SUV. If you're headed for a cliff, you have to change direction. That's what the American people called for in November, and that's what we intend to deliver.

This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/barack_obama_3.html

Dreams from My Father preface at Amazon

Dreams from My Father, Review on New York Times

Barack Obama at Wikipedia

President-Elect Barack Obama's book: "The Audacity of Hope"

2008-11-13T14:32:00.006-07:00

*****

Being Informed about U.S. Presidents

There was a time when I wasn't interested in political subjects and as I look back today I wonder what I was thinking. But the truth of the matter is probably that I just wasn't thinking about a very serious subject and I was too ignorant to realize that.

In college I did minor in Political Science and found many aspects of it--U.S.Constitutional History, government in other countries, Plato and Aristotle (and other philosophers on how governments should work, the rights of people, the advantages of some forms of government and the dangers of other forms--to mention a few and I found it interesting and provocative.

As a Park Ranger in the National Park Service I worked at the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park in Stonewall and Johnson City, Texas, and read many books about the Johnson era politics and many biographies about the people involved in those politics. Since I have retired I have tried to read to fill many of my knowledge gaps in American history, and in that process, I have encountered the stories of Presidents like George Washington, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, F.D.R, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter. So far my favorite President, and the one that I have read about the most, is Abraham Lincoln.

For the recent election I wanted to read something about Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain. So far I have only read The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama.

From Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Audacity-Hope-Thoughts-Reclaiming-American/dp/0307237699

Amazon.com ReviewBarack Obama's first book, Dreams from My Father, was a compelling and moving memoir focusing on personal issues of race, identity, and community. With his second book The Audacity of Hope, Obama engages themes raised in his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, shares personal views on faith and values and offers a vision of the future that involves repairing a "political process that is broken" and restoring a government that has fallen out of touch with the people. We had the opportunity to ask Senator Obama a few questions about writing, reading, and politics--see his responses below. --Daphne Durham

20 Second Interview: A Few Words with Barack Obama

Q: How did writing a book that you knew would be read so closely by so many compare to writing your first book, when few people knew who you were?

A: In many ways, Dreams from My Father was harder to write. At that point, I wasn't even sure that I could write a book. And writing the first book really was a process of self-discovery, since it touched on my family and my childhood in a much more intimate way. On the other hand, writing The Audacity of Hope: Thought on Reclaiming the American Dream paralleled the work that I do every day--trying to give shape to all the issues that we face as a country, and providing my own personal stamp on them.

Q: What is your writing process like? You have such a busy schedule, how did you find time to write?

A: I'm a night owl, so I usually wrote at night after my Senate day was over, and after my family was asleep--from 9:30 p.m. or so until 1 a.m. I would work off an outline--certain themes or stories that I wanted to tell--and get them down in longhand on a yellow pad. Then I'd edit while typing in what I'd written.

Q: If readers are to come away from The Audacity of Hope with one action item (a New Year's Resolution for 2007, perhaps?), what should it be?

A: Get involved in an issue that you're passionate about. It almost doesn’t matter what it is--improving the school system, developing strategies to wean ourselves off foreign oil, expanding health care for kids. We give too much of our power away, to the professional politicians, to the lobbyists, to cynicism. And our democracy suffers as a result.

Q: You're known for being able to work with people across ideological lines. Is that possible in today's polarized Washington?

A: It is possible. There are a lot of well-meaning people in both political parties. Unfortunately, the political culture tends to emphasize conflict, the media emphasizes conflict, and the structure of our campaigns rewards the negative. I write about these obstacles in chapter 4 of my book, "Politics." When you focus on solving problems instead of scoring political points, and emphasize common sense over ideology, you'd be surprised what can be accomplished. It also helps if you're willing to give other people credit--something politicians have a hard time doing sometimes

Q: How do you make people passionate about moderate and complex ideas?

A: I think the country recognizes that the challenges we face aren't amenable to sound-bite solutions. People are looking for serious solutions to complex problems. I don't think we need more moderation per se--I think we should be bolder in promoting universal health care, or dealing with global warming. We just need to understand that actually solving these problems won't be easy, and that whatever solutions we come up with will require consensus among groups with divergent interests. That means everybody has to listen, and everybody has to give a little. That's not easy to do.

Q: What has surprised you most about the way Washington works?

A: How little serious debate and deliberation takes place on the floor of the House or the Senate.

Q: You talk about how we have a personal responsibility to educate our children. What small thing can the average parent (or person) do to help improve the educational system in America? What small thing can make a big impact?

A: Nothing has a bigger impact than reading to children early in life. Obviously we all have a personal obligation to turn off the TV and read to our own children; but beyond that, participating in a literacy program, working with parents who themselves may have difficulty reading, helping their children with their literacy skills, can make a huge difference in a child's life.

Q: Do you ever find time to read? What kinds of books do you try to make time for? What is on your nightstand now?

A: Unfortunately, I had very little time to read while I was writing. I'm trying to make up for lost time now. My tastes are pretty eclectic. I just finished Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, a wonderful book. The language just shimmers. I've started Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, which is a great study of Lincoln as a political strategist. I read just about anything by Toni Morrison, E.L. Doctorow, or Philip Roth. And I've got a soft spot for John le Carre .

Q: What inspires you? How do you stay motivated?

A: I'm inspired by the people I meet in my travels--hearing their stories, seeing the hardships they overcome, their fundamental optimism and decency. I'm inspired by the love people have for their children. And I'm inspired by my own children, how full they make my heart. They make me want to work to make the world a little bit better. And they make me want to be a better man.

*****

I found this book compelling and insightful. Obama reveals his personal feelings and values and hopes and humore about many things, and I came away from the book feeling that I understood him much better. Like most fathers that I know, he is deeply in love with his wife and children. Obama wants the best possible future for his family and for the rest of America as well. I recommend that you read this book if you want to be better informed about our next President.--BH

*****

Reading Quotes

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. ~Anna Quindlen, "Enough Bookshelves," New York Times, 7 August 1991

http://www.quotegarden.com/books.html

Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it. ~P.J. O'Rourke

http://www.quotegarden.com/books.html

A library is a hospital for the mind.~ Anonymous ~

http://www.richmond.k12.va.us/readamillion/readingquotes.htm

I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.

Woody Allenhttp://www.quoteworld.org/quotes/359

*****
All NY Times Best Seller Lists for Nov 13, 2008

Happy and Productive Reading
Copyright 2008

Tony Hillerman Dies at 83 in Albuquerque

2008-10-26T23:53:00.003-06:00

Tony Hillerman dies at 83

How "Of Human Bondage" starts and "The Last Lecture" and Suggestions of 2008 Political Books to Read

2008-09-05T13:30:00.003-06:00

Does the start of this fiction book catch your interest at all?

The following is the start of a novel that I talked about in my last post. See if the author catches your interest--

The day broke gray and dull. The clouds hung heavily, and there was a rawness in the air that suggested snow. A woman servant came into a room in which a child was sleeping and drew the curtains. She glanced mechanically at the house opposite, a stucco house with a portico, and went to the child's bed.

"Wake up, Philip," she said.She pulled down the bed-clothes, took him in her arms, and carried him downstairs. He was only half awake.

"Your mother wants you," she said.

She opened the door of a room on the floor below and took the child over to a bed in which a woman was lying. It was his mother. She stretched out her arms, and the child nestled by her side. He did not ask why he had been awakened. The woman kissed his eyes, and with thin, small hands felt the warm body through his white flannel nightgown. She pressed him closer to herself.

"Are you sleepy, darling?" she said.

Her voice was so weak that it seemed to come already from a great distance. The child did not answer, but smiled comfortably. He was very happy in the large, warm bed, with those soft arms about him. He tried to make himself smaller still as he cuddled up against his mother, and he kissed her sleepily. In a moment he closed his eyes and was fast asleep.The doctor came forwards and stood by the bed-side.

"Oh, don't take him away yet," she moaned.

The doctor, without answering, looked at her gravely. Knowing she would not be allowed to keep the child much longer, the woman kissed him again;and she passed her hand down his body till she came to his feet; she held the right foot in her hand and felt the five small toes; and then slowly passed her hand over the left one. She gave a sob.

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/5/351/351.txt

*****

Well, the author certainly catches my interest. What you just read is the first part of W. Somerset Magham's Of Human Bondage from an on-line version. If you want to find out more about what is going on, you can check the book out from the library, go to the link above, buy a copy from a bookstore, or order a copy from an online bookstore. As I mentioned in my last post, this is one of the one books that I have wanted to read for a long time.

*****

Of Human Bondage (1915) initially received adverse criticism both in England and America, with the New York World describing the romantic obsession of the main protagonist Philip Carey as "the sentimental servitude of a poor fool". Influential critic and novelist Theodore Dreiser, however, rescued the novel, referring to it as a work of genius, and comparing it to a Beethoven symphony. This review gave the book the lift it needed and it has since never been out of print http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Somerset_Maugham#Popular_success.2C_1914.E2.80.931939

*****

I am about to finish Maughan's The Summing Up. His observations of writing, reading, books, philosophy, other people, and how life "works" (in his opinion fascinate me. His life adventures will draw you in. I also have enjoyed his struggles to understand philosophy, and his conclusions about that venture. Also not to be missed is his discussion of "good" and evil" and God. Even if you don't agree, I think that you will find Maugham's writing and ideas a stimulator of thinking in his readers' minds

I recommend it, especially if you have ever wondered what the life of professional writers might consist?
*****

Current New York Times Best Sellers (Hardcover Fiction) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/books/bestseller/besthardfiction.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

(Hardcover Nonfiction) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/books/bestseller/besthardnonfiction.html

(All the Best Seller Lists)http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2008/09/06/books/bestseller/index.html

*****

Election 08--Suggested Books for Voters to read

Go to http://contemporarylit.about.com/od/readinglists/tp/books-for-voters.htm

*****

Suggested Book

The last lecture by Randy Pausch

Location: 004.092 PAU
Publication info:
New York : Hyperion Books, c2008.
Physical descrip:
x, 206 p. : ill. ; 19 cm.
Abstract:
Reflections of a Carnegie Mellon computer science professor who lectured on "Really achieving your childhood dreams," shortly after having been diagnosed with terminal cancer. His advice concerned seizing the moment while living, rather than dying.
Held by:
NMJC HOBBS CARLSBAD

From Amazon.com

Book Description"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."--Randy Pausch

A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

Questions for Randy Pausch
We were shy about barging in on Randy Pausch's valuable time to ask him a few questions about his expansion of his famous Last Lecture into the book by the same name, but he was gracious enough to take a moment to answer. (See Randy to the right with his kids, Dylan, Logan, and Chloe.) As anyone who has watched the lecture or read the book will understand, the really crucial question is the last one, and we weren't surprised to learn that the "secret" to winning giant stuffed animals on the midway, like most anything else, is sheer persistence.

Amazon.com: I apologize for asking a question you must get far more often than you'd like, but how are you feeling?

Pausch: The tumors are not yet large enough to affect my health, so all the problems are related to the chemotherapy. I have neuropathy (numbness in fingers and toes), and varying degrees of GI discomfort, mild nausea, and fatigue. Occasionally I have an unusually bad reaction to a chemo infusion (last week, I spiked a 103 fever), but all of this is a small price to pay for walkin' around.

Amazon.com: Your lecture at Carnegie Mellon has reached millions of people, but even with the short time you apparently have, you wanted to write a book. What did you want to say in a book that you weren't able to say in the lecture?

Pausch: Well, the lecture was written quickly--in under a week. And it was time-limited. I had a great six-hour lecture I could give, but I suspect it would have been less popular at that length ;-).

A book allows me to cover many, many more stories from my life and the attendant lessons I hope my kids can take from them. Also, much of my lecture at Carnegie Mellon focused on the professional side of my life--my students, colleagues and career. The book is a far more personal look at my childhood dreams and all the lessons I've learned. Putting words on paper, I've found, was a better way for me to share all the yearnings I have regarding my wife, children and other loved ones. I knew I couldn't have gone into those subjects on stage without getting emotional.

Amazon.com: You talk about the importance--and the possibility!--of following your childhood dreams, and of keeping that childlike sense of wonder. But are there things you didn't learn until you were a grownup that helped you do that?

Pausch: That's a great question. I think the most important thing I learned as I grew older was that you can't get anywhere without help. That means people have to want to help you, and that begs the question: What kind of person do other people seem to want to help? That strikes me as a pretty good operational answer to the existential question: "What kind of person should you try to be?"

Amazon.com: One of the things that struck me most about your talk was how many other people you talked about. You made me want to meet them and work with them--and believe me, I wouldn't make much of a computer scientist. Do you think the people you've brought together will be your legacy as well?

Pausch: Like any teacher, my students are my biggest professional legacy. I'd like to think that the people I've crossed paths with have learned something from me, and I know I learned a great deal from them, for which I am very grateful. Certainly, I've dedicated a lot of my teaching to helping young folks realize how they need to be able to work with other people--especially other people who are very different from themselves.

Amazon.com: And last, the most important question: What's the secret for knocking down those milk bottles on the midway?

Pausch: Two-part answer: 1) long arms 2) discretionary income / persistence

Actually, I was never good at the milk bottles. I'm more of a ring toss and softball-in-milk-can guy, myself. More seriously, though, most people try these games once, don't win immediately, and then give up. I've won *lots* of midway stuffed animals, but I don't ever recall winning one on the very first try. Nor did I expect to. That's why I think midway games are a great metaphor for life.

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Lecture-Randy-Pausch/dp/1401323251/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220842415&sr=1-1

W. Somerset Maugham, 1874 - 1965

2008-08-26T10:08:00.001-06:00

*****
Quotes by writer W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1975)

*****
The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.

The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
WSM at BrainyQuote
WSM at Wikipedia

*****

For much of my reading life (Photo courtesy of Yahoo; this is WSM, not me), one of the WSM books that I wanted to read was The Summing Up, written in 1938 by Mr. Maugham, a memoir of his writing life. Currently, I have read about 150 pages of it and have surprised myself by even being interested in the sections in which he writes about the English theater and writing drama and his theories about what makes drama "work." He characterizes himself very early in the book as being a very clear writer and that he is. By the way, he wrote The Summing Up before he wrote his next twenty books or so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliography_of_works_by_W._Somerset_Maugham

The books that I have always heard most associated with Maugham were Of Human Bondage(other book I have always wanted to read), The Razor's Edge, Cakes and Ale, and The Moon and Sixpence. I have The Razor's Edge packed away somewhere in the hope that I will someday read it, but as i am sure everyone else who loves reading has noticed, there are so many books to read, and who knows how much time to do it in.

I believe that some of these books will have to be borrowed on interlibrary loam since this is what we have here in our library.

Collected stories Maugham,
Of Human Bondage (See Amazon.com readers review below)
Somerset and all the Maughams Maugham, Robin, 1916-
Complete short storiesMaugham
Then and now, a novel
Introduction to modern English and American literature / E. Somerset MaughamMaugham, W. Somerset (William Somerset)
The moon and sixpence--Maugham

Look these and other Maugham titles on Google or Yahoo and check out some of the links on what the books or about and where you can find more information about.

