As previously noted here on Book Patrol, 2009 marks the bicentennial of the birth of America's unrivaled genius of the Gothic horror genre, poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe. Angelenos, and those planning a visit to the City of Angels in the coming weeks, may mark the two-hundredth swing of Poe's pendulum by attending a performance of Nevermore, a one-man show now in a limited engagement at the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood.The play, written by Hunter College literature professor Dennis Paoli, is framed as an evening's lecture circuit reading by the Bard of Baltimore. Present among the...
Why Libraries Rock (Hint: They Don’t)
*This entry is part of a "Blogathon" to benefit the flood damaged Louisville, KY Free Public Library. See the link below to donate to this effort.The main title of this piece was chosen by the organizer of the blogathon. The subtitle is mine--all mine. You'll forgive me if I don't wax poetic on the mandated title and theme. The idea that libraries "rock" or are "awesome" or even (another variant suggested by said organizer) "kick a**" reminds me of the lame, costly, and inevitably unsuccessful marketing campaigns that public library P.R. departments love to launch in a vain attempt to...
Bookworms and Boxers Battle Back!
"You've been tagged in a note on Facebook."Everyone on that social networking site--and at this point who isn't?--has read this message with a mixture of flattery ("My online friends want to know more about me!") and dread. ("Who the heck has time for this stuff?").A popular note is entitled "The ABC's of Me," a straightforward trip through the alphabet, each successive letter revealing, theoretically, a fascinating fact about the friend. I must confess I never completed this work-out, throwing in the towel at the end of Round 2 with the letter "B."For any librarian, of course, "B" is for for...
Urgent Dispatch to Oz: Emerald City Library Needs Cash
The Seattle Public Library, one of the crown jewels of "The Emerald City" will be closing its doors, both real and virtual, for an entire week beginning Monday, August 31. The fact that one of the most book-friendly cities in the United States cannot keep its libraries open due to lack of funding is distressing in the extreme, and does not bode well for other municipalities.Nationwide, public libraries are being used more than ever according to the American Library Association. The trend is evident at the San Francisco Public Library which reports increases of 30% in customers, and 15% in...
Fighting Crime One Book at a Time
We are very pleased to welcome Nancy Mattoon to Book Patrol with this, her first post. Nancy will be walking the library beat, covering news, issues, and human interest stories from the stacks with her thirty years of experience and perspective as a librarian.As librarians are well aware, even in the book world no good deed goes unpunished. Getting the right book into the right hands seems innocent enough—until it isn’t. Headline hungry scribes sometimes seek to link books and crime; the permanent stain on “The Catcher in the Rye” after being found in the possession of both Mark David...