Right on the heels of National Poetry Month which included National Library Week we welcome Get Caught Reading Month.Since 1999 the beautiful month of May has been home to this literary concoction. The celebration was devised by former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder through the Association of American Publishers (AAP), where she is the President and CEO.Its goal: "to spread the word about the joys of reading through an industry-supported literacy campaign."I am not sure if this was created to give her a job after her political life but this is basically a political action committee for the publishers. This is the...
Getting to the End
This is how Heather McElhatton got to her debut novel Pretty Little Mistakes that hits stores today . You see it's a "Do-Over Novel" and she came up with 150 unique scenarios. Yep 150! "One Beginning 150 Endings: The Choice is Yours."Of course I am exhausted just thinking about it but the originality alone merits a peek. If you are fresh out of high school and ready to hit the world then it is closer to a must read.You just graduated from high school and you got a couple of choices. You either "go to college to get ahead or...
Now The Fear and the Copycats: Security Alerts at Eight Libraries in the Wake of Viginia Tech
The Engineering Library at the University of Minnesota was one of 8 buildings evacuated after a typed note was found. No mention of what the note said.University of Maryland at College Park: e-mail stating that a bomb was “in a book in a library.”Library at the University of Texas at Austin: Threatening note found. No mention of what the note said. It was the 5th note found on campus since the Va. Tech shootings. This is where George Bush lived when governor of Texas.West Port High School in Ocala, Florida. Someone found a handwritten note in a book drop. A...
Side By Side. Finally
For the first time, after who knows how many thousands of years, the sacred texts of the world's three monastic faiths, Judiasm, Christianilty and Islam have been gathered together for an exhibition at the British Library.The exhibit Sacred: Discover What We Share: The World's Greatest Collection of Jewish, Christian and Muslim Holy Books brings together the rarest sacred texts in existence.Highlights include:A tattered copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls andA"Qur'an commissioned for a 14th-century Mongol ruler of modern Iran who was born a shaman, baptised a Christian, and converted first to Buddhism, then Sunni and finally Shia Islam."There is a...
The Book Review Shuffle
The Book Review sections of all major newspapers are under intense pressure these days.The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) campaign to Save the Book Review is a noble effort and one I fully support but the problem is not in saving the Book Review sections it is about reinventing them.It is about widening the scope of their missions. The book landscape has changes dramatically in the last 10 years while the book review sections, for the most part, have barely moved.It is about serving all the different types of book lovers that exist in our communities not simply covering newly...