Reader's review: Of Human Bondage from Amazon.com

W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage is one of the best novels I have ever read. The language is simple. The narration is subtle. The characters are real and display emotions and feelings everyone can identify with. The power of novel becomes apparent when you are reading it. You choke up every once a while, you smile for hours after you have finished reading certain passages, and you comprehend your own self, your woes and possibilities, better through perspectives that novel provides. Philip Carey is born with a clubfoot, and as he grows up, orphaned, he struggles with his own deformity. The initial quarter of the novel is about his growing up, and details incidents and relationships that shape our hero. He then develops a fancy of becoming a painter and travels to Paris, only to quit few years later to return to London, where he studies to become a doctor. The most engrossing part of novel starts here with the entry of Mildred, the waitress. The rest of the novel thrives on the passion of Philip, his love that carries him to the edge of self-destruction, and his coming of age. Unrequited love has never been potrayed better. Philip allows himself to become an instrument in hands of cold-hearted Mildred, who repeatedly ruins herself through absurd choices, and ruins him for not withstanding his love and care, he finds himself snubbed, ridiculed, bereft. Eventhough his reason tells him otherwise, Philip is unable to release himself from his passion for a considerable time. As is said in the novel, "But when all was said the important thing was to love rather than to be loved; and he yearned for Mildred with his whole soul." The novel is lot more than just story of Philip and Mildred, and there are other unforgettable characters. Each person Philip encounters and each friend he makes, leaves an indelible impression on him and the reader. Be it his idealist friend Hayward, who has too much promise too little product, the poet Cronshaw who dies in poverty, Fenny Price whose hard work cannot make her draw even reasonably well, his uncle and aunt whose love is both tacit and beautifully potrayed and the writer Norah who shows Philip of a caring and loving other. The most charming people in the novel are Athlneys. Athlney brings life and humor into the novel, and I think saves Philip from a total destruction. The novel really highlights the virtue that lies in a simple, happy married life and Anthlneys win over both Philip and readers with their goodness and simplicity. Thorpe Anthlney with his nine children is a jolly character, and be it his conversations or actions, he wins over our hearts outright. Philip finds love in most unexpected quarters and is surprised by how help crops up from strangers. His every experience makes him as richer as the reader becomes in reading about it. The thoughts about the meaning of life, or about love or religion or about virtue or vice, and about each aspect of life that Philip encounters are spelt out with a subtlety and mastery. These thoughts find easy resonance with the reader, and make Of Human Bondage an unforgettable affair. The honesty of this piece is stunning. This novel, written without any flourishes and intricate wordplay or mystery, is I think a celebration of the deep insight and understanding of the author. I have read his other works. The Razor's Edge, The Moon and Six Pence as well as his short stories are a proof of Maugham's ability to tell simple tales with great mastery. These, on their own, make Maugham a great novelist. But it is after reading Of Human Bondage that I realized why most novelists and readers have considered this piece as one the greatest pieces in World Literature. Maugham's aim was perhaps of catharisis and he put his own emotions into the characters, and therefore, he's created a work that is timeless and unforgettable. A must read for everyone who can read.

Vivek Sharma on Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0451530179/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Speaking of links, I saw an interesting link, Daily Lit, on Beth's blog page and added it to this blog pages. Check out her blog page (link to the right--Beth's Library Blog) for more interesting information about books and reading.

Stephenie Meyer, Jhumpa Lahiri, and LynneTruss

2008-07-16T16:40:00.004-06:00

On the WWW at http://usingbooksforfree.blogspot.com/
Blog by Bob Hoff
Email address: hoff_bob2003@yahoo.com

Where is the library? 101 S. Halagueno
What is the phone number? 885-6776
What are the open hours? M - T, 10 am - 8 pm;
F, S, 10 am - 6 pm; Su 2 pm - 6 pm

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So who is Stephenie Morgan Meyer and what has she written? We have four of her novels in the library--Twilight (2005), New Moon (2006), and Eclipse (2007), all directed toward teen readers, and Host , her first vovel aimed at adults. She has also written Breaking Dawn due out in 2008 and Midnight Sun, another book in the series..

Based on these book titles, what do you think they are about? If you said "star gazing," you are wrong. These very popular books are about one of my least favorite subjects--vampires-- and more specifically a vampire lover. But if that sounds like your cup of...blo..er...tea, check them out at the our library.

Experts tell us that many readers nowadays enjoy reading about horror. Do you?

Stephenie Meyer at Wikipedia
Stephenie Meyer on Amazon.com
"Teen Reading; Trends and Resources" at About.com Children's Books

Quotation from Twilight by Stephenie Meyer :

*****************************************************

"About three things I was absolutely positive:

First, Edward was a vampire;

Second, there was a part of him -- and I didn't know how dominant that part might be -- that thirsted for my blood;

And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him."

Goodreads

****************************************************************

Author Meyer has a new book out entitled The Host. It is located in the library at SCI-FIC MEY. Abstract from the library catalog card:

The earth has been invaded by a species that take over the minds of their human hosts while leaving their bodies intact, and most of humanity has succumbed. But Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. Wanderer, the invading "soul" who has been given Melanie's body, knew about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the too vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn't expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind. Melanie fills Wanderer's thoughts with visions of the man Melanie loves--Jared, a human who still lives in hiding. Unable to separate herself from her body's desires, Wanderer yearns for a man she's never met. As outside forces make Wanderer and Melanie unwilling allies, they set off to search for the man they both love.--From publisher description.

**********************************************************************************

A customer in the bookstore that I used to work at recommended the writer Jhumpa Lahari to me. I was intriqued to find out that her debut book of short stories--Interpreter of Maladies-- had won the the Pullitzer Prize in 1999. I don't know why I started with Namesake instead of Interpreter of Maladies: Stories or Unaccustomed Earth: Stories(her most recent book published in 2008), but I did (Our library has all three). Young Bengali immigrants Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli come to America in the 1960s in the 1960s, specifically to Massachusetts, my home state. The story of the family over the next three-plus decades reveal many interesting things about Bengali and American cultures as seen by each other and about the story of a young man searching for happiness and where that search takes him. WARNING: do not read the plot summery for The Namesake at Wikipedia, unless you like knowing about surprises ahead of time.

The ways that I can tell if I liked a book is how compelled I felt to finish it and if I do finish it. The Namesake met both of these criteria

J. Lahiri interviewed about her books
Jhumpa Lahiri at Wikipedia
Jhumpa Lahiri on Amazon.com

**********************************************************************************

What can you say about a British author who wrote a best-selling British book about a “zero tolerance approach to punctuation” and a New York Times #1 best seller about rudeness in the world today and why it might just be better to stay home and not go out.

What I believe that you can say about author Lynne Truss who wrote Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation! (2003) and Talk to the Hand #?*! The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Lock the Bloody Door (2005) is that she is an interesting writer who has selected two topics that if many of us practiced (using correct punctuation and not being rude to others), we could individually make the world a better place.

The subjects in these two books have powerful and dangerous side effects: when we punctuate incorrectly, we obscure the meaning of what we are trying to write to people, and when we are rude to other people, we not only become involved in unsavory incidents, but sometimes-dangerous violent and dangerous ones. In Talk to the Hand...Truss tells the story of a man on a bus in England who complained about a gang of young boys—and was set on fire by the thugs. In another case, a man told some people not to throw food at his girlfriend and they retaliated by stabbing him to death.

The minor rudeness incidents that she cites most of us probably will recognize: the two store clerks who continue to talk to each other, ignoring us, even after we approach the counter. The long unmarked lines that we wait in and when we get to the front are sent to another line, wasting our time. In addition, the cashier who gives us the wrong change and then cannot fix the problem because the register is locked and can only be opened by a supervisor who arrives only after an inordinate amount of time—and offers us no apology.

The people who go into our places of work—a library, a bookstore, any kind of store, and throw things (or let their kids throw things) around as if a battalion of people are standing by to clean up after them, as if they are nobility or royalty who may wreak havoc wherever they go.

Both least books are very worth reading. Both develop the same theme: that the world can only be a better place when each of us is considerate of other people around us and do our part in acting in the interest of the common good. Whether not littering or writing carefully or holding door open for other people, or not leaving public spaces as if FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) needs to improve it, everyone benefits by thinking about the needs of others, not just their own needs.

The book on punctuation is available for our public library, while the book on rudeness was borrowed for me from the Hobb's Public library through inter-library loan.

Both books: I recommend highly for content, excellent writing, and humor style.

Lynne Truss on Amazon.com
Lynne Truss on Wikipedia
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Note the new link to the right on the history of Eddy and Carlsbad, New Mexico, written by Professor Lynn I. Perrigo
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QUOTES to Note:

"Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all." Abraham Lincoln
http://www.quoteworld.org/quotes/10270

The books we think we ought to read are poky, dull, and dry;
The books that we would like to read we are ashamed to buy;
The books that people talk about we never can recall;
And the books that people give us, oh, they’re the worst of all.
ATTRIBUTION: Carolyn Wells (1870–1942), U.S. author. On Books.
http://www.bartleby.com/66/67/63667.html

© Bob Hoff, 2008

Toni Morrison, Kurt Vonnegut, David and Amy Sedaris, Page Smith, and Eckhard Tolle, Pulitzer Prize for Literature, Nobel Prize for Literature

2008-05-28T13:25:00.002-06:00

If there's a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison at QuoteGarden.com
Toni Morrison at Wikipedia
Toni Morrison at The New York Times Book Review

Works by Toni Morrison held by the library:

Love
The Ant or the Grasshopper? (Juvenile)
Paradise
The Bluest Eye
Jazz
Beloved: A Novel (Awarded a Puilitzer Prize)
Song of Soloman
Sula

Toni Morrison received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature

{Read On---Read On---Read On}

Looking for what's on the New York Times Bestseller List--in all the different categories (hardback fiction and non-fiction; paperback fiction and non-fiction; children's books and much more), then go to:

Books at New York Times Book Review

And don't forget that our Carlsbad Library staff is constantly adding books from the the lists above. In fact, they have updated sheets on what has been recently acquired and what is on order from the best sellar lists. And other new books, not yet on the best sellar lists, are added as well. A book by one of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut, who passed away in April 2007, was recently acquired: Armageddon in Retrospect and other new and unpublished writings on war and peace. I feel like Kurt Vonnegut was my friend for almost forty years.

What other Vonnegut books do we luckily possess in our public library?

A Man Without a Country

Mother Night

Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction

Timequake

Slaughterhouse-five, or, The children's crusade : a duty-dance with death

Hocus pocus

Galapagos : a novel

Deadeye Dick

Palm Sunday : an autobiographical collage

Breakfast of champions; or, Goodbye blue Monday!

The library doesn't have the Vonnegut book that I started with and was thereafter hooked on his writing, Welcome to the Monkey House, a collection of short stories. My favorite Vonnegut book:

{Read On---Read On---Read On}

Kurt Vonnegut at Brainy Quote
Kurt Vonnegut at Wikipedia
Kurt Vonnegut at The New York Times Book Review

Quick Recommendations:
Me Talk Pretty Some Day by David Sedaris
814.54 SED 1 BOOK NONFIC
The first humorous essay in this collection looks at speech therapy David received as a youngster; very funny. Both David and his sister Amy are acclaimed humorists
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightment by Eckhard Tolle
A book that reminds you that you should be in charge of your mind, not vice versa. Explains how you can set your mind straight. Caution: parts may have to be reread and digested slowly, but that is a small price to pay for moving pass situational dysfunction, no?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Any American history book by author Page Smith. His books are detailed, interesting, and around 1,000 pages each. An incredibly writer gifted with the talent to bring history alive, as the cliche goes. I am currently reading (along with a few other books) the fifth one of the eight I have found. These books are relatively rare, so our library doesn't have all of them, but I have found some on-line. I recommend reading them in order if you plan to read them all. *****+
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Happy, Entertaining, Productive, and Escapist Reading to You

© Bob Hoff, 2008

Louis L'Amour and Reading Providing Us "Extra" Lives

2008-04-03T14:16:00.002-06:00

It is often said that one has but one life to live, but that is nonsense. For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.
Louis L'Amour,
Education of a Wandering Man
Louis L'Amour at Wikipedia

Louis L'Amour, a prolific writer and storyteller about the West, wrote over 100 books before he passed away at age 80. His autobiography, Education of a Wandering Man, throws light on his development as a writer, his life events and experiences that preceded his writing days, and documents many of the books that he read in his life.

Our library has many of his works, so dip in if you feel the inclination.

In my March 17, 2008 post Click Here (Push left blue arrow at top to return to this post)
I mentioned a series of four historical novels written written by British author Conn Iggulden about Julius Caesar. These books were recommended to me by a lady at work; she was pretty darn excited by them. She also recommended the one that C.I. wrote entitled Genghis : Birth of an Empire. Well, my wife, who likes to read and who has for her live long years, has read the first two and is hankering for me to go and get her the third book in the series. Seems that Conn Iggulden is a good writer in her opinion as well.

He has also written (with his brother Hal) The Dangerous Book for Boys which we don't have at our library so you will have to request it through interlibrary loan. I have only leafed through it so don't have any strong impressions of it. BarnesandNoble.com says--
Synopsis
The bestselling book for every boy from eight to eighty, covering essential boyhood skills such as building tree houses, learning how to fish, finding true north, and even answering the age old question of what the big deal with girls is.

In this digital age there is still a place for knots, skimming stones and stories of incredible courage. This book recaptures Sunday afternoons, stimulates curiosity, and makes for great father-son activities. The brothers Conn and Hal have put together a wonderful collection of all things that make being young or young at heart fun---building go-carts and electromagnets, identifying insects and spiders, and flying the world's best paper airplanes.The completely revised American Edition includes: The Greatest Paper Aiplane in the World,The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World,The Five Knots Every Boy Should Know,Stickball,Slingshots, Fossils, Building a Treehouse, Making a Bow and Arrow, Fishing (revised with US Fish)Timers and Tripwires, Baseball's "Most Valuable Players, "Famous Battles-Including Lexington and Concord, The Alamo, and Gettysburg," Spies-Codes and Ciphers, Making a Go-Cart, Navajo Code Talkers' Dictionary, Girls,Cloud Formations, The States of the U.S., Mountains of the U.S.,Navigation, The Declaration of Independence, Skimming Stones, Making a Periscope, The Ten Commandments, Common US Trees and Timeline of American History

Publishers Weekly
This abbreviated version of the bestselling book from across the pond ambitiously tries to live up to its billing as "the perfect book for every boy from eight to eighty." Though younger boys will find much to ponder in such "Questions About the World" as "How far away are the stars?" and "Why is the sky blue?," as well as profiles of super-courageous people, they may find denser passages on famous battles of the world (Hastings, Crécy, Lexington and Concord) a bit slower going. Wyman is a game tour guide to all things boy, infusing his narration with a 'did you know...?' enthusiasm that will hook a broad listenership. Sections on girls and first aid (including CPR and setting breaks) are also meant for a slightly older crowd, but lots of boys of varying ages (and their dads) will find this enlightened nonfiction compendium of essential guy stuff hard to resist. In addition to the wealth of information provided, Conn Iggulden reminds listeners in a brief afterword that being a man ultimately means being honest, loyal, kind and unselfish-oh, and "keeping clean, body and mind." Ages 10-up.

