Libraries lend a hand in tough times

In Defense of the Sci-Fi genre

I love reading science fiction/fantasy. I find it a genre of ideas, and I love to see how they take basic science and build on it to come up with really interesting future scenarios in their stories. I think it is a misunderstood genre in a lot of ways. I think those folks who say they don't like it are thinking of some pretty awful stuff they may have stumbled across somewhere along the way and they think that this drek represents the whole genre.

I read a really terrific column by Ben Bova on naplesnews.com called Maybe Leaders Should Read More Science Fiction. I agree with everything Ben says in the column, but in particular these two paragraphs stood out:

"In the past, science-fiction writers have written about computers, robots, space flight, nuclear power, organ transplants, prosthetic limbs, brain stimulators, climate change, overpopulation and a myriad of other ideas and possibilities — usually several decades before they became actualities.

If our political leaders had been reading science fiction, we might have been spared the Cold War, the energy crises, the failures of public education and many of the other problems that now seem intractable because we were not prepared to deal with them when they arose."

I wish I could get our local book club to read more of this genre, but they don't seem too interested in it. Maybe I should share with them Ben's closing paragraph:

"Science fiction, at its best, is an experimental laboratory where you can test new ideas to see how they might affect people and whole societies. To my mind, it should be required reading for everyone."

I agree.

Note: Naples resident Ben Bova is the author of 120 books, including “The Immortality Factor,” a novel about stem-cell research. Bova’s Web site address is www.benbova.com

From LISNews Librarian And Information Science News

Librarians As Heroes

June 8, 2009 - 4:44pm — birdie

Most people who enter the library need assistance, and sometimes it's not just a matter of an easily answered question.

Will Van Sant of the Tampa Bay Times reminds us that the current economy has created additional duties for this new brand of librarian...librarian-cum-social worker. He calls them 'the heros of the recession'.

Van Sant says: "Take mild-mannered David Stoner. Trained to help adults discover the trial of Socrates and sixth graders track the Oregon Trail, he now spends half his time in the trenches of a battered economy. There his job is far more urgent: helping people who need jobs, food stamps or Medicaid.

"These days, it's really social work in some respects," said Stoner, who directs adult services for the Clearwater Public Library System. "And it's really satisfying to see how much you are helping.

Karen Prall has been a Clearwater library regular since September, when she lost her dental assistant job. She doesn't like going to WorkNet Pinellas, a nonprofit workforce development agency. She said staff there are overworked, disorganized and dismissive.

When she visited the library on a recent Friday afternoon, Stoner swiftly had Prall, who has limited computer experience, posting her resume to the Web.

"The library is really the only place you can go to get direct help immediately," said Prall, 39. "You ask them and they don't say, 'I'll be with you in 20 minutes.' They'll come over and help you right away."

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

I've been reading a lot about vampires lately. One of the articles I read started out with this sentence "Not since Buffy slayed her last victim and Ann Rice had a return of faith have there been so many vampires in the library." How true, how true. That line came from an article entitled "The Rise of Vampire Literature". It is no coincidence that one of the largest segments of the audience for vampire literature is the young adult. This is a time when there is much confusion, lots of nagging questions, endless problems, and a frightening array of choices. Growing up can be a daunting prospect involving separation from family and the burden of becoming a responsible adult.

Norine Dresser, in her book American vampires (1989) reports findings of a survey she conducted among college and high school respondents who were identified as vampire fans. They were asked to list those things that appealed to them. The top result was sexual attraction. The vampire represents the forbidden, the mysterious and the exciting. The next most popular response was Immortality, living forever as a youth with vitality and energy. The third most popular was Power, the ability to control others or to dominate the opposite sex, the ability to drain life or to bestow eternal life. The fourth most popular response, Blood Lust. The fifth, the Beauty, Elegance and Sophistication of the vampire. And the sixth most popular response, Marginality, the vampire as someone "different", an outsider and also persecuted for that difference.

Ms. Meyer does a good job of incorporating all these elements in this, the kick-off book to her Twilight series. She manages to successfully capture the passion of a teen's first love. Bella Swan moves to Forks, a small town in Washington state, where it is damp and dreary, to live with her Dad. There she meets the mysterious Edward Cullen, who just happens to be a vampire. This is their love story that Ms. Meyer has reportedly said came to her in a dream. As Bella learns more about the mysterious Edward and his family, she is thrown into a dangerous adventure, and called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice to save the one she loves.

