Posts from Terence Cardinal Cooke-Cathedral Library

With the recent NYT article about clothing stores being the newest places to purchase books highlighting what fashionable items books can be, I thought I’d take a look at some of the books that celebrities have been seen reading. I’ll let you decide if they are actual reads, solely being used as fashion accessories or merely shielding one’s eyes from the sun at some tropical retreat.

"The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over, and then expecting different results."

This quotation has been everywhere lately, and is often attributed to Einstein, although there’s no evidence that he ever said it. It does, however, illustrate the importance of change. If you find yourself on the cusp of a change in your life, sometimes books are a good way to explore different careers, lifestyles, whatever, without necessarily committing to a permanent change. Libraries are a great way to explore the "what ifs" in your life or to ponder "what ifs" in history.

These days, readers no longer need to parade their Fabio-graced romance novels in front of all the other passengers on their train or bus. Instead, they can read them discreetly on their e-readers, but why the concern? I once saw a woman on a bus in Chicago, years ago, with a cannily embroidered book jacket cover that read “Dirty Novel” to anyone who cared to look. Most everyone is familiar with “bodice rippers” and likely associates them with the publisher Harlequin, but romances range from chaste kisses and courtship to, ahem, the more modern novels of today and remain one of the most popular forms of women’s literature.

Researching ghosts at the library is nothing new. Finding media tie-in books about ghostly television shows is a more recent pursuit. Both can be accomplished at NYPL. On occasion, ghostbusters have even been known to roam the stacks of NYPL’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.

Welcome to the wrap-up of our discussion of Kitchen Confidential. We hope that we have inspired you to be adventurous in the kitchen this Thanksgiving holiday [if you happen to be reading this blog from a country that doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving now, then we hope that it has inspired you to be adventurous in the kitchen in general], or at least inspired you to find some tasty reading.

Welcome back to this month’s Reader’s Den, co-led by Jenny Baum and Ursula Murphy, about Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.

Last year I blogged about Halloween movies that were inspired by books. This year, as I ponder what costume I would like to wear, in a season that promises to be rife with Lady Gagas and “The Situation”s, I thought I’d mention a few books that could be (very loosely) interpreted to inspire your own costume selections.

Thank you for participating in this month’s Reader’s Den! If you enjoyed Amberville, try:

Tim Davys writes:

“Amberville might have a bit of Chelsea in London, Lanceheim maybe slightly Berlin. If I say Tourquai has a touch of New York and Yok a bit of Rome, I’m not lying. But I’m not telling the whole truth either. The landscape you have in mind most certainly forms the plot. But I’m not sure if that’s important for the reading experience; it’s more of an author’s tool. Every reader then forms their own opinions.”

Compare and contrast the use of setting throughout Amberville. What role do you think setting plays in your reading experience?

Is the plot more effective through the use of 

“I loved Emma Rabbit. You shouldn’t be ashamed of your beloved.

Love had come stealthily. Love had waited, lain in wait and attacked when I least expected it.

I’d been defenseless.

Welcome to the June 2010 edition of the Reader's Den!

A while ago, babble.com created a list of the 26 Most Disturbing Kids Movies of all time. Watership Down made the list, and if you’ve never read the book by Richard Adams, get yourself a copy, it’s a great book. At any rate, it made me think about disturbing anthropomorphized characters in literature and that, in turn, led me to think about books about animals doing people things, and that in turn led me to Amberville (in this case, stuffed animals doing people things) and finally, to Scandinavian crime fiction and cinema. I know, it’s a convoluted path, but stick with me and I’m 

It always bugs me when characters in novels don’t consume any food or drink. Not that the whole novel has to be about that, mind you, but the occasional mention can do so much to create setting.

“When you write, you give your version of reality.” —Maryse Condé

Many, many people have been motivated by the catastrophe in Haiti to donate, including one librarian who donated $10,000 of his personal savings and whose fundraising efforts were picked up by several blogs. Librarians can contribute in a different way, as well, by highlighting the wealth of literature that Haiti and the Caribbean offer.

Wilkie Collins’s Armadale is one of the Sensation Novels of the Victorian era, full of the kind of 19th-century drama that, especially at the time, had readers on the edges of their seats. Some of the shocking plot developments that made this novel so much of the time were: the character of Lydia Gwilt, a red-headed villainess addicted to laudanum who poisons her husband (and has an unbecoming surname, besides), the “ripped from the headlines” approach that Collins uses to reference newspaper scandals, and the shiny new technologies of the penny post and the telegraph.

If you enjoyed reading The Post-Birthday World, you may also like:

I hope everyone has been enjoying The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver. Here are some discussion questions to contemplate while running holiday errands!

Shriver uses gray and white in each chapter heading to represent and distinguish between the dual lives of Irina. That is, chapter one has a gray background and then she alternates for each succeeding chapter: one white and one gray, respectively. The final chapter, chapter 12, uses elements of both. What is the significance of this, if any?

Welcome to week two of this month’s Reader’s Den! In The Post-Birthday World, the Irinas in both parallel stories are children's book illustrators. In discussing the theme of her latest children's book, Irina lays out the premise of the novel.

Welcome back to the Reader's Den! This month's online book discussion will be The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver, the author of We Need To Talk About Kevin (winner of the 2005 Orange Prize for fiction, awarded to a work of contemporary fiction by a female writer).