Black History Month for 2008 has come and gone. For a post that I wrote almost 14 months ago in February 2007 including information on Black History Month, please Click Here It is so difficult to believe that it has been 40 years since Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Two months later Robert Kennedy met the same fate. One of my book reading goals is to read a biography on Mohandas Ghandi who largely influenced Reverend King in adopting his own non-violent beliefs.

African American writers from the United States

Actually, all education is self-education. A teacher is only a guide, to
point out the way, and no school, no matter how excellent, can give you
education. What you receive is like the outlines in a child’s coloring book. You
must fill in the colors yourself.

Louis L'Amour

Louis L'Amour at ThinkExist.com

See you at the library, my reading friends.

© Bob Hoff, 2008

The Kite Runner Novel--Not to be Missed!

2008-03-22T22:05:00.007-06:00

Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.
Marcel Proust, 1871 - 1922
http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/3992
Marcel Proust at Wikipedia In_Search_of_Lost_Time

The Kite Runner

The New York Times Book Review called The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini “Powerful...Haunting. (They continue) This powerful first novel...tells a story of fierce cruelty and fierce yet redeeming love. Both transform the life of Amir, Khaled Hossrini’s privileged young narrator, who comes of age during the last peaceful days of the monarchy, just before the country’s revolution and its invasion by Russians.” (NYTBR)

Hosseini's novel is a gripping and suspenseful novel about friendship, a novel that contains many sudden, unpredictable developments, right up to the last pages. It also unravels a complex relationship between a father and a son, and between two young friends, set against the physical beauty and cultural splendor of Afghanistan.

Do I recommend this book? Yes, wholeheartedly. Moreover, I look forward to the release of the movie soon. Get the book at our library. You might even like it enough to recommend it to a friend.

--BH

Excerpt reviews from Amazon.com

Amazon.com

In his debut novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini accomplishes what very few contemporary novelists are able to do. He manages to provide an educational and eye-opening account of a country's political turmoil--in this case, Afghanistan--while also developing characters whose heartbreaking struggles and emotional triumphs resonate with readers long after the last page has been turned over. And he does this on his first try.
The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant. As children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted. Even after Amir and his father flee to America, Amir remains haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty. In part, it is these demons and the sometimes impossible quest for forgiveness that bring him back to his war-torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule. ("...I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.")

Some of the plot's turns and twists may be somewhat implausible, but Hosseini has created characters that seem so real that one almost forgets that The Kite Runner is a novel and not a memoir. At a time when Afghanistan has been thrust into the forefront of America's collective consciousness ("people sipping lattes at Starbucks were talking about the battle for Kunduz"), Hosseini offers an honest, sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, but always heartfelt view of a fascinating land. Perhaps the only true flaw in this extraordinary novel is that it ends all too soon. --Gisele Toueg --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Publishers Weekly

Hosseini's stunning debut novel starts as an eloquent Afghan version of the American immigrant experience in the late 20th century, but betrayal and redemption come to the forefront when the narrator, a writer, returns to his ravaged homeland to rescue the son of his childhood friend after the boy's parents are shot during the Taliban takeover in the mid '90s. Amir, the son of a well-to-do Kabul merchant, is the first-person narrator, who marries, moves to California and becomes a successful novelist. But he remains haunted by a childhood incident in which he betrayed the trust of his best friend, a Hazara boy named Hassan, who receives a brutal beating from some local bullies. After establishing himself in America, Amir learns that the Taliban have murdered Hassan and his wife, raising questions about the fate of his son, Sohrab. Spurred on by childhood guilt, Amir makes the difficult journey to Kabul, only to learn the boy has been enslaved by a former childhood bully who has become a prominent Taliban official. The price Amir must pay to recover the boy is just one of several brilliant, startling plot twists that make this book memorable both as a political chronicle and a deeply personal tale about how childhood choices affect our adult lives. The character studies alone would make this a noteworthy debut, from the portrait of the sensitive, insecure Amir to the multilayered development of his father, Baba, whose sacrifices and scandalous behavior are fully revealed only when Amir returns to Afghanistan and learns the true nature of his relationship to Hassan. Add an incisive, perceptive examination of recent Afghan history and its ramifications in both America and the Middle East, and the result is a complete work of literature that succeeds in exploring the culture of a previously obscure nation that has become a pivot point in the global politics of the new millennium.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review Excerpts of The Kite Runner at Amazon.com

A Couple More Links

I have added the Barnes and Noble Internet bookstore link along with already posted links at Amazon and GoHastings and Alibris. This bookstores are not only great places to buy copies of your favorite books, but to find out more information about particular books (as I did with The Kite Runner. The other awesome (a favorite word of our grandson) site for book information is New York Times: Books; to put its value and enjoyment for book information to me into the parlance of some of the younger generation: "it rocks!"

Another site to check out when you have time is America's Story from the Library of Congress, where insights into the story of America await your browsing and clicking for more information (important: don't forget to click for more information occasionally). Another reminder: check out the Library of Congress site as well.

By the way, have you been to The Cranky Librarian (just one of many such sites) where links to entire books exist on line? Would you try to read an entire book on line? Not me. But I might browse small parts of an entire book on line to see if I wanted to borrow it from our library, failing that, borrowing it from another library, and failing that, maybe even buying it, a difficult option these days because lack of book storage room.

By the way, these days we see many advertisements, suggestions, and reminders about Think Green, don't we, ways to reduce our impact on the earth and it's ever-dwindling finite resources. And it makes sense to maximize resource options for the generations yet to follow us.

When buying a book, how might we Think Green? Right; buy a used book, if possible. I know that lots of valid reasons exist for buy only a new book, but if you are "just" going to read it (and not add it to a book collection or give it as a gift), why not Think Green when purchasing your next book at a bookstore or on-line?

'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakably meant for his ear; the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it its discovered by an equal mind and heart.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803 - 1882
Ralph Waldo Emerson on Madluckbooks.blogspot.com
Ralph Waldo Emerson on Wikipedia
© Bob Hoff, 2008

The True Pun...

2008-03-17T09:40:00.002-06:00

http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/2762

The goodness of the true pun is in the direct ratio of its intolerability.— C, MARGINALIA

Edgar Allan Poe at Bookreporter.com
Edgar Allan Poe at Wikipedia

Who is Conn Iggulden?

Don't I mean "what" is a Conn Iggulden? No, I don't, thank you very much. I do mean who. Mr. Iggulden, a British author who writes mainly historical fiction, was born in 1971, the year that I got married. Last night at work, a woman customer was looking for one of the books in Mr. Iggulden's Emperor series that is loosely based on the life of julius Caesar.

If you talk to people about their favorite authors, you get used to the enthusiasm that those people wrap the author up in if they really enjoy the author. I personally enjoy hearing enthusiasm for authors, books, reading, and other subjects close to my heart. I enjoyed finding out about Mr. Iggulden from this lady. Her husband didn't show any enthusiasm for reading, milding stately that in his career he had already done enough reading.

At Wikipedia, we find that Iggulden's first book in the Emperor series came out in 2003--The Gates of Rome, the youth of Caesar (little Caesar?). Then, The Dream of Kings in 2004, The Field of Swords in 2005, and finally, The Gods of War in 2006.

And guess what, my friends? Our library has all four books of the series. I checked one out today to see how it "read" and it reads very well. It starts off very exciting, indeed.

Two partial reviews of The Gates of Rome posted at Amazon.com--

From Publishers Weekly
If the Roman Empire had taken as long to rise and fall as this novel takes to discover a main character and a plot, most of the world would still be wearing togas today. The story, such as it is, revolves around two boys: Gaius, the broody son of a wealthy senator, and Marcus, a prostitute's mischievous child who is reared as Gaius's brother and trained with him in the arts of war. Before the two boys reach majority, they are thrust into adulthood by the untimely death of Gaius's father and take up residence in Rome with Gaius's uncle Marius, a powerful consul who is vying with Sulla for control of the Republic. When Marcus is 14, he joins the Fourth Macedonian Legion to earn his fortune; Gaius remains by his uncle's side. Iggulden lingers long over boyhood pranks, trying the reader's patience; the pace picks up only halfway through the novel. Frequent fight scenes, ranging from individual combat to full scale battles, liven the mix somewhat, but the cartoon-like ability of the characters to bounce back after a few stitches weakens the effect. Though Iggulden has a solid grounding in Roman military history, anachronisms in speech and attitude ("Cabera took him outside and gave him a hiding") roll underfoot and trip up authenticity. A major twist toward the end reveals the protagonists to be two of Roman history's best-known figures, but readers with some knowledge of the period will have guessed their identities already. This is ultimately little more than a protracted introduction to a bigger story, which Iggulden will surely go on to tell.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
English writer Iggulden's first novel is the story of two young boys-Gaius and Marcus, raised as brothers though one is illegitimate-as they grow to adulthood in Rome two millennia ago. At that time, the republic was beginning to fall apart, a collapse that would result in the civil wars that brought the emperors to power. It was a time of turmoil, chaos, revolutions, casual violence, and savage brutality, and Iggulden's descriptions of the culture and environment are vivid. Although covering a period unknown to most lay readers, Emperor is a surprisingly fast and often exciting read. Iggulden admits to taking some liberties with history, and his masking the identities of Gaius and Marcus is unnecessary and distracting. While the real identity of Marcus (Et tu, Brute?) may be a puzzle, readers with a fair knowledge of Roman history will quickly identify Gaius (think of the Ides of March). Also, the roles of historical warlords Marius and Sulla are not well clarified. Still, this entertaining historical novel will appeal to fans of Steven Pressfield and Michael Curtis Ford. For larger collections. Robert Conroy, Warren, MI
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Reviews of The Gates of Rome at Amazon.com

The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.
C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis at Quote Database
C.S. Lewis at Wikipedia

© Bob Hoff, 2008

"New books for those in pursuit of a little romance.."

2008-03-05T14:05:00.000-07:00

When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.

Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov at Brainy Quote.com
Isaac Asimov at Wikipedia

Did you know that Isaac Asimov, who died at the age of 72, wrote and edited more than 500 books? Furthermore, during his lifetime, he was considered one of the "big- three" science-fiction writers.

My progress report and my need of new adjective: In my last post I said that I was about 80 pages into The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and that it was spell-binding I am about another 100 pages further and this book has turned into "gripping" (is that stronger than spell-binding?) What a great read! Highly recommended by many others, not just me. Visit Mr. Hosseini's web page at:
Khaled Hosseini on the Web

From Beth's Blog, January 11, 2008

"New books for those in pursuit of a little romance"

I've seen Valentine decorations up in the stores already! Ladies, if you're single and dating, ever wonder what the men are thinking? You need wonder no longer, because Steve Santagati, author and television personality, has penned the very frank tell-all book The MANual to help you out. Quite an eye-opener! If you'd rather live in a princess/handsome prince fantasy world, don't read this--it's like having your older brother clue you in before your big date. For teen girls who have similar questions, I recommend 60 Clues About Guys: A Guide to Feelings, Flirting and Falling in Like, by Roxanne Camron.

I'm not trying to ignore the men, but there don't seem to be a lot of books written on how to understand women. (I don't need a book to tell me what the guys are thinking about *that* statement.) There's Dr. John Gray, with his Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus series, which is a bestseller internationally; however, I note that it does have a chapter titled "How to give up trying to change a man!" Romance need not end when the marriage vows are said. For tips on how to stay close to your spouse, try The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman or 10 Great Dates to Revitalize Your Marriage by David and Claudia Arp. For those still on the dating scene, we have several titles, including Boomer's Guide to Dating (Again), by Dr. Laurie Helgoe for those over fifty, Absolute Beginner's Guide to Online Dating by Greg Holden, and Easy Does It Dating Guide: For People in Recovery, by Mary Falkner, focusing on how to stay with your twelve-step program while finding a mate.Clearly, the message here is: it's not too late to find someone special--so if you need some ideas or encouragement, stop by the library to find a book that's just right for you.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=199468252

Thanks, Beth, for these recommendations. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman is on my To Read List. I have browsed through it and it looks very interesting. I think that the subject of men-women relationships is a fascinating one, and if I am pressed long and persistently enough, someday I may have to write down by long years of accumulated wisdom on that subject. (Yes, I am indeed mocking myself in that preceding sentence.)

In my February 24 post I mentioned that our grandson surprised us by asking Grandma to read his favorite book (You're My Little Love Bug)to him when we didn't even know that he had a favorite book, for goodness sakes. By the way, he selected it as his favorite book BEFORE we put his picture into it. Now we are reading some Dick and Jane books to him that he seems to like. He also likes Spot the Dog and Puff the cat. I didn't realize until today that the Dick and Jane series fell under criticism. See
Dick and Jane at Wikipedia

It wasn't until later in life that I found out that having to read Dick and Jane books in Freshman English meant that I was in a slow reader class. So what--I enjoyed the plots and the colorful illustrations even then, and heck, I did get a B- in the class (with just a little bit of tutoring)

Check out this great books link at Wikipedia, will you? I think that you'll enjoy.

Portal: Books at Wikipedia I have added it to my blog's links to the right.

Don't forget to spend some time as much as you can reading something that you enjoy. Even if you have to put off some housework for a while. :) (Don't let my adorable wife see this, please)

© Bob Hoff, 2008

"All with one library ticket..."

2008-02-24T08:48:00.020-07:00

I've traveled the world twice over,

Met the famous; saints and sinners,

Poets and artists, kings and queens,

Bold stars and hopeful beginners,

I've been where no-one's been before,

Learned secrets from writers and cooks

All with one library ticket

To the wonderful world of books.

~ Anonymous ~

Reading Quotes

What is the book on the top of the New York Times best seller list for hardback non-fiction for the week of 3/2/08? Fifty three-year old Arkansas-born author John Grisham's The Appeal, a book that our library holds. Here is what the New York Times said about it:

NYT's Review of The Appeal
John Grisham at Wikipedia

The Wikipedia article reveals that Grisham has sold quite a few books in his time. Have you ever read one? Do you like novels by him? Who is your favorite novelist to read and why? Send your thoughts to share with other readers. All I will include, with your permission is your first name. So email your thoughts to me at address above.

Another subject that I would like to hear from you on is what books you read as a younger person that turned you on to reading. It is my experience that people who like to read many times like to talk about reading and books. So e-mail your thoughts to me at address above.

I would like to recommend a science fictiion book that I read several years ago, entitled Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card. The ideas advanced in this book will flabbergast you in their novelty and concept, I'm willing to betcha' . And our library has it in the SCI-FIC section, alphabetized by "CAR."