I think it's extremely interesting that Ms. Meyer is a Mormon mother of 3 who has never seen an R-rated film in her life and just happens to write a series of vampire novels that is the most popular thing since Harry Potter. She obviously knew how to tap into the vast reservoir of teen angst in her storyline. And though sexual attraction is at the top of the list for vampire lovers, Ms. Meyer's Twilight has sex without sex. It has all the trappings of sex, all the feeling of a sensual experience, but none of the real sex, so it has won over part of the adult audience because of its chaste portrayal of young love. Here's another direct quote that drives the point home: "The literary vampire presents a mirror, even if a dark mirror, to the adolescent and shows that all the problems they may face can be resolved. All the mysteries, whose solution permit you to join the ranks of the adult, can be fathomed." [from Vampire Literature: Something Young Adults Can Really Sink Their Teeth Into" by Joseph De Marco]

To peruse a list of literary vampire books, rather than the urban fantasy or horror variety, click here.

Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore

This is the well written and light hearted debut novel from Christopher Moore. It is the first of his series of books that are known to be comic fantasies, satirical, and laugh out loud funny.

Pine Cove, a small California town, is visited by a demon and his master. The demon from hell, Catch, has a nasty habit of eating most of the people he meets. His master, Travis, is a 100 year old ex-seminarian. Travis has been trying to get rid of Catch, but has lost the necessary incantations. He thinks he has traced them to Pine Cove, but the local residents and a djinn (or genie) who is pursuing Catch create considerable hilarious complications.

Several characters from this novel continue their lives in later books, and the setting itself is revisited in The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove and The Stupidest Angel. Moore is good at combining humor and horror and has made a good living doing it. If you're a Moore fan, this book will not disappoint. As for me, I'm going to finish reading the series. I like the laughs.

Obsession by Karen Robards

O.K. I freely admit, up front, that I am not a romance genre fan. It drives me crazy that people come into the library and check out Harlequin/fill in the blank romance paperbacks by the bag full and many an excellent book remains on the shelf unread. I jokingly call the whole romance genre "bodice-ripper" romance. They are cranked out too fast and are too formulaic to be of interest to me. The only way I like to read this particular genre is if you throw in a little history or humor or something.

In the case of Karen Robards, first of all she's a Kentucky author, and I'm kind of partial to those Kentucky authors. She does have a lot of humor in what she writes, so I like that too. She has an interesting website and a household full of boys and pets. And her books are a fast pleasant read.

In Obsession, Katharine Lawrence finds herself and a friend lying bound and gagged on her kitchen floor while two masked gun wielding thugs are searching her house. She doesn't know what they are searching for, only that she could wind up dead if they don't find what they are looking for, or even if they do find it. In the aftermath of this breakin, her friend is killed and she finds herself in the hospital with something drastic going on in her brain. She doesn't recognize herself when she looks in the mirror. The doctor at her bedside is kind of familiar, but her mind is totally at odds with herself. All she knows is she can't trust anyone, not even her own memories.

Robards manages to make the book interesting enough to keep you turning the pages to see how this all plays out and there is even a neat little twist at the end that wraps it all up together nicely. So though I don't read this kind of book much, it is a pleasant enough diversion. It may be for you too.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

A friend of mine laid this book on my desk and said "you've got to read this". Something in the way she said it made me take notice, and it was buried in my "to read" pile till just recently.

When I started reading it, I was immediately impressed with the writing style. It's pretty much stream of consciousness style, and I really related to that. It also was so clever and profound and emotional that it touched me deeply.

The book was written in 2005, and was one of the first novels about the terrorist attack of September 11th. Jonathan Foer brings a multimedia approach to this book using different type settings, spaces, and even blank pages to give the book a visual dimension beyond the written prose. There is even a little flip book effect at the end of the book, that uses the famous falling man picture from 9/11, to really bring home the emotional thrust of the end of the story.

The book's narrator is a precocious 9 year old boy named Oskar Schell. Oskar lost his father in the 9/11 disaster and is depressed and traumatized. He is overeducated and over sensitive. Oskar searches New York for the lock that matches a key his father left behind. This quest weaves together Oskar's story and the story of his grandparents whose lives were destroyed by the fire bombing of Dresden.

Throughout the novel Foer uses images to connect ideas and themes. I truly loved this compelling, extremely moving, and beautifully written book. My heart soared while I read it, and my mind raced with all the ideas it contained.

