NYPL Blogs

As Edith Wharton's 1904 story, The Other Two, opens, Waythorn has just returned from his honeymoon with his new wife, Alice. This is his first marriage, but her third. Although it seems a bit scandalous, he has gone in to the marriage fully aware of, and fairly unconcerned with, how Alice is viewed in society: she is well liked, but with reservation.

I'm a big fan of the fantasy genre and have been reading it most of my life. So, of course when it comes to our booklist this year, I'm very happy about the Fantasy titles included, and delighted to talk about them. But before I do, I wanted to talk about the nature of the fantasy genre itself.

The best fantasies are real.

Crude. Oil that is. Black gold. Texas tea. Politics. Lobbying. Old boys. Influence.

Charles Dickens: The Key to Character, on view through January 27, 2013, at the Schwarzman Building, explores the men, women, and children who populate the fictional universe of English author Charles Dickens (1812-1870). William Moeck, the exhibition's curator, teaches British literature at Nassau Community College in Garden City, New York. We spoke with him about what he learned while selecting items from NYPL's Berg Collection of English and American Literature and the collections of the Library for the Performing Arts.

Happy New Year and welcome to 2013 in The Reader's Den!

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was born in Greenwich Village into the wealthy New York Society that she would be famous for depicting in The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence. Although she spent much of her life living in Newport, RI, Lenox, MA, and Europe, especially France, where she spent years in her later life, she is best known for her treatment of the stiff, conformist, aristocratic world of New York that she knew so well.

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts has an extensive dance collection. I love the kinesthetic artistry of physical movement. I was curious about dance libraries and museums, and below are some that I found.

For the week of December 30, 2012 we have hardcover fiction, hardcover non-fiction, and hardcover advice & misc. books.

It's amusing to keep track of the critters, and helps me read more non-fiction, novel-hound that I am. The Library has most of these books, but I've only linked a few, as not to clutter and overburden the post. At the end of the list I award prizes, or "the Barkies," for various categories. But just two things first: Re-reads (always a good idea) are in bold, and if you have a taste for rhetorical but highly passionate drama, do read some Thomas Otway (1652-85).

What do you have in mind for your New Year's resolution? Maybe you want to work off those holiday feasts? Learn how to use that new computer you got from the kids this holiday season? Have a little more fun or even just take up some extra reading? Well you can do all those things right here at New Dorp Library! Stop by for the Zumba or Stay Well exercise classes. Try out some computer skills programs, like Wireless Wednesday! Adult Social is a great place to make friends and play awesome games, and don't forget our Book Clubs in English and Spanish! We have everything you need and more!

Our markets, our democracy, our science, our traditions of free speech, and our art all depend more heavily on a Public Domain of freely available material than they do on the informational material that is covered by property rights. The Public Domain is not some gummy residue left behind when all the good stuff has been covered by property law. The Public Domain is the place we quarry the building blocks of our culture. It is, in fact, the majority of our culture.
—James Boyle, The Public Domain, p.40f, 2008, quoted on the Public Domain Manifesto.

Happy New Year's Eve! This year remember that the New York Public Library can help you in achieving any of your self-improvement or lifelong learning goals.

Looking for a career in hospitality?

The Chinese-American Planning Council, Workforce Development Division, provides a free training program in hospitality careers.

We here at AskNYPL get regular requests for digital images on different topics and we're always happy to share the New York Public Library's very own Digital Gallery. While the NYPL Digital Gallery does a wonderful job with its collection, making things easy to find and accessible, we don't always have the content folks are looking for. These instances lead us outside NYPL's resources and we've found some spectacular image resources.

It's the end of an era. Michael Kors will no longer be a judge on Project Runway as it starts its 11th season, which means we can no longer enjoy his slicing and dicing analogies aimed at the designers' runway miscues.

Are you looking for a career in the construction trade?

The Chinese-American Planning Council, Workforce Development Division, Construction Pre-Apprenticeship Training Program can get you there!

This is the last week of our book discussion of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. In my first post, I mentioned that it is a post-9/11 novel, published in 2005, but during the past month of discussion, I haven't focused on that aspect of the work. The book talks about Oskar's reaction to the 9/11 tragedy and his father's death at the World Trade Center as well as the reactions of his mother, the people Oskar interviews while trying to find the lock for his key, and various other characters. Foer's intent is to describe the aftermath of 9/11, rather than the event itself, although he uses some details of the event in his story.

Now that the lazy, hazy, care free days of summer are a distant memory, and the crisp, cool days of fall have given way to the chill of winter, it may be time to turn our thoughts to more serious endeavors. What activity could be more serious or sobering than getting our financial house in order? Are you saying, "Yes that’s true, but it is too daunting. I need help."?

Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of December 11, 18 and 25, 2012.

I think an overt moral lesson (such as don't take other people's things, or be yourself even if that is different from those around you) can flatten an illustrated story. Recently I saw the children's author and illustrator Peter Brown (Chowder, Creepy Carrots) speak about his creative process. One of my clever colleagues asked him about moral messages in children's books. His answer surprised me. He said each of his books contains a message and teaches a lesson.