I am 80 pages into The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. This book is absolutely spell-binding. Check it out at the library. In the general fiction section--HOSS
The Kite Runner at The New York Times
Khaled Hosseini at Wikipedia

Damu-- the wonder dog (we wonder why we keep him) seen here with his master (the master of us and a lot of other people as well). Master loves to play video games; meanwhile we are buying him loots of books, reading to him and asking him to pretend read to us. The other night, he asked Grandma (my wife on my family's side), "Grandma, will you read my favorite book to me?" This from a 32 month old who we didn't know had a favorite book. Ah, the glow of contentment is still with us. I can't explain the height and width of the satisfaction that arose from Grandma hearing this and relaying it later to the then sleeping grandpa (me; on my side of the family)

Read not to contradict and confute;
nor to believe and take for granted;
nor to find talk and discourse;
but to weigh and consider.
Some books are to be tasted,
others to be swallowed,
and some few to be chewed and digested:
that is,some books are to be read only in parts,
others to be read, but not curiously,
and some fewto be read wholly,
and with diligence and attention.
Francis Bacon

Reading Quotes
Frences Bacon at Wikipedia

© Bob Hoff, 2008

How High is Your Pile of Books to Read?

2008-01-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

http://usingbooksforfree.blogspot.com/

Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them!
How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read hem.
Arnold Lobel

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/39056.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Lobel

Regarding Links on this Library Blog

- Be sure and check out the library links to the right occasionally.
- Notice that this blog has a link to the Library's Online Catalog System.
- Just a reminder--to return to the blog page from a link, you must continue to click the blue left arrow at the top of your browser page until you return to the blog page,
- If you have any suggestions for good book/ reading/ reference Internet links, let me know at hoff_bob2003@yahoo.com Thank you.
Where did all the paperbacks go?
Category: Writing and Poetry
Where did all the paperback books go at Carlsbad Public Library? Don't worry--they're still here. We moved them from their location by the windows to the northwest corner of the library--where the genealogy section used to be. The genealogy books have moved to the closed stacks, but are still available if you ask the library staff to help you find what you want.The paperbacks are now shelved in a much more convenient manner for our library patrons--instead of being on turning racks, they're on actual bookshelves, which makes for much easier browsing. They are arranged in the categories of romance, mystery, general fiction, fantasy, western, science fiction, and non-fiction.Why move the books in the first place? Well, we wanted to extend several of the shelves in our adult fiction area so we can add more books, and we had to move the paperback racks out of the way in order to do that. If you're not sure where the northwest corner of the library is, be sure to ask one of our library staff--we'll be happy to show you!..
Currently reading : Anything for Jane: A Novel By Cheryl Mendelson Release date: 31 July, 2007 (From Beth's Carlsbad Public Library Blog at: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=199468252
Note: See Beth's link above and be sure to visit her site for much useful library, books, and reading information.

Book Review: The Kissing Hand

Now it might occur to you how does a man in my age bracket (which is certainly a lot older than I was several years ago) come to reaf a book titled The Kissing Hand.
First it was one of the several books that she bought for our grandson at a recent school bookfair. I have always had a partialality to raccoons ever since we lived at Carlsbad Caverns in the 1970s and we had raccoons that raided that raided our trash can so I jumped into this children's storybook about raccoons. The dedication by author Audrey Penn caught my eye; it reads "To Stefanie Rebecca Koren and children everywhere who loved to be loved." I'm thinking right way that children who loved to be loved takes in most children, wouldn't you imagine?

The story starts with Chester Raccoon crying to his mother that he doesn't want to start school (night school at that), but that for a variety of reasons that he expresses he would rather stay home with her. To encourage Chester, Mama reveals a secret that she learned from her Mama, a secret that includes kissing and hands. Read this enchanting story to your young children facing separation anxiety And see the new gift that Chester receives from his Mama.
I saw this 1993 book recent in a local bookstore and found out that it was once ranked as #1 on a New York Times Bestseller list.
Our Library call number for The Kissing Hand is: J-E Pen
Review from Barnes and Noble:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781933718002&tabname=custreview&itm=2

Bookstore Job

I have been workiing pert-time in a bookstore for about two months and have found it very educational--about books, about reading, about people. During parts of my last three shifts I have been alphabetizing soft-cover and hard-cover children's storybooks-what an amaziing variety of such storybooks exist, and of course, I am only seeing a fraction of what is on the larger market. If I bought every book that I liked for my grandson, I believe that I would be spending more at the store than I am making.

Many people finding out that I work at a bookstore comment that it is a perfect place for me because they know how much I like books. I am surprised how many people think that workiing in a bookstore allows lots of time for personal reading. Actually it allows no time for reading--except for scanning the tag for what category the book should be filed in and looking at the author's name to see how the book should be alphabetized.

My main pet peeve is that some of the customers, it seems to me, abuse the books and magazines, treating the bookstore like a library, and in the process, not taking very good care of the stores books and magazines and other materials. But on the other hand, many people do show consideration in how they treat the items that they are browsing or looking at. A couple friends of mine who are librarians have mentioned that some of the library patrons are disrespectful of the library's properties.

I sure miss the situation that I enjoyed in the National Park Service, helping visitors to enjoy the various park resources where I worked. But when a visitor or visitors decided to not heklp in taking care of the park's resources, those of us working with those visitors could educate them, or in some cases provide for "low level" law enforcement, or higher level law enforcement if that was necessary. In the parks and the bookstore and libraries, some visitors cannot discipline themselves to take care of the resources they use, ensuring that others who folow in their footsteps will have access to resources that have been taken care of.

Higher-level law enforcement officers, in such situations, can help motivate such people.

One fact is for sure--libraries and bookstores both constantly remind me that there isn't enough time to read everything that I feel attracted toward reading.

Libraries are reservoirs of strength,
grace and wit,
reminders of order,
calm and continuity,
lakes of mental energy,
neither warm nor cold,
light nor dark.
The pleasure they give is steady,
unorgastic, reliable,
deep and long-lasting.

Germaine Greer

http://www.librarysupportstaff.com/quotes4lib.html#creative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germaine_Greer

© Bob Hoff, 2008

Into 2008: What Did You Read Last Year?

2008-01-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love.
Christopher Morley, 1890 - 1957
Quotations Page

Christopher Morley at Wikipedia
Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.
Christopher Morley, Ibid

Into 2008: What Did You Read Last Year?
What did you read last year that you really enjoyed and would recommend to others to read and why ( a paragraph or two). Who is your favorite author and why? What book would you recommend that others don't read and why.
What was the last movie that you saw that prompted you to read the book that it was based on? Which was better, the book or the movie?
What recommendations to you have for authors/ illustrators of childrens' books? Please specify age of intended audiences for specific titles
I would like to get your opinions and share them with others in this blog. Please write to me at hoff_bob2003@yahoo.com I reserve the right to only publish only opinions that support reading since that is the purpose of this blog.
If you want to attack reading and put it down, teach yourself HTML computer language and start our own blog. So there.

New York Times, Best Sellers, Jan 13th
ThisWeek--Paperback Trade Fiction

1
THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH, by Ken Follett. (New American Library, $24.95 and $20.) Murder, arson and lust surround the building of a 12th-century cathedral.
2
THE KITE RUNNER, by Khaled Hosseini. (Riverhead, $15.95 and $14.) An Afghan-American returns to Kabul to learn how a childhood friend has fared.
3
ATONEMENT, by Ian McEwan. (Anchor, $14.95.) A chronicle of the disintegration of an English family’s idyllic life.
4
LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA, by Gabriel García Márquez. (Vintage International, $14.95.) A Colombian poet’s love for a woman is tested.
5
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, by Sara Gruen. (Algonquin, $13.95.) A young man — and an elephant — save a Depression-era circus.
6
I AM LEGEND, by Richard Matheson. (Tor/Tom Doherty, $14.95.) In this reissued horror novel, plague survivors, turned into vampires, seek to destroy the one man who appears immune to the disease.
7
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, by Cormac McCarthy. (Vintage, $14.) Mayhem ensues in this reissued novel after a West Texas man stumbles upon $2 million in drug money — and decides to keep it.
8
THE MEMORY KEEPER’S DAUGHTER, by Kim Edwards. (Penguin, $14.) A doctor’s decision to secretly send his newborn daughter, who has Down syndrome, to an institution haunts everyone involved.
9
THE ROAD, by Cormac McCarthy. (Vintage, $14.95.) A father and son travel in post-apocalypse America.
10
THE ALCHEMIST, by Paulo Coelho. (HarperSanFrancisco, $13.95 and $13.) A Spanish shepherd boy travels to Egypt in search of treasure.
11
PS, I LOVE YOU, by Cecelia Ahern. (Hyperion, $13.95.) A young widow performs a series of tasks laid out in a package of letters written by her husband.
12
WORLD WAR Z, by Max Brooks. (Three Rivers, $14.95.) An “oral history” of an imagined Zombie War that nearly destroys civilization.
13
THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN, by Mitch Albom. (Hyperion, $12.) An old man who died trying to rescue a girl finds all is explained in the afterlife.
14
SUITE FRANÇAISE, by Irène Némirovsky. (Vintage, $14.95.) Two novellas, which came to light more than 50 years after the author’s death at Auschwitz.
15
THE EMPEROR’S CHILDREN, by Claire Messud. (Vintage, $14.95.) Privileged 30-somethings try to make their way in literary New York just before 9/11.
16
THE THIRTEENTH TALE, by Diane Setterfield. (Washington Square, $15.) A biographer struggles to discover the truth about an aging writer who has mythologized her past.
17
MIDDLESEX, by Jeffrey Eugenides. (Picador, $15.) An epic story about three generations of Greek-Americans, told by a hermaphrodite.
18
DEAR JOHN, by Nicholas Sparks. (Warner, $13.99.) An unlikely romance between a soldier and an idealistic young woman is tested in the aftermath of 9/11.
19
WHAT IS THE WHAT, by Dave Eggers. (Vintage, $15.95.) The fictionalized autobiography of one of Sudan’s “Lost Boys,” refugees from its civil war.
20
HALO: CONTACT HARVEST, by Joseph Staten. (Tom Doherty Associates, $14.95.) A squad of marines and militia trainees is called to save a farming colony threatened by an aggressive alien empire.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/books/bestseller/0113bestpapertradefiction.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Paperback Trade Non-Fiction
1
EAT, PRAY, LOVE, by Elizabeth Gilbert. (Penguin, $15.) A writer’s yearlong journey in search of self takes her to Italy, India and Indonesia.

2 THE INNOCENT MAN, by John Grisham. (Delta, $16; Dell, $7.99.) Grisham’s first nonfiction book concerns a man wrongly sentenced to death.

3 THREE CUPS OF TEA, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. (Penguin, $15.) A former climber builds schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

4
INTO THE WILD, by Jon Krakauer. (Anchor, $12.95.) A man’s obsession with the wilderness ends in tragedy.

5
CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR, by George Crile. (Grove, $14.95; $14.) A chronicle

6
90 MINUTES IN HEAVEN, by Don Piper with Cecil Murphey. (Revell, $12.99.) A minister on the otherworldly experience he had after an accident.

7
THE GLASS CASTLE, by Jeannette Walls. (Scrib ner, $15.) The author recalls a bizarre childhood during which she and her siblings moved constantly.

8
THE OMNIVORE’S DILEMMA, by Michael Pollan. (Penguin, $16.) Tracking dinner from the soil to the plate, a journalist juggles appetite and conscience.

9
THE AUDACITY OF HOPE, by Barack Obama. (Three Rivers, $14.95.) The Illinois senator proposes that Americans move beyond their political divisions.

10
TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE, by Mitch Albom. (Broadway, $13.95; Anchor, $6.99.) The author tells of his visits to his old college mentor. (†)
11
THE WORLD IS FLAT, by Thomas L. Friedman. (Picador, $16.) A new edition of the Times columnist’s analysis of 21st-century economics and foreign policy.

12
THE TIPPING POINT, by Malcolm Gladwell. (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $14.95.) A study of social epidemics, otherwise known as fads.

13
SMOKE, MIRRORS, AND MURDER: AND OTHER TRUE CASES, by Ann Rule. (Pocket, $7.99.) Tales of true crime.

14
BLINK, by Malcolm Gladwell. (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $15.99.) The importance of instinct.

15
I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL, by Tucker Max. (Citadel, $12.95.) Reflections of a self-absorbed, drunken womanizer.

16
THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON MUSIC, by Daniel J. Levitin. (Plume, $15.) A rocker-turned-neuroscientist on the connection between music and human nature.

17
THE PORTABLE ATHEIST, edited by Christopher Hitchens. (Da Capo, $17.50.) Dozens of readings for nonbelievers

18
THIS I BELIEVE, edited by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with John Gregory and Viki Merrick. (Holt, $14.) Eighty essayists complete the thought begun in the book’s title; based on the NPR series.
19
KABUL BEAUTY SCHOOL, by Deborah Rodriguez with Kristin Ohlson. (Random House, $14.95.) An American sets out to help Afghan women.

20
TOO LATE TO SAY GOODBYE, by Ann Rule. (Pocket, $7.99.) A tale of jealous rage emerges in the inquiry into the apparent suicide of a dentist’s wife.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/books/bestseller/0113bestpapernonfiction.html

He who lends a book is an idiot. He who returns the book is more of an idiot.
Anonymous, Arabic Proverb
http://www.ifla.org/I/humour/author.htm

© Bob Hoff, 2008

The Omnivore, Eragon, Eldest; Michael Pollan, Christopher Paolini

2007-11-27T17:10:00.000-07:00

Jimi loves to be read to, but he also loves to read to us. One of his favorite topics right now is Spiderman. He also likes A,B,C, and number books and animal books and trucks, cars, and other modes of transportation books. He also likes books by Mercer Mayer like:

Are you lucky enough to have a child to read to?

The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.
Elizabeth Hardwick, 1916 -

Elizabeth Hardwick at librarySupportStaff.com
Elizabeth Hardwick at Wikipedia.org
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
A book to chew on is Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. This is one of the current books that I am reading and I am about 75% through with its' 400+ pages. It has kept and is keeping my attention because of its subject matter and because Pollan writes in a personable and understandable style about matters scientific. May I rely on our library's catalog entry to list these matters?
Introduction: our national eating disorder -- Industrial: corn. The plant: corn's conquest -- The farm -- The elevator -- The feedlot: making meat -- The processing plant: making complex foods -- The consumer: a republic of fat -- The meal: fast food -- Pastoral: grass. All flesh is grass -- Big organic -- Grass: thirteen ways of looking at a pasture -- The animals: practicing complexity -- Slaughter: in a glass abattoir -- The market: "greetings from the non-barcode people" -- The meal: grass-fed -- Personal: the forest. The forager -- The omnivore's dilemma -- The ethics of eating animals -- Hunting: the meat -- Gathering: the fungi -- The perfect meal.

If you have ever had an interest in eating--and I know that I do-- or wonder how different qualities and types of food eventually arrive to our plates, then this is a book for you. Plentiful history-- food growing techniques, food processing, food transportation, food selling, food prices, and food government regulations history are packed into this book. Along with this history are the histories of some remarkable individuals and institutions connected with food production and merchandising.
Interwoven with the above topics throughout the book is the story of how food decisions have impacted and continue to impact our environment and individuals negatively and possible methods for reversing such impacts. This book is shelved ad Dewey Decimal # 394.12 Pol
For detailed information:
Pollan investigates the three food chains: Indistrial, Organic, and Personal.
The Omnivore at Wikipedia.org.
Ny Times Review of The Omnivore
Michael Pollan's Web Site
By the way, The New York Times voted Pollan's book one of the 10 best of 2006 (See Wikipedia citation above)

Have You Ever Heard of Christopher Paolini, Eragon, Eldest, and Montana?