Buffalo Gal by Laura Pedersen

Laura Pedersen was the youngest columnist for The New York Times and, prior to that, the youngest person to have a seat on the American Stock Exchange. She has a finance degree from New York University's Stern School of Business. Her nonfiction book Play Money, about working on Wall Street, became a best seller. In 1994, President Clinton honored Pedersen as one of Ten Outstanding Young Americans. She has appeared on CNN, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, Primetime Live, The Today Show, and The Late Show with David Letterman. She has also performed stand-up comedy at the Improv, among other clubs, and writes material for several well-known comedians.

"Last Call" was a book of hers that our book club read a couple of years ago. Her characters in that book were so interesting and funny that they just jumped right off the page, and the book contained so much about life and faith and love and the kind of wisdom and acceptance that we all long for, that it was one of my favorites read that whole entire year.

This book is her memoir of growing up in Buffalo, New York, a place that has double the country's unemployment and triple the snowfall. But this warm hearted book of her childhood years is full of funny anecdotes about her eccentric family members and contains a great dollop of social history that captures the era quite vividly. And all of it wrapped up nicely in Laura's trademark humor.

Laura was the proverbial wild child growing up, the only child of unconventional parents. Her father was a chain smoking court reporter and her mother was a psychiatric nurse at a time when most mothers stayed home. She was left alone a lot growing up and therefore learned to be very independent quite early on. Her memories of the harsh winters and amazing blizzards of her childhood are told with her typical charm and she manages to capture the decline of the hometown she clearly loves in her own unique way. You don't have to have grown up in Buffalo to identify with her stories, and the friendships and discoveries and lessons learned come across in a lovely way.

Laura talks about being impressed with a man named Earl Nightingale, a motivational self-help guru along the lines of Dale Carnegie or Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. She said he became the portable tent that she would carry through life. Some of Earl's pearls of wisdom were that our attitude in life determines life's attitude toward us; we can let circumstances rule us, or we can take charge and rule our lives from within; what's going on inside shows on the outside; whenever we're afraid, it's because we don't know enough and if we understood enough, we would never be afraid; people with goals succeed because they know where they're going; your world is a living expression of how you are using your mind; wherever there is danger, there lurks opportunity and wherever there is opportunity, there lurks danger as the two are inseparable; creativity is a natural extension of our enthusiasm; you can help others by making the most of yourself more than in any other way; and you become what you think about. Good sound advice that Laura put to work in her own life and it no doubt helped her become the success that she is.

This was a very enjoyable book.

Deep Storm by Lincoln Child

A former Naval doctor, Peter Crane, is brought aboard an oil platform in the north Atlantic to help diagnose a medical illness. When he gets there, he is sworn to secrecy and transported deep below the surface of the ocean to the ocean floor, to a facility called Deep Storm, where the real trouble lies.

Deep Storm is a science research station two miles beneath the surface with stunning technological advancements. He is at first told that they think they have discovered the remains of an ancient civilization there, perhaps the legendary Atlantis. But during excavation of the site, a series of illnesses has begun to affect the people involved in the excavation. As he begins to investigate these strange illnesses, he starts to suspect that the facility is concealing something completely different, perhaps something much more sinister. And then people start dying and it is up to Dr. Crane to unravel not only the mysterious nature of the illnesses, but the mysterious layer of lies and illusions that seem to surround him.

Lincoln Child is probably best known for being coauthor (along with Douglas Preston) of a series of bestselling thrillers. I found this book well crafted, imaginative, and just a lot of fun. It kept me wanting to turn the pages to see what happens next, and finish one more chapter, before putting the book down and turning my attention to other things for awhile. This book would appeal to science fiction fans, as well as fans of thrillers.

Things coming up in April

This exciting national campaign is an effort to get students out of the classroom and into the great outdoors to explore, learn about and enjoy the environment. Students love learning about their own world, but many do not have the opportunity to take part in well-planned, outdoor educational and exploration activities. Many teachers don’t realize the value of, or are not given time for, using the amazing real-world laboratory that exists just outside the school doors. This campaign will get teachers and kids outside to learn and will focus congressional attention on the value of environmental education.

Research has shown the value that environmental education brings to schools. Kids grow more engaged in their work and perform better on assessments in every subject.

We believe that all children should be given the chance to learn more about their world.
Let’s start making sure that happens. Please support and take part in “No Child Left Inside Days.”

Please click here for information on how you can help.

April is National Poetry month. As part of that month long celebration of poetry, there is Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 30th. National Poetry Month brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events. Please click here for more information.

We Shall Remain is a groundbreaking mini-series and provocative multi-media project that establishes Native history as an essential part of American history. Airing in April, five 90-minute documentaries spanning three hundred years tell the story of pivotal moments in U.S. history from the Native American perspective.

