Adopting Needy Books

Sometimes I buy books I already own simply because I feel sorry for them. Like stray kittens, they beg to be taken home.

Our library has a little used bookstore which is run by the Friends of the Library. Today I was browsing through their display of Christmas books and discovered a copy of The Father Christmas Letters by J.R.R. Tolkien. It was a paperback and quite new looking. I picked it up, fondly remembering how many times I've read this book, both to myself and to my children. Inside the front cover was an inscription which wrung my heart.

"To our sons and perhaps someday our grandchildren: This is a very precious book. We hope you enjoy it as much as we have. Love, Mom & Dad."

What happened? How did this book end up in the donation box at the library? It shows little sign of having been read. Did the sons not share their parents' taste? Did they become football jocks instead of bibliophibians? Did the boys leave the book behind when they left home? In that case, what happened to the parents? Were they eaten by a rampaging rhinoceros? Surely they would not have discarded this book had they been alive and well.

Moved by anxiety and pity, I paid for the book and took it home. I already have a hardcover copy, but perhaps I can find this paperback copy a good home.

Seven Quick Takes -- Sloooow Day Edition

Once again I'm joining Jennifer for 7 Quick Takes on Friday.

1. I am sick. Not the flu, thank goodness. But my sinuses are so painful that it hurts to read. Aaaaaargh! Which is worse -- not reading or reading with sore eyeballs? Either way, I guess I should offer it up for the Poor Souls in purgatory. (All Souls Day is just around the corner. Pray early and often!)

2. I love reading children's literature, but I'm not that keen on young adult fiction. I hear that many adults enjoy reading YA, but I don't. The teen years were not a happy period of my life, so I cannot fathom why any adult would want to relive them through fiction -- especially nowadays when most of the titles look so grim, dark, and gloomy. (Some YA fantasy is kind of fun such as Sorcery and Cecelia. But I never really consider books like that to be YA. Although they're marketed as young adult fiction, they aren't awash in adolescent angst.

3. Shelving in the YA section has its own special challenges since our library has set aside that area as a teen only zone with movable floor seating which sometimes makes reaching the shelves a job for a contortionist. And I overhear all kinds of things when I'm working there, everything from what kind of pornographic content is available on cable to whether Arnold Schwarzenegger is French, Australian, or a robot.

4. I guess I'm showing my age. When a patron says he can't find a certain book on the shelf, I always ask if he's already checked the card catalog to ascertain whether the book is in the library or currently checked out. Recently I realized that I'm probably the only aide who says card catalog. Because of course there aren't any cards. It's all on computer and has been in most libraries for quite some time. Old habits die hard.

5. One of the things that most surprised me when I first began to work in libraries is how filthy the books are. I am not, you understand, referring to their contents but to their covers. Like filthy lucre, books pass through many hands and pick up a good deal of grime. You don't notice it when handling a single book. But if you work as a library aide, two hours of shelving will leave your fingers black. I can't bring myself to eat my break-time snack until I've washed my hands at least twice. With everyone getting excited about the upcoming flu season, the city has installed hand sanitizer dispensers at the entrance of the library and near the reference desk. But book don't get cleaned unless they're returned with seriously sticky, icky stuff on their mylar covers. So consider yourselves warned: When using library materials, don't touch your face.

6. Okay, so fiction books get shelved first by author, and then all of the books by a certain author are shelved alphabetically by title. Now I've always been taught that titles that begin with numerals, such as 92 Pacific Boulevard by Debbie Macomber, are shelved as if the numerals had been spelled out. (So this title would be shelved after Mrs. Miracle and before On a Snowy Night.)

When I started work at my current library I made it a point to ask my supervisor about this point just to make sure that this was the shelving protocol they were following. (It was.) But I notice that some of the aides are placing these titles at the beginning of an author's books, even before titles beginning with the letter "A." I think this must be the younger aides who have grown up with computers which always place numbers and symbols before letters in alphabetized listings.

7. For some reason being sick always inspires me to do long neglected household tasks. Yesterday, in between collapsing on my sickbed of pain, I slowly washed my way through a great stack of dirty dishes which had been piling up all week. And washed several loads of towels. Today I am slowly cleaning the stove top, including the burner grates. I don't know why I do this. Maybe my subconscious figures that if I'm feeling lousy anyway, I might as well do housework. After all, when I'm feeling fine there are so many other things I'd much rather do.

Tim Powers & Pirates (& More)

I can't speak for the entire Catholic blogsphere, but everyone in my own little corner of it (do spheres have corners?) is all a-twitter at the recently confirmed report that Disney has optioned Tim Power's novel, On Stranger Tides, and will be using elements from it in the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

I'm always delighted when an author I like encounters good fortune. Especially when it is likely to include tie-in editions of his novels (More people discovering his work -- yay!) and, hopefully, an incentive for his publishers to keep his other novels in print.

As an added bonus, while clicking around on related links, I discovered news of even more interest to a bibliophagist. Earlier this year PS Publishing released Powers: Secret Histories by John Berlyne. Described by the publisher as "a bibliographical cornucopia,"

. . . Secret Histories has been nearly ten years in the making and brings together an astonishing range of Powers ephemera - a huge treat and a remarkable resource for both fans and collectors alike.

As well as a complete, illustrated reference of every Tim Powers book published to date, . . . Secret Histories offers an extraordinary insight into the stories behind the stories, collecting together in a single volume Powers material previously seen only in private collections.

Here - in print for the very first time - you'll find poetry, drawings, research and plotting notes, novel outlines, early drafts, out-takes and an excerpt from the author's unpublished 1974 novel, To Serve in Hell.

Supporting these riches are story notes and commentary by Powers himself and you'll also find articles and essays from collaborators, friends and renowned Powers aficionados . . .