For me, until about two weeks ago, of the four topics above, I had just heard about the state of Montana. Recently, I found out from talking to some people and cruising the Internet (I don't surf that much) that Christopher Paolini is a 24-year old writer working in Montana. When he was 15, he began writing the outline for his science fiction.

Our library has the first two volumes he has written: Eragon (Inheritance Cycle #1) (2003) and Eldest (2005). Though he has targeted the series toward younger readers, apparently many older readers are enjoying it. Many people have been waiting for the announcement of the publication date of the third volume, as yet untitled. Paolini has announced that this third volume has become larger than he thought it would be and a fourth volume will be needed to conclude his series in a pleasing, entertaining, and logical manner. The third volume will be published in September 2008.

Eragon and Eldest are available for sale at local booksellers and at online booksellars like Hastings and Amazon and Barnes and Noble The two books also come as a boxed set and other materials are also available related to the series.

I am taking a wild guess here, but I bet you that the creatures pictured on the covers of these two books do not work for the "Welcome Wagons" in their respective communities, don't you agree?

Christopher Paolini at Book Browse

The books that help you the most are those which make you think the most.

Theodore Parker, 1810 - 1860 -
Theodore Parker at Wikipedia.org

© Bob Hoff, 2007

Looking Back a Bit........

2007-11-13T09:08:00.000-07:00

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends: they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.

Charles W. Eliot, 1834 - 1926
http://www.deblogan.com/quo2.html

Looking Back a Bit

When I retired from the National Park Service at Carlsbad Caverns nearly three years ago (February 3, 2008 marks my third anniversary) I promised myself several things:

To spend as much time as possible with our first grandson born four months after I retired.

To take countless pictures of him (and whoever else got in the way) with my new digital camera as I tried to figure out how digital cameras operate.

To start a blog on that little guy.

To teach myself how to blog.

To write a blog about the Carlsbad Public Library--you're reading it--to promote its use, books, reading, and associated activities. Why? Because I love books and reading myself.

To volunteer some time doing some of what I did at the Caverns in my last job as the Park Historian and backup guide, public speaker, and trainer of some of the new Rangers. Also, to continue my Caverns History Blog

To read a lot in general and history in particular.

To find a way to maybe make some money by teaching others to blog or to use computers at a basic level--so far still trying to figure that approach out.

To watch very little television at night and almost none during the day.

TO really bear down to try to discover how I can improve my joke-telling skills. While I like and enjoy my jokes, I often seem to be the only one. Humor, I think Freud (or his next-door neighbor, said, "is the lubricant that greases the success of human relationships. Without humor, people fret and frown 46% more of their waking and sleeping hours and create wrinkles prematurely, if not sooner." My joke-practicing takes so much time each week that the total time that I can allot to housework duties shrinks fiercely.

To continue my forty year hobby of collecting Quotation Book collections and reading quotations and sharing quotations, when appropriate, in my blogs.

To continue my lifelong obsession with cheering for the Boston Red Sox. In case you have been living in a cave in October 2007, they won the World Series this year.

Obviously, I have created an ambitious plan for myself in retirement, no?

Some Results--

My wife and I spend as much time as we can with the grand-muchacho.

Taking and editing and publishing his pictures to the Internet--Priceless!

Learning how to blog and doing two other blogs beside this one (grand-muchacho and caverns history).

Volunteering at the caverns.

Reading frequently

Looking still for a way to make some money blogging.

Reducing my time for humor practice; perhaps my mini-audiences might read an article or book or see a PBS special on the art of humor appreciation and laugh more at my jokes without more effort on my part.

Doing the Library blog for 12 1/2 months. I would like more people to interact, do book recommendations, write short review, make suggestions for the blog.

Address of this blog is:

http://hoffatcarlsbadlibrary.blogspot.com/

Bookmark and add it to your favorites if you want to return to it

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away.

Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 1886

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson
© Bob Hoff, 2007

It's Halloween Time and Time for a Master of Horror

2007-10-30T14:12:00.000-06:00

Fiction is the truth inside the lie.Stephen King http://www.wisdomquotes.com/001065.html

A Master of Horror

We were both born in New England, he in Portland, Maine, and me in Marlboro, Massachusetts; we were both born in 1947, me in May and he in Sept. Today both of us are rabid Boston Red Sox baseball fans and both of us have been so forever. While I turned to the National Park Service for a career, Mr. Stephen King became a writer and has written over 200 stories, including fifty bestselling horror and fantasy novels. Stephen King at Wikipedia

While in college, I read very little fiction (Kurt Vonnegut was my favorite) because I had classes that I had to prepare for in pursuing a history degree. While in the National Park Service for nearly 34 years in five different parks, I had National Park visitors to prepare for so I read mostly just history or natural history. Now that I have been retired, I have been reading lots of history to "fill iin the gaps" from my NPS history research and reading.

I know from browsing the library and bookstores and seeing a few movies that Mr. King iis a popular horror and fantasy writer. I remember years ago seeing his story "It" on television and to this day I will not go near a circus clown unless I have some sort of concealed weapon with me. What better time than the Halloween season to delve into some Stephen King? So what do we have at the library by this fear-generating author? (Note: this is a younger picture of Stephen King; he is now 60 years old.)

Lisey's Story (a sound recording and novel); (2006)

Cell (2006)

The Colorado Kid(novel and sound recording) (2005)

The Shining (a sound recording) (2005)

Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower Series VI) (2004)

The Gunslinger (novel and sound recording--The Dark Tower Series I) (2003)

and others, including: The Drawing of the Three, The Dark Tower Series II,(2003) Wolves of the Calla, The Dark Tower Series V, (2003), Everything is Eventual: 14 Dark Tales (2002), The Stand, (2001), Dreamcatcher: A Novel (2001), Christine (2000), The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999), Insomnia (1994), Misery (1987), Skeleton Crew (1986), The Tommyknockers (1987), Carrie (1983), Firestarter (1980), Cujo (1981), The Dead Zone (1979), Salem's Lot (1975) and others.

Here is a list from the library's card catalog on Horror Tales, American:

http://webcat.elin.lib.nm.us/uhtbin/cgisirsi/2x1eF3OCq0/168380005/0/49

See critical views of Stephen King in the book of that name by Barold Bloom at YA 813.54 STE Also see The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft at YA 813.54 STE (Lovecraft was one of King's favorites)

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear...And the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. H.P. Lovecraft http://www.quotationspage.com/search.php3?Author=H.+P.+Lovecraft&file=other

© Bob Hoff, 2007

Doris Lessing Wins Nobel Prize for Literature; Check Out Award Winning Children's Booklists

2007-10-24T20:39:00.000-06:00

After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books. Albert Camus, 1913 - 1960 http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_books.html Camus won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.
Nobel Prize.org

Speaking of theNobel Prize for Literature, I have put a link on this page to the Nobel prizes for Literature. How might this link be useful for discovering books to read?

Here's how. For example, this year the Nobel in Literature went to Doris Lessing. Doris Lessing at Nobel Prize.org Then go to the Carlsbad Public Library linkon the right and search for Ms. Lessing just like I did a few minutes ago. I found 15 records, including:

The Grandmothers: Four Short Novels (2004)Fiction

The Sweetest Dream (2001) Non-Fiction

Mara and Dann: An Adventure (1999) Sci-Fi

The Good Terriorist (1985) Fiction

The marriages between zones three, four, and five (as narrated by the chroniclers of zone three) (1980) Sci-Fi

Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971) Fiction
African Stories (1965) Fiction

The Golden Notebook (1962) Fiction

and, of course, others. Then browse the stacks and take the risk to select one of Lessing's titles that you find interesting and look through it. The title about marriage and "zones" above has an interesting title, doesn't it?

The Golden Notebook is probably her most famous book. From The Golden Notebook at GoHastings.com

'The Golden Notebook' is Doris Lessing's most important work, and has left its mark upon the ideas and feelings of a whole generation of women. -- Elizabeth Hardwick, New York Times Book Review

The most absorbing and exciting piece of new fiction I have read in a decade: it moves with the beat of our time, and it is true. -- Irving Howe, New Republic

This novel is widely considered to be Lessing's masterpiece. Anna Wulf, a writer living in London, attempts to conquer the chaos of her life by using five notebooks as journals: the black one deals with her life in colonial Africa, the red is her Communist experiences, the yellow is a more or less fictionalized chronicle of Anna's alter ego Ella, and the blue is a diary of Anna's day to day life. The golden notebook involves Anna's integration of herself through analysis. The novel also contains Anna's own novel, called "Free Women." Complex, layered, psychological, "The Golden Notebook" was hailed as a feminist work when it was originally published--yet its appeal goes beyond sexual politics to consider the construction, disintegration, and rebuilding of a personality in a way that has reached readers, both male and female, for many years since.

Timed to coincide with Women's History Month, a new edition of the powerful and liberating feminist novel that raised the consciousness of an entire generation.

Anna is a writer, author of one very successful novel, who now keeps four notebooks. In one, with a black cover, she reviews the African experience of her earlier years. In a red one she records her political life, her disillusionment with communism. In a yellow one she writes a novel in which the heroine relives part of her own experience. And in a blue one she keeps a personal diary. Finally, in love with an American writer and threatened with insanity, Anna tries to bring the threads of all four books together in a golden notebook.

If you are like me, perhaps you have heard about the book If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer and you are wondering about all the allegations and controversies surrounding O.J. Simpson and this book. Our library has ths book and the library catalog entry explains:

In 1994, Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson were brutally murdered at her home in Brentwood, California. O.J. Simpson was tried for the crime in a case that captured the attention of the American people, but was ultimately found not guilty of criminal charges. The victims' families brought civil cases against Simpson, and he was found liable for willfully and wrongfully causing the deaths of Ron and Nicole by committing battery with malice and oppression. In 2006, HarperCollins announced the publication of a book in which O.J. Simpson told how he hypothetically would have committed the murders. In response to public outrage that Simpson stood to profit from these crimes, HarperCollins canceled the book. A Florida bankruptcy court awarded the rights to the Goldmans in August 2007 to partially satisfy the unpaid civil judgment, which has risen, with interest, to over $38 million. The Goldman family views this book as his confession, and has worked hard to ensure that the public will read this book and learn the truth. This is the original manuscript approved by O.J. Simpson, with up to 14,000 words of key additional commentary.--From publisher's description.

While some readers probably welcome the opportunity to learn more about the terrible events at the center of this 1990s double murder, other readers probably don't wish for any such opportunities and won't accept any more that exist, including this one. I won't.

But if you care to, please read on.

Please note that I have added another link to the right; it is for Children's Book Awards. Click on the link for Newbery Medal. At the site, you will find:

American Library Association, Association for Library Service to Children. Established 1922. A medal presented annually to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children published in the United States in the preceding year. The recipient must be a citizen or resident of the United States. The winner is announced at the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting (January/February), and the award is presented at the ALA summer conference .

How the Newbery Medal Came to Be
The Newbery Medal is awarded annually by the American Library Association for the most distinguished American children's book published the previous year. On June 22, 1921, Frederic G. Melcher proposed the award to the American Library Association meeting of the Children's Librarians' Section and suggested that it be named for the eighteenth-century English bookseller John Newbery. The idea was enthusiastically accepted by the children's librarians, and Melcher's official proposal was approved by the ALA Executive Board in 1922. In Melcher's formal agreement with the board, the purpose of the Newbery Medal was stated as follows: "To encourage original creative work in the field of books for children. To emphasize to the public that contributions to the literature for children deserve similar recognition to poetry, plays, or novels. To give those librarians, who make it their life work to serve children's reading interests, an opportunity to encourage good writing in this field."

The Newbery Award thus became the first children's book award in the world. Its terms, as well as its long history, continue to make it the best known and most discussed children's book award in this country

From the beginning of the awarding of the Newbery and Caldecott Medals, committees could, and usually did, cite other books as worthy of attention. Such books were referred to as Newbery or Caldecott "runners-up." In 1971 the term "runners-up" was changed to "honor books." The new terminology was made retroactive so that all former runners-up are now referred to as Newbery or Caldecott Honor Books.

About Newbery Medal Awards

Newbery Medal Winners Since 1922 to Present

Also on the link, click on Caldecott Medal.. At this site you will find:

Established 1938. A medal presented annually to the illustrator of the most distinguished American picture book for children published in the United States in the preceding year. The recipient must be a citizen or resident of the United States. The winner is announced at the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting (January/February), and the award is presented at the ALA summer conference.

How the Caldecott Medal Came to Be
Each year the Newbery Medal is awarded by the American Library Association for the most distinguished American children's books published the previous year. However, as many persons became concerned that the artists creating picture books for children were as deserving of honor and encouragement as were the authors of children's books, Frederic G. Melcher suggested in 1937 the establishment of a second annual medal. This medal is to be given to the artist who had created the most distinguished picture book of the year and named in honor of the nineteenth-century English illustrator Randolph J. Caldecott. The idea for this medal was also accepted enthusiastically by the Section for Library Work with Children of ALA and was approved by the ALA Executive Board.

The Caldecott Medal "shall be awarded to the artist of the most distinguished American Picture Book for Children published in the United States during the preceding year. The award shall go to the artist, who must be a citizen or resident of the United States, whether or not he be the author of the text. Members of the Newbery Medal Committee will serve as judges. If a book of the year is nominated for both the Newbery and Caldecott Awards the committee shall decide under which heading it shall be voted upon, so that the same title shall not be considered on both ballots." In 1977 the Board of Directors of the Association for Library Service to Children rescinded the final part of the 1937 action and approved that "any book published in the preceding year shall be eligible to be considered for either award or both awards." Separate committees to choose the Newbery and Caldecott Awards were established in 1978 and began with the 1980 selection committees.
From the beginning of the awarding of the Newbery and Caldecott Medals, committees could, and usually did, cite other books as worthy of attention. Such books were referred to as Newbery or Caldecott "runners-up." In 1971 the term "runners-up" was changed to "honor books." The new terminology was made retroactive so that all former runners-up are now referred to as Newbery or Caldecott Honor Books.

Caldecott Winners Since 1938

No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_books.html

© Bob Hoff, 2007

Banned Books Week, Part II and Other Sections in the Library

2007-10-03T08:27:00.000-06:00

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Francis Bacon, 1561 - 1626
http://www.giga-usa.com/quotes/topics/reading_t001.htm

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting. Edmund Burke, 1729 -1767
Ibid.
They that have read about everything are thought to understand everything too; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with the materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections,--we must chew them over again. William Ellery Channing, 1818 -- 1901
Ibid.

In my September 22, 2007 post, I discussed National Banned Books Week and recommended the American Librarian Association Site at Banned Books Week Have you seen the Banned Books exhibit at the library? Again, the entire purpose of the American Library Associations for educating readers--teachers, librarians, parents, students, adults etc.-- about the process of attempts to ban books is to help protect intellectual freedom and the freedom to read for all those people interested in those rights.