Produced by the award-winning PBS series American Experience, We Shall Remain is a five-part television series that shows how Native peoples adapted and fought back-- from the Wampanoags of New England in the 1600s who used their alliance with the English to weaken rival tribes, to the bold new leaders of the 1970s who harnessed the momentum of the civil rights movement to forge a pan-Indian identity.

An unprecedented collaboration with multiple media platforms - radio broadcast, Web and new media, a mentoring program, educational and community outreach campaigns, and media partnerships -- will give the series maximum impact. Peggy Berryhill, Director of Media Architecture and Services for Native Public Media, will produce a series of radio broadcasts for the project.

For more information click here and here.

Fool by Christopher Moore

"Hilariously raunchy and politically incorrect."
"Chris Moore is no fool."
"Great fun, don't have to know Shakespeare. "
" If only Shakespeare were this entertaining."
" Hilariously, insanely nuts. "
"A bawdy romp where the "fool" uses his brains to get what he lusts for."
"Astoundingly hilarious."
"You'd be a fool not to read it."

These are all titles of customer reviews taken from Amazon. To be honest, these were all written by die-hard Christopher Moore fans, so I guess you should expect all the accolades. I too am a big Christopher Moore fan. I love the quirky humor in his books. But I hasten to add he's probably not everybody's cup of tea. I do remember an older patron coming into the library and pointing out one of his books on the shelf and saying "this guy is one sick little puppy". But if you like caustic, wry, sarcastic humor, you will probably like Moore's books.

I liked this one overall, and thought the footnotes were some of the most hilarious parts. It was a little bawdy for my tastes, but then Moore doesn't do anything half way, so over the top on this aspect is probably what he was striving for.

It's 1288, and the king's fool, Pocket, and his dimwit apprentice, Drool, set out to clean up the mess Lear has made of his kingdom, his family and his fortune—only to discover the truth about their own heritage. This is Moore's retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear. It's profane, vulgar and crude, with a Monty Python twist. But it is indeed laugh out loud funny.

My Antonia by Willa Cather

Our Bookclub decided to read this classic book (written in 1918), and I'm glad we did, because I really liked it.

This book is about Antonia Shimerda, a Bohemian immigrant to the state of Nebraska in the 1880s. The story is told from the perspective of the narrator, Jim Burden, who relates his own image of Antonia that he recreates from his childhood and youth. Jim and Antonia come from different places in the social heirarchy, she being a poor immigrant girl and Jim becoming a successful, well-traveled, and cultured lawyer. Antonia survives a series of setbacks, from her father's suicide, being abandoned at the altar, and finally giving birth out of wedlock, yet finally achieves fulfillment in her marriage to a Czech farmer, their many children, and thriving farm. And Jim remains romantic, nostalgic, and unfulfilled.

I love the quote that begins the book "optima dies prima fugit", which translates to "In the lives of mortals the best days are the first to flee". The book is written in a quite lovely style. It has been said that Cather's portrait of Antonia is widely acknowledged as one of the most memorable characters in twentieth century literature and that her image of Antonia celebrates the vitality and fruitfulness of the pioneering era as a type of lost paradise. There are many descriptions of the land where it talks about trees being so rare they visited them like people. At one point in the book Cather says "Winter lies too long in country towns, hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen. On the farm the weather was the great fact, and men's affairs went on underneath it, as the streams creep under the ice."

This is a well crafted and sympathetic portrayal of immigrant pioneers written with poetic sensibility, deeply rooted in a sense of place, and at the same time universal in its treatment of theme and character. I highly recommend it.

Hannah's Dream by Diane Hammond

This is the sweetest book, and such a gentle read. It is charming, and captivating. A story you will not soon forget.

For 41 years, Samson Brown has been caring for Hannah, the one and only elephant at the Max L. Biedelman Zoo--a zoo that has seen better days. He has vowed not to retire until he can find a devoted caretaker for his Hannah. Sam is overjoyed when he finds Neva Wilson, but despite her care they both realize that Hannah is isolated from other elephants and her feet are bad from standing on hard concrete all day, and they hatch a plot to send Hannah to an elephant sanctuary. The Zoo's unhappy Director is their main adversary though, because she does not want her star attraction and main financial draw to go anywhere else.

This is such a touching and uplifting story written with great poignancy and it proves, as Booklist

says, that love comes in all shapes and sizes.