The book was published in three separate editions. The regular signed edition (limited to 1,000 copies) costs £40. The two volume slipcased edition (£195), which includes an unfinished novel which Powers wrote in the early '70s, The Waters Deep, Deep, Deep, has been illustrated by the author. The deluxe edition (£495) also includes a third volume: "a full colour facsimile edition of the original handwritten manuscript of The Anubis Gates, complete with doodles, crossings out, dog-eared corners and even coffee stains! Only twenty-six copies of this facsimile, signed by Powers and individually lettered, will be available . . ."

After adding postage and packing from the U.K., I doubt that even the least expensive of these in within my book budget. But it's nice to know they're out there.

Type Like a Pirate!

In honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, here's a picture of "the Corsair Ergonomic Keyboard, so useful for piratical bloggers" which was posted by Mark Lieberman on The Language Log in 2005. (Maybe everyone else on the Internet has already seen it, but it was new to me.)

There's also an amusing discussion of "pirate-speak." Did pirates really did go around saying, "Aaarrrh?" Apparently, Robert Newton's portrayal in the 1950's movie version of Treasure Island is one source of the popular perception that they did.

But in real life, both dialect from the southwest part of England, as well as Maritime Pidgin English, might have played a role in how how pirates spoke. For more details, click here.

(And a HT to Grammar Girl whose newsletter featured the link today.)

P.S. Talk Like a Pirate Day seemed like a good time to resume blogging since I was shanghaied a few months ago by life, the universe, and everything. (Well, mostly responsibilities.) I think I'm back now.

A Library for Juana

A Library for Juana: The World of Sor Juana Ines by Pat Mora. Illustrated by Beatriz Vidal.

I enjoy shelving in the children's section of the library even though the work itself is physically much harder than in the adult section. I smile when I see that titles which I loved as a child are still being checked out. And it's a pleasure to discover that some of my favorite childhood authors have written books that I've never had the opportunity to read.

I'm also fascinated by how the selection of nonfiction books has changed over the years. I suppose that's partly a reflection of what sort of reports are assigned by the local schools, which in turn are influenced by what topics our society currently deems important (or at least, fashionable).

The biography section seems to have a much wider selection than when I was young. Although I could wish that there were fewer books about media celebrities, I am pleased that the current emphasis on "diversity" has brought young readers biographies whose subjects lived in countries and time periods less commonly featured when I was young.

A Library for Juana is a biography in picture book format about Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a literary nun who lived in 17th century Mexico. The book focuses on young Juana's love of books and study. She grew up in the home of her grandfather who had an extensive library, and she learned to read and write at the age of three, following her older sister to school despite having been told that she was too young to attend. She began to write poetry while still a little girl and hoped someday to study at the university in Mexico City because its library housed thousands of books. When told that only men could attend the university, she appeared at dinner the next day wearing boy's clothes. "I'm practicing so I can go to the university in Mexico City when I'm older. . . I want to study about music and plants and stars. I want to write poems."

Eventually, Juana was sent to Mexico City -- first to live with relatives who hired tutors for her, and later at the viceroy's palace as a lady-in-waiting where she continued to read, study, and write. Eventually she entered a convent where, in addition to serving as accountant and librarian, she produced a prodigious literary output in both poetry and prose. Her own personal library became one of the largest in the Americas.

What shines throughout this book is Juana's love of books, reading, and learning. How could I not love it? The illustrations, executed in watercolor and gouache, give the reader a vivid sense of the time and place in which she lived.

Winter Lights

Winter Lights: A Season in Poems & Quilts by Anna Grossnickle Hines.

One of the the perks of my job as a library aide is discovering unusual picture books. This one caught my eye because the author-illustrator is a quilter.

Winter, and special lights and holidays which brighten the darkest days of the year, is the theme of this book of poems. The author's subjects range from Hanukkah to the Winter Solstice to the fireworks of the Chinese New Year to the farolitos which light the way for Mary and Joseph during Christmas celebrations in the Southwest.

I must admit that I preferred the illustrations to the text because my taste in poetry is rather hobbitish and traditional. But I love these quilts! They simply glow with light thanks to the author's judicious use dark fabrics, as in the Christmas tree quilt on the cover. (See above.)

And the piecing techniques which she has chosen for each quilt are also well suited to the subject of each poem. For example, the twisted log cabin blocks which Hines uses to illustrate "Fireplace" and "One Little Candle" bring unexpected movement to her representation of flickering, dancing flames. The aurora borealis is appropriately suggested by the bargello quilt illustrating "A Sight to See." And there is a happy marriage of both color and technique in the author's use of hand-dyes in her appliqued quilt, "Protest," which illustrates the glow of the setting sun in the winter sky and the soft snowy hills.

I would love to show you what I mean by by posting pictures of the quilts I've just referred to, but I am scrupulously respecting Hines's copyright. Fortunately, you can see what I mean by visiting her website, here. Click on the link, "For Quilters" and then scroll down and click on the third book, Winter Lights, to see how she designed and made each quilt. (Unfortunately, the design of the website prevents me from giving you a direct link to the quilts.) Now that I know that she has two other quilt illustrated books, I plan to look them up at my library.

By the way, one poem in particular resonated in my book lover's soul. It dealt with a furtive pleasure with which I am sure we can all sympathize.

Lights Out

I pull the covers
over my head
and let out a few snores
for good measure . . .
then snap on my flashlight
and open my book.
Now this is
reading for pleasure!

Be sure to look at the accompanying quilt on her website!

In Honor of Mother's Day

" How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No. A woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness."

--G.K. Chesterton, speaking about motherhood in What's Wrong With the World?