The 100 Most Fequently Challenged Books of 1990 - 2000 were:

Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
Forever by Judy Blume
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Giver by Lois Lowry
It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Sex by Madonna
Earth's Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
The Goats by Brock Cole
Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
Blubber by Judy Blume
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
Final Exit by Derek Humphry
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
What's Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
Deenie by Judy Blume
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
Cujo by Stephen King
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
What's Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
Fade by Robert Cormier
Guess What? by Mem Fox
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Native Son by Richard Wright
Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women's Fantasies by Nancy Friday
Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Jack by A.M. Homes
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
Carrie by Stephen King
Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
Family Secrets by Norma Klein
Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
Private Parts by Howard Stern
Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford
Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
Sex Education by Jenny Davis
The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

Source: http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=bbwlinks&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=85714

Remember for more information to go to Banned Books Week

See my post for April 13, 2007 in which I note the death of one of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut. He is on the list for Slaughter House Five, one of my favorite anti-war books.

What aare Some of the Other Sections to Visit in the Library

Books on Tape

Books on CD

Books in the New Mexico section

Force yourself to reflect on what you read, paragraph by paragraph. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772 - 1834
Ibid.

September is Library Card Sign-Up Month!

2007-09-17T10:29:00.000-06:00

Hi,

My name is Mike, but my nickname is "Booksniffer." I guess that I have always had a nose for books. I can't remember when I didn't like to read. Of course, I like libraries like the one here in Carlsbad. There are so many wonderful books and other resources to be found here if you would just "stick your nose" in the library once in a while. :)

The American Library Association ALA

says September is Library Card Sign-up Month - a time to remind parents and kids that a library card is the most important school supply of all.So if you don't have a library card, whether you're a young person or an adult or in between, come in, meet a member of the library staff, and sign up for your own library card.

Pictured to the left is Ben Roethlisberger, the quarterback of the 2006 Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers, and the official spokesperson for Library Card Sign-up Month 2007

Ben's Personal Web Page

Fifty-two ways--one way a week for a year--to use your library card (in English) 52 Ways to Use a Library Card
In Spanish En Espanol

Visit the American Library Association Web Page for other important information and news about one of America's greatest resources--American libraries.

ALA

I always tell people that I became a writer not because I went to school but because my mother took me to the library. I wanted to become a writer so I could see my name in the card catalog. Sandra Cisneros, 1954 -

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/sandracisn176905.html

Sandra Cisneros@Biography.com

We read to know we are not alone. C.S. Lewis, 1898 - 1963

http://www.deblogan.com/quo2.html

C.S. Lewis@Biography.com

A Second Visit to The Cranky Librarian and Two Horror Classics On-line There

2007-08-29T00:17:00.000-06:00

A library is a fuelling station for your mind.
Steve Leveen

ConsultPivotal.com

The wisdom of giving up on books is compelling. New York University professor Atwood H. Townsend wrote in his Good Reading: A Helpful Guide for Serious Readers, “Never force yourself to read a book that you do not enjoy. There are so many good books in the world that it is foolish to waste time on one that does not give you pleasure and profit.”
Steve Leveen, Author--The Little Guide to Your Well-Read life

Hi, My Name is Linda. Yesterday my friend Sam pointed out The Cranky Librarian link (see list of links to the right) to you and all the great e-books and artwork that resides at that site. He even introduced the first several paragraphs of a classic of literature--Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I want to introduce a couple paragraphs of another literature classic and challenge you to identify it. Here goes:

Chapter 1

I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most distinguished of that republic. My ancestors had been for many years counsellors and syndics, and my father had filled several public situations with honour and reputation. He was respected by all who knew him for his integrity and indefatigable attention to public business.He passed his younger days perpetually occupied by the affairs ofhis country; a variety of circumstances had prevented his marrying early, nor was it until the decline of life that he became a husband and the father of a family.

As the circumstances of his marriage illustrate his character, I cannot refrain from relating them. One of his most intimate friends was a merchant who, from a flourishing state, fell,through numerous mischances, into poverty. This man, whose name was Beaufort, was of a proud and unbending disposition and could not bear to live in poverty and oblivion in the same country where he had formerly been distinguished for his rank and magnificence. Having paid his debts, therefore, in the most honourable manner, he retreated with his daughter to the town of Lucerne, where he lived unknown and in wretchedness. My father loved Beaufort with the truest friendship and was deeply grieved by his retreat in these unfortunate circumstances. He bitterly deplored the false pride which led his friend to a conduct so little worthy of the affection that united them. He lost no time in endeavouring to seek him out, with the hope of persuading him to begin the world again through his credit and assistance. Beaufort had taken effectual measures to conceal himself, and it was ten months before my father discovered his abode. Overjoyed at this discovery, he hastened to the house,which was situated in a mean street near the Reuss. But when he entered, misery and despair alone welcomed him. Beaufort had saved but avery small sum of money from the wreck of his fortunes, but it was sufficient to provide him with sustenance for some months, and in the meantime he hoped to procure some respectable employment in a merchant's house. The interval was, consequently, spent in inaction; his grief only became more deep and rankling when he had leisure for reflection, and at length it took so fast hold of his mind that at the end of three months he lay on a bed of sickness, incapable of any exertion.

His daughter attended him with the greatest tenderness, but she saw with despair that their little fund was rapidly decreasing and that there was no other prospect of support. But Caroline Beaufort possessed a mind of an uncommon mould, and her courage rose to support her in her adversity. She procured plain work; she plaited straw and by various means contrived to earn a pittance scarcely sufficient to support life.

Do you recognize this famous novel also at The Cranky Librarian? It is Frankenstein , or the Modern Prometheus written by Mary Wollstone Godwin Shelley in 1818, so she was only 21 when she wrote it. Mary Shelley lived from 1797 - 1851.

http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9481497

Some general Mary Shelley quotations-

Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of the void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself.

A slavish bondage to parents cramps every faculty of the mind.

It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.

I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves.

It is hardly surprising that women concentrate on the way they look instead of what is in their minds since not much has been put in their minds to begin with.

The Cranky Librarian also has Bram Stoker's Dracula. Born in Dublin, Ireland, he lived from 1847 - 1912. He was 50 when he wrote this vampire classic.

Bram Stoker at Biography.com

Read in order to live.
Henry Fielding, English novelist, 1707 - 1754

Henry Field@BrainyQuote.com

Check Out The Cranky Librarian

2007-08-28T13:32:00.000-06:00

Books are more than books. They are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men lived and worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.
Amy Lowell, 1874 - 1925

Amy Lowell at Creative Quotations.com

If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in a library?
Lilly Tomlin, 1939 - Quotable Quotes about Books Reading and Libraries

When you have the opportunity, check out the link for The Cranky Librarian on the right. I found this site at The Internet Public Library that has numerous sites fun to surf, but back to TCL for now.

It currently has electronic links to 3012 books by 737 authors, so many classics. Now I would personally never try to read a book on-line as a I prize my eyes, and even occasionally try to give them much-needed rest. So of course I would never recommend to anyone else that they read a whole book on-line. But I do see one major optional use for e-books: check out the first chapter or scroll through it seeing if the book has parts that motivate you to check the book out at the library.
For example, consider a book title that has always attracted my eye (I even had a copy at one time), but I have never read it: Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the Russian novelist, 1821 - 1881. (photo from Wikipedia.org) Read how it starts at The Cranky Librarian Page:

CHAPTER I

"I am a sick man.... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractiveman. I believe my liver is diseased. However, I know nothing a tall about my disease, and do not know for certain what ails me.I don't consult a doctor for it, and never have, though I have a respect for medicine and doctors. Besides, I am extremelysuperstitious, sufficiently so to respect medicine, anyway (I am well-educated enough not to be superstitious, but I am superstitious). No, I refuse to consult a doctor from spite.That you probably will not understand. Well, I understand it ,though. Of course, I can't explain who it is precisely that I am mortifying in this case by my spite: I am perfectly well aware that I cannot "pay out" the doctors by not consulting them; I know better than anyone that by all this I am only injuring myself and no one else. But still, if I don't consult a doctor it is from spite. My liver is bad, well--let it get worse!
I have been going on like that for a long time--twenty years.Now I am forty. I used to be in the government service, but amno longer. I was a spiteful official. I was rude and took pleasure in being so. I did not take bribes, you see, so I was bound to find a recompense in that, at least. (A poor jest, but I will not scratch it out. I wrote it thinking it would sound very witty; but now that I have seen myself that I only wanted to show off in a despicable way--I will not scratch it out on purpose!) When petitioners used to come for information to the table at which I sat, I used to grind my teeth at them, and felt intense enjoyment when I succeeded in making anybody unhappy. I almost did succeed. For the most part they were all timid people--of course, they were petitioners. But of the uppish ones there was one officer in particular I could not endure. He simply would not be humble, and clanked his sword in a disgusting way. I carried on a feud with him for eighteen months over that sword.At last I got the better of him. He left off clanking it. That happened in my youth, though. But do you know, gentlemen, what was the chief point about my spite? Why, the whole point, the real sting of it lay in the fact that continually, even in the moment of the acutest spleen, I was inwardly conscious with shame that I was not only not a spiteful but not even an embittered man, that I was simply scaring sparrows at random and amusing myself by it. I might foam at the mouth, but bring me a doll to play with, give me a cup of tea with sugar in it, and maybe I should be appeased. I might even be genuinely touched, though probably I should grind my teeth at myself afterwards and lie awake at night with shame for months after. That was my way.
I was lying when I said just now that I was a spiteful official.I was lying from spite. I was simply amusing myself with thepetitioners and with the officer, and in reality I never couldbecome spiteful. I was conscious every moment in myself of many,very many elements absolutely opposite to that. I felt thempositively swarming in me, these opposite elements. I knew tha tthey had been swarming in me all my life and craving some outletfrom me, but I would not let them, would not let them, purposelywould not let them come out. They tormented me till I was ashamed: they drove me to convulsions and--sickened me, at last,how they sickened me! Now, are not you fancying, gentlemen,that I am expressing remorse for something now, that I am askingyour forgiveness for something? I am sure you are fancying that... However, I assure you I do not care if you are...."
Wow. Fyodor has my attention now.

Do you like to read Sherlock Holmes novels? TCL has the complete novels of Sir Arthur (Ignatius) Conan Doyle (1859 - 1930). Do you enjoy Mark Twain ( also Samuel Clemens 1835 - 1910)? Check out his Complete Works at the same site. Did I mention that they have the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe? (1809 - 1849)
Have you heard of Andy Adams, the western fiction writer? TCL has:
1903: The Log of a Cowboy.
1904: A Texas Matchmaker.
1905: The Outlet.
1906: Cattle Brands: A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories - contains 14 short stories.
1907: Reed Anthony, Cowman: An Autobiography - Adams breathes life into the story of a Texas cowboy who becomes a wealthy and influential cattleman. 1911: The Wells Brothers: The Young Cattle Kings - Tells the tale of two orphaned boys who, against all odds and in the face of numerous calamities, establish their own cattle ranch.
TCL also has over 1500 art reproductions by 42 artists, some of the "heavyweights" in the art world.
Clink on the link, visit TCL, and see if she has anything that interests you>

It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them—the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas. Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821 - 1861

HeartQuotes.com

© Bob Hoff, 2007

The Assault on Reason--A Short Book Review

2007-08-23T23:50:00.000-06:00

Carlos and Chuck Caveman go way, way back; in fact they are two of the original Carlsbad Cavemen.Their life is simple: gathering food, fashioning clothes, crudely (by our standards) and protecting their families from animals who try to gather them for food. They don't know that the printing press hasn't been invented yet and won't be until the year 1440; hence no libraries, no books to read, no printed word to enjoy the thoughts of other humans for Carlos and Chuck. Luckily, they don't know all this because it is in their future. However, it is in our past so we do know.

I wonder what they are talking about above??

Aren't you glad that you weren't born in the pre-book, pre-library, pre-internet period?

I sure am.

One who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; one who does not ask a question remains a fool forever. Chinese Proverb

Wisdom Quotes.comWisdomQuote.com

The Assault on Reason by Al Gore (Carlsbad PL holdings 973.931--book format and Cd Audio format)

This is a troubling book about the last six years of American history. Former Vice-President and Senator Al Gore makes the case that at the upper levels of our government and at other levels as well America has lost the motivation and ability to reason about the issues that face this country--in Iraq, in environmental problems, attacks on our Constitution (denying people basic protected freedoms), social justice, economic justice, win-win relationships with other countries, nuclear weapon dangers etc. Moreover, many issues are being decided without examining facts or consulting experts. Literally, America and our democracy is being weakened by the directions our country has been taking of late, according to Gore.

The book cites many references to what our "Founding Fathers" wanted in setiing up the American democracy and how they expected that it would work. This is must reading for those interested in the challenges beseting America recently and the need for retooling how we create solutions in America and abroad with world allies. Most importantly it is about creating a climate where different ideas may be discussed locally, state-wide, and nationally and are not suppressed by the government or vested interests.

Gore also addresses the negative trend on Americans who have migrated from reading to getting information only from television--and how this unbalances who can access the free markertplace of ideas and who can't. In addition, political choices made based on solely viewing television tend to benefit the "haves" and disadvantages the "have-nots." Economic fairness suffers

Gore's analysis and documentation make this book captivating reading. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to better understand political decision-making and its deficiencies in today's America.

NY Times Review of The Assault on Reason

Writers born on August 23rd
Edgar Lee Masters, American poet, 1869
Nelson Demille, American novelist, 1943

It is my pleasure to point out a new Carlsbad Public Library link. My friend Beth maintains this site on MySpace. See her link in my link list to the right and check it out. She has great insights into books and the bookworld!!

You can have fun, but you also have to put on your thinking cap every day. Tommy Shaw American Musician, 1953 -

"Reading Teachers"

2007-07-31T14:55:00.000-06:00

“Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future”.
Ray Bradbury, American Writer, 1920 -

ThinkExist.com

Who Taught You the Value and Joy of Reading?

May I presume to make several assumptions? First, you do know the value and joy of reading. And second, that the person(s) who taught you (or modelled it for you) were people in your family, teachers, or family.

For me, it was my parents, both people who not only read, but who visibly showed their pleasure while doing it. Then I had a friend in high school who was a voracious reader and he directly influenced me in developing my love for reading (unfortunately, he died in Vietnam in 1967 at the age of 20). And finally, several teacher in high school and college influence me positively about books and reading.

My wife and I have been readers well before we met each other over 36 years ago. We tried to influence our three sons--now 29, 23, and 19-- to read with varying amounts of success. It is only natural that we have been reading to our first and only grandson, now just past two years old.

On July 30, 2007, we took Jimi Campos Hoff to his first visit to the Carlsbad Public Library. Some pictures--

While I was at the library, I noticed a kid reading while he was lying on the floor with his legs under a chair. He looked very comfortable so I excused myself rom Jimi and Grandma Chris (my wife) and went into the adult section, found a cozy spot, and laid down on the floor with my legs under a chair. The book I was reading made my eyes heavy and I dozed off for a couple minutes. Suddenly, I was awakened when a library patron with reduced vision tripped over me and hit his head on a bookshelf, knocking himself unconscious. (I made this story up just to be interesting; my wife thinks I failed; let me know in the comments what you think and remember that I am very sensitive).