Here's a couple of quotes to give you just a taste of the wisdom contained in this book. The first is from Maxine L. Biedelman, the colorful woman who started the zoo, who is talking to Samson Brown, Hannah's keeper: "The World is simpler in Africa, Mr. Brown. Not in all ways, of course, but in the important ones. You eat when you're hungry and sleep when you're tired and you know you're nothing more than a gnat, a visitor, forgotten even before you're gone. Africa belongs to the land and the animals. It's no place for the high-strung."

At another point, Maxine Biedelman is looking back on her long life, and says "Do you know what I've been thinking lately? I've been thinking that we're animals, like any others--we senesce, we sink into decrepitude just as they do. But I've wondered if it isn't our special hell that we are able to register the swift passage of time, the lightning speed of it all, and the absoluteness with which it is gone. I feel my age, Mr. Brown, I feel every bit of it, and yet I can recall so very clearly what it was like to be young. It torments me. I should like, just one more time, to feel the winds of Africa, to hear and feel the din and the heat of the Indonesian jungle. The mahouts used to sing as they prepared their supper. They were a joyful people who believed in a joyful world. And indeed, the world is a fine place when one sees it from the back of an elephant."

In the book, when they are looking for something to enrich the environment for Hannah, they try painting. I thought you might enjoy the video below of an elephant painting. It is truly amazing.

American Buffalo by Steven Rinella

So these are some of the facts I've gleaned from reading "American Buffalo" by Steven Rinella.

¤ There is a town or City named Buffalo in eighteen states
¤ Tatanka is the Lakota word for Buffalo
¤ Black Diamond, the "model" for the Buffalo nickel, who had been confined in a very small cage in the Central Park Menagerie, was sold to a meat packer for $300, and his head was put on the wall of the guy's office
¤ Buffalo Bill's entire herd of 20 buffalo were killed by pneumonia in 1886-1887 while he performed in New York
¤ The Blackfoot Indians of the northern great plains believed that the buffalo once hunted and ate humans, but then the maker of people gave humans bows and flint knives and instructed them to eat the buffalo instead. Some plains tribes did not eat the thymus glands, or sweetbreads, of buffalo, believing they were chunks of human flesh still stuck in the buffalo's throat

In 2005, Steven Rinella won a lottery permit to hunt for an American buffalo or bison in the wilderness of Alaska. Despite great odds, Rinella managed to kill a buffalo on a snow-covered mountain and then raft the meat back to civilization, all the while being trailed by grizzly bears and suffering from hypothermia. Now while I can totally relate to Rinella's recounting of facts about the buffalo and his seeming love of the animal as he describes stalking it, I can't understand how he can pull that trigger at the moment of reckoning. But as for the rest of his story, I found it extremely interesting and thought provoking, as it is a tale of the many ways in which the buffalo has shaped our national identity.

Rinella says "I sometimes imagine that we saved the buffalo from the brink of extinction for the simple reason that the animal provided a handy mirror in which we could see our innermost desires and failures, and our most confounding contradictions. Our efforts to use the buffalo as a looking glass have rendered the animal almost inscrutable. At once it is a symbol of the tenacity of wilderness and the destruction of wilderness; it's a symbol of Native American culture and the death of Native American culture; it's a symbol of the strength and vitality of America and the pettiness and greed of America; it represents a frontier both forgotten and remembered; it stands for freedom and captivity, extinction and salvation. Perhaps the buffalo's enduring strength and legacy come from this chameleonic wizardry, this ability to provide whatever we need at the given moment. Maybe that's what the sculptor James Earle Fraser had in mind when he put the buffalo on the American nickel. In pursuit of a timeless design, he gave us an image that will never lose its meaning, whatever that meaning might ultimately be."

The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs

I really liked A. J. Jacobs' first book, "The Know it All". In that one, his quest was to read the Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z. I thought it was uproaringly funny how he worked all these little bits of information he had gleaned from his reading into his every day conversations.

When I heard he had a second book out, and this time he was going to attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year, I knew I wanted to read it. And the book does not disappoint. Because not only does he attempt to follow all the well known principles of the Bible, like the Ten Commandments, or loving your neighbor, and being fruitful and multiplying...but he also tries to obey all the hundreds of lesser known rules, such as avoiding wearing clothes made of mixed fibers, etc. This is quite a daunting task and as he explores all the consequences of attempting to follow these precepts we are taken along on his thought provoking and hilarious journey--and we even learn a few things along the way. As one of the quotes sprinkled liberally throughout the book says "Religion makes the strange familiar and the familiar strange."