Are you currently spreading the value and joy of reading to some others in your life? I certainly hope so.

Note to all Carlsbad Public Library Staff--please send me a paragraph or two about where you learned your love for the joy and value of reading to hoff_bob2003@yahoo.com If you care to aIso, include some of your favorite authors and books for a "second contribution. Please include your permission for me to publish in this blog.

Thanks. BH

What author do you think is dominating several top spots on the below bestseller list? Last name starts with an "R."

USAToday'sTop 150 Bestsellers of the Week_072907

HIT BACK ARROW ABOVE TO RETURN TO BLOG

A man can learn only two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.
Will Rogers

A Book about Tapping Our Unused Potential

2007-07-08T16:32:00.000-06:00

"There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book." .
Marcel Proust, French Novelist, 1871 - 1922

Quote DB

Book Review: The Other 90%: How to Unlock Your Vast Untapped Potential for Leadership and Life by Robert K. Cooper ( Library Call# 158.1 Coo)

I came upon this book when I was browsing in the library. As I scanned the Table of Contents, several chapter titles caught my eye:

Be an Original

Use your Brains: All Three of Them

Dare to Trust

Honor the Greatness in Others

Be Quick Without Rushing

Let Your Life Speak

Get a Life

Align Your Life with Your Biggest Dreams

Face the World Straight On

Hope Irrationally

Die Young as Late as Possible

Champion Lost Causes

Know How to Get Gone

Make Adversity your Ally

Develop the Skin of a Rhino and the Soul of an Angel

Care as if Everything Depended on Your Caring

Raise a Banner Where a Banner Never Flew

No One has to Lose for You to Win

Author Cooper's grandfather's name was Hugh Cooper, Sr. A one-time surveyor, minister, teacher, and school superintendent, Mr. Hugh Cooper had earned a master's degree around the turn of the century. Nearing the end of his life, Hugh shared with his grandson Robert K. (age 14 at the time)that he felt that he had failed to understand the words of the motto that he had tried to live by, Give the world the best you have and the best will come back to you.

He told Robert,

My whole life I thought I knew what those words meant. It was simple. Either you gave your best or you didn't. First you went to school and worked hard to make good grades...Then when you got a job, you arrived on time every day and worked hard. That was giving your best. From there the best would come back to you, as a paycheck and a sense of pride.

He continued.

When I was recently in the hospital, I wa thinking about the moat exceptional people I've known. They were the ones who kept going when the others quit; the ones who found ways to do what everyone else thought couldn't be done. They just didn't hold own a job or work hard. They were reaching deeper inside and finding something more. They made a greater difference. I don't think thay understood the words the way I did.
I remember my parents and other adults in my hometown saying, "Study hard but don't let your dreams get too big. If you do that, you will be disappointed. Learn to fit in and go along they said. That is what successful people do. I got very good at fitting in and going along.
Robert, you're going to hear the same kind of things from people around you. They're well-intentioned, but they're wrong. What if I hadn't accepted it? What if everyday I had questioned yesterday's definition of my best? What if I had listened to my own heart instead of their words? Then I might have kept looking deeper and giving the world more of the best that was hidden inside of me.
And if I had done that, more of the best would have come back to me, and to this family, and to you, Robert...But it won't because I didn't do it.
And so this is my challengeto you, to live these words...Age has nothing to do with it. Everyday you can learn something more about who you are and all the potential that is hidden inside you. Every day you can choose more than you have been. I'm asking you to start right now...
Robert. most of us are mostly unused potential. It is up to you to become the most curious person you know and to keep asking yourself, What is my best? Keep finding more of it every day to give to the world. If you do that, I promise that more of the best than you can ever imagine--and in many ways beyond money-- will come back to you.

So in the course of the book, Robert Cooper passes on the challenges of his grandfather to him to us the readers. Some things I like about the book:

It is well-written and easy to read--no psychological mumbo-jumbo.

It is well-illustrated with the lives of several people, including one of my personal favorites in American history: Abraham Lincoln. Also, another favorite, Charles Schultz, the creator of the comic strip "Peanuts.

It has reference sources for the ideas that he puts forth.

Some of the ideas I most enjoyed reading about:

The idea of us having three brains--the brain, the heart, and the stomach

That the most important attribute of a leader or supervisor is he/she's ability to demonstrate sincere caring for workers

The value of taking breaks through the day

The value of humor in everyday living

The value of calmness and defusing tensions

The importance of tying values to behavior and behavior to goals

Robert Cooper proposes suggestions that are different than some types that you might expect. For overall energy, he emphasizes the importance of posture--hold your head high, align your neck, level your shoulders and open your chest. He advocates toning your lower absomen and flattening your back, neutralizing tension spots, and keeping your feet flat on the floor whenever possible. As I write this, I am following his advice--and feel better for it.

He also suggests that we have a snack before dinner (not just any kind of food, mind you), and that to avoid the sluggishness of a couch potato evening that we "get up and move right after the evening meal." This book is a treasure chest of well-explained suggestions for living a "better" life.

Cooper feels that what his grandfather told him has shaped his personal and professional life--making him the man that he is today. In summary, he says that "we should emphasize strengths and manage weaknessess."

Another suggestion that I really like is that he says slow down so that we can notice what matters to others. That just makes so much sense to me now that I have read it.

I recommend this book; it contains much distilled wisdom about life--life lived with purpose for oneself and for others.

"Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep, for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as the latter.
Paxton Hood

Deb Logan Quotations on Books_Reading_and Libraries

Carlsbad Caverns: The Early Years

2007-06-18T19:22:00.000-06:00

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them all.
Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
Henry David Thoreau at World of Quotes

Henry David Thoreau at Wikipedia

A Photographic History of Carlsbad Caverns National Park

This book by William Halliday and Robert Nymeyer is one of my favorites about the history of Carlsbad Caverns, that great national park just a short drive away from the city of Carlsbad.

Perhaps I am prejudiced because I worked at the caverns for 19 years of my 33-years + career (seven months from 1971-1972 and January 1986 - February 2005 when I retired from the National Park Service. But since it is a positive predjudice about a wonderful cave and a super organization so I make no apologies or expect to have to.

What superb historical photographs adorn this book and what fascinating historical stories populate it. The book is divided into six chapters, each titled with one or more people.

Chapter One tells the story of Abijah Long who tried running a hotel and saloon business in Carlsbad before turning to the freighting business, a job that helped him discover the bat guano inside the caverns. He placed a claim and began to mine the bat stuff to sell as a fertilizer. His involvement with the mining ended fairly early, but his involvement with the caverns story continues to today.

In Chapter Two, the life of Jim White, explorer, guide, and caverns promoter is traced, a ultimately sad story about a man who gave so much to the caverns and its visitors, then and now, and whose name is synonyous with Carlsbad Caverns for many people, including me. Even today, the unsorting of his life facts and life legends continues.

In Chapter Three, the importance of photographers George Adams and Ray V. Davis to the evolution of the caverns from a bat guano mine site to first a National Monument, then a world famous National Park (later a World Heritage Site in 1995) For me, Davis' pictures continue to delight. Certainly they are worth a close viewing by anyone interested in the caverns.

In Chapter Four, the contributions of Geologist Willis T. Lee--his 1924 six-month, day trips only, expedition financially sponsored by The National Geographic Society, his two articles published in The National Geographic Society magazine, and his support for National Monument status from the very beginning--helped bring knowledge of the underground fantasy land into homes of people across the United States and beyond. By the way, daughter Elizabeth and son Dana, played important parts in the 1924 expedition.

In Chapter Five, the stories of Superintendent Tom Boles (in charge at the caverns from 1927 - 1946) and Russell Trail Neville. Boles cared deeply for the caverns, managing them with a wise hand and a loving heart. He stood solidly behind the importance of cavern resources and of the necessity of assisting visitor in enjoying them. He also loved to promote them to people in other states as well.

Neville was a lecturer, a still photographer, and a motion picture photographer who also helped to spread the word about the incredible caverns.

In Chapter Six, the story turns to Frank Ernest Nicholson, a journalist whose planned adventures at the caverns n many cases turned into misadventures. His writing--seeking to excite readers--often drifted from reality, and in the end, his contributions to the caverns story were neglible.

This is a book you can read so that when you take friends and relatives to the caverns, you have insights and stories to share with them. Just being able to show them a picture of the famed aviatrix Amelia Earhart visiting the cavern I think makes it worthwhile to purchase, but if nothing else, check it out at the library.

The book is available at the park and at the Carlsbad Caverns town headquarters and at Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains Assocation. A portion of the proceeds from this book and other available products benefits Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains national Parks. For more about caverns history, see my blog at Bob Hoff's Caverns and NPS History Blog

We always knocked off on Sunday and when the weather was bad,-then that was the time that we explored! We had a happy-go-lucky bunch...Some of the boys used to sit around all day...Others didn't seem to get so much of a kick out of it and a few of them used to go exploring with me...We never bit off mor'n we could chaw...

(p 38--Carlsbad Caverns The Early Years, Jim White quote from 1926 Carl Livingston article )

© Bob Hoff, 2007

Three Basic Books to Get Children to Love Books and Reading

2007-06-09T10:20:00.000-06:00

Food for the soul.
Unattributed Author, Inscription on the Berlin Royal Library

GIGA Quotes

Three Books to Get Young Children To Develop

Budding "Relationships" with Books

Very few events in life, in my opinion, are as exciting as seeing a baby becoming more and more interested in books--by wanting to be read to, by asking questions about the pictures in books, by trying to repeat the words in stories, by asking for stories to be repeatedly red to him or her. One of the major reasons that it is so important to read to babies, to introduce them to books, to model our book and reading enthusiasms for them is so that they begin, as early as possible, to develop a positive relationship with reading, with books, with libraries, with writing, with creativity, and with thinking.

Some of you might be thinking, "now how do I know that?" Am I highly educated in some special discipline? Do I have more degrees than a thermometer about the importance of introducing children to books and reading as soon as possible? Am I a self-developed guru on these topics?

Well none of the above is true. What I do have in their place is the experience of, with my wife, introducing three sons and a grandson to reading and books. While it is true that none of our sons share the same passion for reading that my wife and I do, all three will pick up books and magazines and read when they find topics of interest. In fact our now 18-year old son read four or five of the Harry Potter books. The middle son has an Associate Degree in Graphics Technology with an Emphasis in Architectural Drawing and our younger son just completed his freshman year in college. By the way, in his freshman year he accomplished what I never did during getting my B.A. in history in four years: he took public speaking. I was too afraid to take it. Ironically, I would go on to a 33-year career of public speaking in the National Park Service and devloping a life-long love for both public speaking and the NPS.

Our oldest son has an insatiable curiosity about life topics that he finds information about in reading the newspaper, an occasional book, and watching television

How our grandson will develop his reading tastes, styles, and techniques, or whether he will, remains to be seen.

So what are the three books, among other books, that these three young men have cut their reading and book teeth on?

First--Runaway Bunny

Next--Good Night Moon

Finally--Drummer Hoff

Runner Away Bunny is by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd. See Amazon customer reviews Runaway Bunny Reviews

Goodnight Moon is also by Brown and Hurd. See Amazon customer reviews Goodnight Moon Reviews

Yes, we were first drawn to this book because of the author's last name is the same as ours. The authors of Drummer Hoff are Barbara Emberly and Ed Emberly. See Amazon customer reviews at Drummer Hoff Reviews

Drummer Hoff is not the classic that the other two books are but it has wonderful illustrations and rhyming language. I won't reveal the plots to you adult readers, but trust me, you and your children will enjoy these books. I suggest personal copies for your children. They may save them for their children.

Your Feedback?

What "starter kid lit" books turned your children on to reading in the beginning? Let me know by posting a comment on this blog or drop me an email at hoff_bob2003@yahoo.com Thank you.

In the Mood for a Thriller?

Right now a close friend of mine, who feasts on books whenever she has the chance, is reading The Wrong Man by John Katzenbach (available in our library), a thriller story about a stalker, The tension is building in the story and in her with each page that she turns. The author is the son of Nicholas Katzenbach, the former U.S. Attorney General in Lyndon Johnson's administration. He is a former court reporter from Florida and lives in Massachusetts. He has written 10 books.

I also read thrillers, including The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series, as well as an occasional Curious George book.

The thriller is the most popular literary genre of the 20th century. .
Ken Follett

Carlsbad Public Library Announces Upcoming Events and Programs

2007-06-01T17:20:00.000-06:00

I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.
Charles Dickens

http://www.giga-usa.com/quotes/topics/children_t002.htm

The Children’s Summer Reading Program begins June 1, 2007

Days and Hours:

Every Wednesday and Thursday

10:00 – 11:00 A.M. Ages: 4 – 7
3:00 - 4:00 P.M. Ages 8 and Up

The theme for the summer reading program this summer is Reading About Wild Things.

A Scholastic Book Fair is available in the Children Department of the Library, June 1 – 9, 2007

Hours:
Coincide with library hours

Computer Donations Expected

The library will be getting five new computers for the Children Department of the Library, a part of the Bill and Melinda Gates grant for donated computers given to libraries across the nation. After overcoming a couple technical difficulties, we will make these computers Internet accessible.

New Landscape Look

We plan to give the Halagueno Arts Park a new Landscape design look.