This book is extremely funny and self-deprecating and not only is it quirky and entertaining, but full of life lessons and ultimately beautiful and moving. It examines religion in terms of modern life and makes the whole experience delightful and charming. It's a spiritual journey that is both reverent and irreverent and a really entertaining read. And like A. J. says at one point in the book "My favorite parts of the Bible are the ones that admit that we don't know everything, that stress the mystery of God and the universe." Like Ecclesiastes 6:12 which says:

For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun?


So if you want a highly entertaining book that's funny and thought provoking at the same time, I recommend you pick up a copy of either of A.J.'s books. And if you want to test the waters so to speak before you pick up copies of his books, check out his website here. You'll love him.

Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon

I am a big fan of Jan Karon's Mitford series. They center around a fictional town called "Mitford" and the local Episcopalian priest, Father Tim. They are populated with quirky small town characters that you get to know and come to love, and you look forward to visiting because a trip to Mitford is always good for the soul. But it has been said that the main character of the novels is not Father Tim, or Mitford itself, but Jesus Christ (as faith seems to permeate the life of her characters). Jan Karon is comfortable with that characterization. She has said that God led her to write the books, because on her own she would never have considered writing about a balding, pudgy, sixty-something cleric.

A major theme of the Mitford novels was Father Tim's impending retirement. He wrestled with the decision to retire and wondered what retirement would hold for him. This book is the first in her new series to be called "The Father Tim novels".

Father Tim receives an unsigned note from his hometown in Mississippi. It contains two words--Come home. After more than 38 years away, he does just that, he goes home. He and his faithful dog Barnabus pile into his mustang convertible with the top down and head to the home of his childhood Holly Springs, Mississippi. Father Tim thinks Thomas Wolfe was probably right in saying you can't go home again, but when he gets there he finds a surprising number of old connections have survived his time away. So begins a journey of discovery for Father Tim. He comes face to face with family secrets and relives memories with childhood friends and family. Jan Karon has written a bewitching and captivating book that is poignant and laced with wisdom and a generous dollop of forgiveness. I truly loved this book.

John Lennon: the Life by Philip Norman

Philip Norman wrote "Shout", a so-called definitive biography of the Beatles. Now he has written a biography about the life of the Beatles charismatic and witty leader, John Winston Lennon. He certainly had access to all the major players in John's life and some previously untapped sources, so the book makes for interesting reading. And believe me, I thought I had read and knew just about every detail of the life of John, Paul, George, and Ringo--being a strong Beatle fan myself, but there were a few surprises in this book for me as well. So I think it is a book that will appeal to the casual fan, as well as any died in the wool "Beatlemaniac".

The author says he spent three years researching the book, and the book covers every aspect of John's life, from his upbringing by his strict Aunt Mimi, through his student days, his meeting and partnership with Paul McCartney, the Beatles early Hamburg days, his affair with Japanese performance artist Yoko Ono, and their eventual marriage, culminating with his early death at the age of 40, when he was shot down in front of the Dakota apartment building in New York by a deranged fan. He manages to paint a portrait of a very complex man who seemed to be a bundle of contradictions. John was very tough, and very cynical, but also vulnerable and very insecure. He was very witty and funny and yet very naive.

John Lennon in Hamburg on a fairground , near the Reeperbahn.

The book is broken into five parts (1) The Country Boy ( 2) To The Toppermost of the Poppermost (which was a phrase that John used when they were in Hamburg and the other Beatles would ask him "John, where are we going?"--and he would reply "To the Toppermost of the Poppermost") (3) A Genius of the Lower Crust (4) Zen Vaudeville (5) Pizza and Fairy Tales.

Each part has several sections that start off with a quote from John. For example, under The Country Boy part, there is a section titled "Shortsighted John Wimple Lennon" with a quote by John saying "I thought, I'm a genius or I'm mad. Which is it?" The book also finishes up with a Postscript called Sean Remembers, contributed by John's son with Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon.

The last major biography of John was published twenty years ago by Albert Goldman. This book was written with the blessing of Yoko Ono and the cooperation of Paul McCartney, though it has been said that both were a little unhappy over the results. Anyone who has paid any attention at all to the lyrics of John's songs over the years can see how emotionally tortured he was, how much pent up anger he contained, and how his life long fear of abandonment figured prominently in his music.

The irony of his death was that it came at a time when he seemed to have finally exorcised his demons and achieved a degree of contentment and fulfillment in his life. He was starting to mature and mellow and one can't help but wonder what other changes would have occurred if he had been allowed to grow old, and what new trails he would have blazed for us had he been given the chance.

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

The animated version of this book opened in theaters just in time for the holidays and has several big stars doing the voices of the characters (Matthew Broderick as Despereaux; Dustin Hoffman as Roscuro; Emma Watson as Princess Pea; and Tracey Ullman as Miggery Sow). If I go to see the film, I think I'll have to wear a T-shirt that says "Don't Judge a Book by its Movie"--yes, there really is one available. Books are always better than the movies made from them. That's not to say that you can't like both.

This is a Newbery honor book written for ages 9-12. The book is four stories woven into one delightful tale. In Book the First, we find out about Despereaux Tilling, a mouse who loves music, stories, and a princess named Pea. In Book the Second, we find out about Roscuro, a rat who lives in darkness, but desires the light. In Book the Third, we are told the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl with an impossible wish to be a princess. And in Book the Fourth all these threads of stories are brought together in a very sweet conclusion.

Now I freely admit I'm a big fan of the author of this book, Kate DiCamillo. She writes for both children and adults and says she likes to think of herself as a storyteller. In fact at one point in this book she has the character Gregory the jailer tell Despereaux "Stories are light", and as preface to telling this story says "The world is dark, and light is precious. Come closer, dear reader. You must trust me. I am telling you a story."

In fact, she wrote this book because her best friend's son asked her to write a story for him about an unlikely hero with exceptionally large ears. And Kate has managed to pull it off in style. That is not surprising if you've read any of her other books--"Because of Winn-Dixie", "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane", or "The Tiger Rising".

DiCamilla has said that she had a writing instructor once who told her that writing is all about seeing. It is the sacred duty of the writer to pay attention, to see the world. And DiCamilla takes that bit of advice to heart in all her writing. She is amazingly descriptive and perceptive of everything going on around her in the tales she tells. There is great emotional resonance in her writing. It will pluck your heart string. She says that what she discovered in her writing was that each time she looked at the world and the people in it closely, imaginatively, the effort changed her. The world, under the microscope of her attention, opened up like a beautiful, strange flower and gave itself back to her in ways she could never imagine. What stories are hiding behind the faces of the people who you walk past everyday? What love? What hopes? What despair? Kate knows and is able to communicate that to us in her stories.

Do yourself a favor and pick up this book or any other that the amazing Kate DiCamillo has written. You'll be glad you did.

Wesley the Owl by Stacey O'Brien

This is a delightful love story between a petite blonde biologist and a member of another species, a barn owl that she named Wesley. Stacey took Wesley under her wing (so to speak) on Valentine's day, when he was 4 days old. It was a relationship that would endure for almost two decades. As Stacey says "to that which you tame, you owe your life".

Wesley taught Stacey the Way of the Owl, and Stacey spent the next 19 years of her life intensively living and studying the life of a barn owl. Sprinkled through the book is much owl lore (as well as insight into other birds and reptiles). For instance, owl's mate for life, and when an owl's mate dies, he doesn't necessarily go out and find another partner. Instead, he might turn his head to face the tree on which he's sitting and stare fixedly in a deep depression until he dies. Such profound grief is indicative of how passionately owls can feel and how devoted they are to their mates. Baby barn owls have a hard existence. One out of every 15 owl babies make it through the first year. Father owls hunt relentlessly. He has to feed himself, his mate, and his babies. The babies will consume 6 mice each per night (with the usual brood being 5 babies). The males then will have to provide approximately 37 mice every night during nesting season. It is a testament to Stacey that she provided Wesley with 28,000 mice over his lifetime.

Another thing I liked about the book was the glimpse Stacey provided into the prestigious research community (she calls it a kind of scientific Hogwarts), where resident owls flew freely from office to office and you were allowed to meet some of the brilliant and eccentric scientists studying these animals. At Caltech, for example, she described what she called "trolls". These were theoretical mathematicians and physicists who lived down in the tunnels of Caltech (that were heated with steam). These guys rarely came aboveground. They received grants, and their meager style of living didn't cost much. She describes walking through the darkness of these tunnels and coming across a bluish glow (the computer screen) of these trolls. Next to the computer screen would be a twin bed, some blankets, piles of books and papers, and of course, the computer. Some of them spent their entire lives this way. Productive genius theoreticians, who tended to keep to themselves and publish their work. Some of them clearly had what's now referred to as Asperger syndrome, a mild form of functional autism, but they were happy doing their calculations and making discoveries. Fascinating.