Children Best Sellers at NY Times

PICTURE BOOKS

1 BAD DOG, MARLEY!, by John Grogan. Illustrated by Richard Cowdrey. (HarperCollins, $16.99.) A yellow Lab's misadventures; based on Grogan's memoir. (Ages 3 to 8)

2 FANCY NANCY AND THE POSH PUPPY, by Jane O'Connor. Illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser. (HarperCollins, $16.99.) What kind of dog is best for a fancy girl? (Ages 4 to 7)

3 THANKS TO YOU, by Julie Andrews Edwards and Emma Walton Hamilton. (HarperCollins, $14.99.) Wisdom from mothers and children, illustrated with family photos. (Ages 5 to 8)

4 MARS NEEDS MOMS!, written and illustrated by Berkeley Breathed. (Philomel, $16.99.) Milo appreciates his mother a little more after Martians want to take her home. (Ages 4 to 8)

5 A GOOD DAY, written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes. (Greenwillow/HarperCollins, $16.99.) A bad day turns around. (Ages 3 to 5)

6 FANCY NANCY, by Jane O'Connor. Illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser. (HarperCollins, $15.99.) A girl takes her family out. (Ages 4 to 7)

7 SOMEDAY, by Alison McGhee. Illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds. (Atheneum, $14.99.) A mother imagines her child's future. (Ages 4 to 8)

8 FLOTSAM, by David Wiesner. (Clarion, $17.) When he finds an underwater camera on the beach, a boy discovers a new world — and an old one. A story in pictures. (Ages 4 to 7)

9 HOW TO BE A BABY — BY ME, THE BIG SISTER, by Sally Lloyd-Jones. Illustrated by Sue Heap. (Schwartz & Wade, $15.99.) Why big kids are superior … well, most of the time. (Ages 4 to 8)

10 GINGER & PETUNIA, written and illustrated by Patricia Polacco. (Philomel, $16.99.) An elegant lady and her elegant pet pig. (Ages 4 to 8)

CHAPTER BOOKS

Number at the beginning of entry # This week; Number at the end of the entry# of weks on the list
1 NEW MOON, by Stephenie Meyer. (Megan Tingley/Little, Brown, $17.99.) A human and a vampire continue their love affair; a sequel to ''Twilight.'' (Ages 12 and up) 41

2 SUMMER BALL, by Mike Lupica. (Philomel, $17.99.) At basketball camp, Danny Walker's not the best player around anymore; a sequel to "Travel Team." (Ages 9 to 12) 1

3 THE SIGHT, by Erin Hunter. (HarperCollins, $16.99.) Three kits study to lead their clan; first in a new "Warriors" series. (Ages 10 to 14) 4

4 THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET, written and illustrated by Brian Selznick. (Scholastic, $22.99.) A novel "in words and pictures"; an orphaned thief must decipher his father's last message. (Ages 9 to 12) 17

5 MARLEY, by John Grogan. (HarperCollins, $16.99.) A yellow Lab's misadventures; adapted from Grogan's memoir "Marley & Me." (Ages 8 to 12) 3

6 THE BOOK THIEF, by Markus Zusak. (Knopf, $16.95.) In Nazi Germany, a girl shares books with a Jewish man. (Ages 14 and up) First Chapter 58

7 DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, written and illustrated by Jeff Kinney. (Abrams, $12.95.) The travails of adolescence, in cartoons. (Ages 9 to 12) 5

8 PANTS ON FIRE, by Meg Cabot. (HarperCollins, $16.99.) A high school girl's constant lies come back to haunt her. (Ages 12 and up) 3

9 IRONSIDE, by Holly Black. (McElderry, $16.99.) In the realm of Faerie, a pixie goes on a quest for love and redemption. (Ages 14 and up) 4

10 IMPULSE, by Ellen Hopkins. (McElderry, $16.99.) Three suicidal teenagers meet at a psychiatric hospital. (Ages 14 and up) 13

Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home. Phyllis Diller

"The mere brute pleasure of reading..."

2007-05-22T22:53:00.000-06:00

The mere brute pleasure of reading - the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.
Lord Chesterfield

Lord Chesterfield at brainyquote.com

I love collections of quotations very much. On a hot summer day I would much rather browse for quotations on the Internet or read through one of my quotations collections books, much more than say, mowing the grass or washing the car, or doing any kind of housework.

http://brainyquote.com/ is one of my favorite Internet collections. One of the most famous American quotation books can be found in the Reference Section of the library at REF 808.88 BAR. This particular collection is the 17th edition and was published in 2002 Read about John Bartlett, whose first collection of quotations he privately printed in 1855, at Wikipedia John Bartlett There is a searchable 1919 10th edition at Bartlett's Quotations

By the way, Bartelby.com has several other quotations collections as well as many famous and worthwhile books from the past. Check it out; find something you like and get the book from the library because at night when you go to bed it is hard to curl up wuth a computer copy of a great book.

Worldcat

Do you know what the Worldcat link to the right is for? It is a finding tool for specific books, subjects, and authors. It tells us whether our library has a particular item or what libraries nearby might have it or materials related to it.

For example, type in To Kill a Mockingbird and press enter. Look at the column to the left entitled "Refine Your Search." You see that the author is Harper Lee so click on "To Kill a Mockingbird" that has her as an author. This takes yout to the libraries screen which shows that the Carlsbad Public Library has it. If we didn't have it, you would be able to see what libraries have it and you could ask a librarian about the possibility of interlibrary loan.

Explore the page to see what other services Worldcat might provide you. To get back to the "What's Up at the Carlsbad Public Library" blog, keep clicking on the return arrow at the top until you arrive there.

Now pick a subject, title, or person that you are interested in and try Worldcat out on your own

One of the New York TimesSunday Book Review Best 10 Books of the Year:
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War (Non-Fiction) by Nathaniel Philbrick
This absorbing history of the Plymouth Colony is a model of revisionism. Philbrick impressively recreates the pilgrims' dismal 1620 voyage, bringing to life passengers and crew, and then relates the events of the settlement and its first contacts with the native inhabitants of Massachusetts. Most striking are the parallels he subtly draws with the present, particularly in his account of how Plymouth's leaders, including Miles Standish, rejected diplomatic overtures toward the Indians, successful though they'd been, and instead pursued a "dehumanizing" policy of violent aggression that led to the needless bloodshed of King Philip's War
NY Times Ten Best Books of 2006

From the perilous ocean crossing to the shared bounty of the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrim settlement of New England has become enshrined as our most sacred national myth. Yet, as author Philbrick reveals, the true story of the Pilgrims is much more than the well-known tale of piety and sacrifice; it is a 55-year epic. The Mayflower's religious refugees arrived in Plymouth Harbor during a period of crisis for Native Americans, as disease spread by European fishermen devastated their populations. Initially the two groups maintained a fragile working relationship. But within decades, New England erupted into King Philip's War, a savage conflict that nearly wiped out colonists and natives alike, and forever altered the face of the fledgling colonies and the country that would grow from them. Philbrick has fashioned a fresh portrait of the dawn of American history--dominated right from the start by issues of race, violence, and religion.--From publisher description. (461 p)
Carlsbad Public Library Catalog 973.22 Phil

Another one of the New York TimesSunday Book Review Best 10 Books of the Year:

The Omnivore's Dilemna: A Natural History of Four Meals (Non-fiction) by Michael Pollan

When you can eat just about anything nature has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety," Pollan writes in this supple and probing book. He gracefully navigates within these anxieties as he traces the origins of four meals - from a fast-food dinner to a "hunter-gatherer" feast - and makes us see, with remarkable clarity, exactly how what we eat affects both our bodies and the planet. Pollan is the perfect tour guide: his prose is incisive and alive, and pointed without being tendentious. In an uncommonly good year for American food writing, this is a book that stands out.

NY Times Ten Best Books oof 2006
----------------------------------------------
Introduction: our national eating disorder -- Industrial: corn. The plant: corn's conquest -- The farm -- The elevator -- The feedlot: making meat -- The processing plant: making complex foods -- The consumer: a republic of fat -- The meal: fast food -- Pastoral: grass. All flesh is grass -- Big organic -- Grass: thirteen ways of looking at a pasture -- The animals: practicing complexity -- Slaughter: in a glass abattoir -- The market: "greetings from the non-barcode people" -- The meal: grass-fed -- Personal: the forest. The forager -- The omnivore's dilemma -- The ethics of eating animals -- Hunting: the meat -- Gathering: the fungi -- The perfect meal.

Carlsbad Public Library Catalog
394.112 POL

My great-niece who graduated from Texas A&M earlier this month with a degree in bio-environmental science and who already knows much about "eating and its effects on people and the environment" has read this book and highly recommends it. It is on my "to-read list."

Our children's health and well-being are dependent on our commitment to promoting food access and good eating habits at home, at school and in the community. Rod Blagojevich

Carlsbad Current Argus 4/15/07 article on National Library Week

2007-04-16T00:14:00.001-06:00

Local library asks community to "Come Together"
(Submitted to the Current-Argus )

CARLSBAD — "Come together at your library" is the theme of this year's National Library Week, April 15-21. It's a time for libraries of all types and the people who use them to celebrate the contributions of those libraries, librarians and library workers in our nation's schools, campuses and communities.

As our first lady, and our first librarian in the White House, Laura Bush said, "Libraries are community treasure chests, loaded with a wealth of information available to everyone, equally, and the key to that treasure chest is a library card."

But some may think that libraries are becoming obsolete, a quaint vestige of our past. Have library stacks been outpaced by memory sticks? Has the Internet crushed local libraries with its weight of information?

Not according to the facts which report library use is up nationwide. More than two billion items were checked out last year, and librarians serve nearly 1.8 billion visitors annually. Our local library circulates nearly 6,000 items a month with an average of 9,500 people coming through the doors each month.

Rather than threatening our libraries, the age of technology has only complemented their services and expanded their reach.

This is because libraries are about more than information and data sharing.
Libraries are about community.

They provide a physical gathering place, a crossroads for people of all ages, ethnicities and economic means, complete with trained information professionals - librarians - fostering inquiry and assisting with interpretation of information both onsite and online.

Libraries are also leading the way in forging creative public-private charitable partnerships with a new generation of supporters like the Bill & Melinda Gates Library Foundation, this year celebrating 10 years of major financial support for computer equipment, software and training at our nation's libraries.

These efforts aren't simply charitable. Education and literacy are essential to staying competitive in a global society. Recent studies indicate we've got some serious distance to travel.

More than eight million American children, grades four through 12, struggle to read, write and comprehend on the most basic levels, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, and only three out of 10 eighth-graders are reading at or above grade level.

Society as a whole pays dearly, according to the National Governors Association, whose "Reading to Achieve" report indicates that deficits in basic literacy skills drain as much as $16 million annually from businesses, universities and under-educated workers themselves in lost productivity and other costs.

Libraries are part of the solution. Research in 14 states has found that students with well-developed school libraries consistently score 10-18 percent higher on reading and other tests. Just recently a group of 15 seniors who met each day after school at their library learned that 100 percent of their group was selected for early admissions at some of the nation's most selective colleges. College and university librarians help students conduct research, either in person or online through "ask a librarian" services. In fact, they answer almost 73 million reference questions each year about twice the attendance at college football games.

For many, a large number of whom don't have computers at home, our public libraries make the difference between decent wages and economic disenfranchisement.

Libraries and librarians are more relevant than ever before, providing a 24/7 information delivery service. The multi-faceted, multicultural, multilingual resources are providing a bridge to the best conceivable future for millions nationwide. And, of course, admission is free.

It's democracy in action. There's nothing obsolete about that.

Americans value their libraries, and they show that appreciation by using their libraries in large numbers and by supporting library funding. The library is one of the very few places you can go and be provided with educational, recreational, and/or useful materials for free. You can walk out the door of a public library with hundreds of dollars worth of your tax money in your hands all because you have a library card!

In these challenging economic times, libraries are being used more than ever, and with less financial backing. Therefore, the same amount of library staff, almost all with fewer resources, are providing more services than ever before with story hours, reference help and outreach programs.

On Tuesday, April 17, during National Library Week, schools, campuses and communities across the country will celebrate the second National Library Workers Day and the valuable contributions of our librarians and library support staff.

At noon Mayor Bob Forrest will recognize the Carlsbad Public Library staff and read a proclamation declaring this week, National Library Week. President Theodore Roosevelt, played by Randy Milligan, will also be featured in a presentation of "Bully for Books."

Libraries are part of the American dream places for opportunity, education, lifelong learning and free and equal access to a world of resources no matter what your age, income or background — but that dream would not exist if it were not for the people who work in libraries.

Library workers organize and maintain everything that is in the library. Materials need to be selected, ordered, processed, and then made available for users. From a book for research or leisure reading to a laptop that can be checked out to a display of drug awareness in our community, a skilled and dedicated human is responsible for its presence in the library.

They choose, order, catalog, label and shelve all of the books, media, serials and other materials. They lobby for funding and crusade against censorship. Library workers read stories to children and books to the blind. They suggest good reads, organize book clubs, advise vampire slayers, fight crime and throw fabulous parties. In the local college or university they provide the educational support for students, faculty and staff.

Those in public service, whether it's in a public, school or university library, are skilled and knowledgeable researchers who know just which tool to use for which information need, navigating through a variety of electronic and print resources: almanacs, bibliographies, catalogs, databases, dictionaries, gazetteers, encyclopedias, reviews and yearbooks. And they know! Sometimes locating just the right answer appears so simple that users do not realize that it isn't that easy. Most times library workers are drawing on education and experience that just make it look that way.

Library workers do all this and more, even though they are rarely thanked and often poorly rewarded. When town, school and company budgets become tight, librarians are often the first group to be cut. Yet, working in the library is rewarding for most people because it involves giving a service that contributes to the overall quality of life in a community. It is positive work that should be recognized in a society that values knowledge, learning and opportunity.

So take a moment this Tuesday to thank our library workers for the services they provide.

The Young Adult Library Services Association, the fastest growing division of the American Library Association, is celebrating the first ever Support Teen Literature Day April 19, in conjunction with ALA's National Library Week.

Librarians all across the country are encouraged to participate in Support Teen Literature Day by hosting events in their library. The purpose of this new celebration is to raise awareness among the general public that young adult literature is a vibrant, growing genre with much to offer today's teens.

As part of the Support Teen Literature program, the Carlsbad Public Library will feature a Teen Poetry reading at 7 p.m. Friday, April 20, at the annex with award winning poets from New Mexico state competition reading their winning poems.

One of my favorite authors died on April 11, 2007

2007-04-13T09:45:00.000-06:00

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut at BrainyQuote.com

The New York Times Remembers Kurt Vonnegut (April 12, 2007)

One of my favorite authors died on April 11, 2007.

Author Kurt Vonnegut Dies at 84.

Vonnegut was an author that I accidentally discovered while I was in college in the 1960s, though not in a classroom. The first Vonnegut book that I read was Welcome to the Monkey House, a collection of short stories--and I was hooked (and still am). His satire, his humor, his humanity, his willingness to take on the "establishment," and his writing style all turned me on--and still do.

He was and still is one of my writing/thinking/values/freedom of speech heroes.

He was an American philosopher who several people have compared to another influetial American writer, one Samuel Clemens , a.k.a. Mark Twain. Some people see great humor, satire, and encouragement/support of other human beings in both writers. I do.When it comes to people, Vonnegut advocated the underdog, the people, who forever, for what ever reason, never seem to get a fair share of the earth's resources.

Vonnegut was passionate about humans treating each other better than we do on many occasions.

He constantly warned humans of our disregard for the condition of the present and future environment(s) of the world. He often reminded our government of the mistakes that it makes. Vonnegut did not tippy-toe around words; he said what he meant.

He has left us a legacy of his thought--his novels, essays, his commencement addresses, his plays. If you like short stories, dip into his Welcome to the Monkey House; if you like novels, try one of my favorites: The Sirens of Titan.

Please tap into his literary, philosophical, and humane wealth at:

Vonnegut Web Page

Listen to NPR Interview with Vonnegut at:

Kurt Vonnegut Interview on NPR

Kurt Vonnegut at Brainy Quote

I join those in the world who will miss this soft-spoken, kind-hearted, and thoughtful author.

The library has these Vonnegut books:

A Man without a Country

Mother Night

Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction

Timequake

Slaughter House 5

Hocus Pocus

Galapagos: a Novel

Deadeye Dick

Breakfast of Champions

I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours.

Kurt Vonnegut.

Kurt Vonnegut at BrainyQuote.com

"Read whenever you get the chance!" (Bob Hoff :D :D)

© Bob Hoff, 2007

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"The mere brute pleasure of reading..."

Worldcat

Carlsbad Current Argus 4/15/07 article on National Library Week

One of my favorite authors died on April 11, 2007