But this book is not written strictly from a scientist's perspective. Having a tender heart for Wesley from the start, their bond only deepened over the years as Wesley revealed his personality, emotions, and playful nature. Wesley was fiercely loyal and protective of Stacey, even trying to run off would be human suitors. And of course the most touching part of the book to me was when Stacey described her own life threatening illness and the unconditional love and courage of her adopted barn owl that pulled her through it. And of course, because no matter how close we get to the animals we share our lives with, their life expectancy falls startling short of our own, Stacey tells us about the end of their love story and how she survived afterwards.

Enhanced by wonderful photos of Wesley that Stacey took (like any proud parent would), this is a book that any animal lover will enjoy. It explores that mystical bond between animals and humans in a wise, joyous, and quirky way.

Comic Book Tattoo Tales Inspired by Tori Amos by Rantz A. Hoseley

This anthology contains over 50 stories inspired by the songs of Tori Amos, a Grammy Award nominated singer songwriter known for her emotionally intense songs and one of the most prominent figures of the 1990s alternative music scene.

Neil Gaiman wrote the introduction and is a friend and collaborator of Amos. She wrote the introduction to Neil's "Death: the High Cost of Living".

The artwork is beautiful, and it is wonderful to see modern comics in a coffee table format book. These comic artists adapted the concepts behind Amos's songs into graphic vignettes. They did not do visual cover versions of the songs, but simply used the song as a jumping off point. So here you have a huge number of talented creators giving their best with a wide variety of themes, from fantasy, to historical drama, to science fiction. Tori Amos fans will love it. Comic fans will love it.

The author, Rantz Hoseley, thinks the union of comics and music is powerful, and that they are inherently related. He says "Both music and comics deal with emotional ‘beats’ that the creator sets up in their creative work for maximum impact; knowing when to go soft and restrained, when to have a ‘quiet’ moment, followed by having a big powerful surge that takes your breath away, or gives you that electric charge down to the base of your spine.” This book seeks to articulate the relationship between the wholly auditory experience of music with the wholly visual experience of comic books. And I believe it succeeds in a big way.

Here's one other interesting little tidbit of trivia. There is a librarian on the cover with Tori Amos. Her name is Amy Marie Keller, a.k.a. soldiergirl librarian. She is the perfect example of the new librarian. They are smart, well read, interesting, funny people, who have a passion for pop culture, activism, and technology. They are progressive, and hipper. And as my main man Neil Gaiman says in one of my favorite quotes about librarians "Most people don't realize how important librarians are. I ran across a book recently which suggested that the peace and prosperity of a culture was solely related to how many librarians it contained. Possibly a slight overstatement. But a culture that doesn't value its librarians doesn't value ideas and without ideas, well, where are we?" (from 'The Sandman'. Line spoken by Lucien, Librarian of the Dreaming)

Give Yourself the gift of Reading

Why is a book the best gift for this holiday season? Let me count the ways...

(1) It comes fully charged (batteries not required). (2) No sizing issues (one size fits all). (3) The right book at the right time can transform a life. (4) You can buy ten hardcover books for the price of an iphone. (5) Costs less than a movie with popcorn, is around the same price as a DVD, but the experience lasts much longer. (6) Weighs less than a fruitcake and is more original than a tie or sweater. (7) Books can be a wonderful escape should you find yourself in need of one, and cost much less than a vacation or spa experience. (8) Books can be useful...for example, everyone should have a cookbook, dictionary, or spiritual book. (9) You can't curl up with a gadget. (10) Nothing is easier to wrap.

Obviously I could go on and on about this, but let's just leave it at that for the moment. For those of you who need a little help picking out a book, here's a link to a nicely put together Holiday Gift Guide.

A couple of other interesting things I'd like to share with you...

There was an article in People magazine recently about James Patterson and his son Jack called "Getting My Kid to Read". Check it out here.

Another interesting article in Scouting magazine from September 2008 called "Guys read Guy books". Check that one out here.

The traveler by Daren Simkin

Once upon a time there was a boy named Charlie. He had a pretty nice life, but it wasn't perfect. So one day he packed up all his time (all his round, squishy years and square, mushy months, down to every itsy-bitsy second) in his suitcase, said goodbye to his parents, and set off to find something better to spend his time on. This book captures an important truth about time and is a tiny fable that will charm readers of all ages.

This is the story behind the book. The author first heard a phrase that caught his attention. Then he drove across country mulling it over. He sat down and wrote this fable around the phrase, then showed it to a friend, who showed it to an agent friend, who got it published and then talked to the folks at Starbucks, who chose it for their holiday book.

A very sweet and heartwarming book with a message that young and old can appreciate.