Mark your calendars! Our next meeting will be on Wednesday,
April 10, 2019 at 9am at the Leeds Library and the topic up for discussion is science fiction and fantasy.
In attendance:
Holley, Emmet O'Neal Library
Judith, Homewood
Laura, Homewood
Kelly, Springville Road
Michelle, Irondale
Mary Anne, Southern History
Maura, Trussville
Jon, Avondale
Leslie, Homewood
In attendance:
Holley, Emmet O'Neal Library
Judith, Homewood
Laura, Homewood
Kelly, Springville Road
Michelle, Irondale
Mary Anne, Southern History
Maura, Trussville
Jon, Avondale
Leslie, Homewood
This week, we met to talk about essay collections. What a
variety of books!
Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks, A Librarian’s Love Letters and Breakup Notes to the Books in Her Life by Annie
Spence
If you love to read, and presumably you do since you’ve
picked up this book (!), you know that some books affect you so profoundly they
forever change the way you think about the world. Some books, on the other
hand, disappoint you so much you want to throw them against the wall. Either
way, it’s clear that a book can be your new soul mate or the bad relationship
you need to end.
In Dear Fahrenheit 451, librarian Annie Spence has
crafted love letters and breakup notes to the iconic and eclectic books she has
encountered over the years. From breaking up with The Giving Tree (a
dysfunctional relationship book if ever there was one), to her love letter
to The Time Traveler’s Wife (a novel less about time travel and more
about the life of a marriage, with all of its ups and downs), Spence will make
you think of old favorites in a new way. Filled with suggested reading lists,
Spence’s take on classic and contemporary books is very much like the best of
literature―sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes surprisingly poignant, and
filled with universal truths.
A celebration of reading, Dear Fahrenheit 451 is
for anyone who loves nothing more than curling up with a good book…and another,
and another, and another!
Michelle, Irondale
The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis
The classic Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis, the
most important Christian writer of the 20th century, contains nine sermons
delivered by Lewis during World War Two. The nine addresses in Weight of
Glory offer guidance, inspiration, and a compassionate apologetic for the
Christian faith during a time of great doubt.
Michelle, Irondale
A Woman is a Woman Until She is a Mother by Anna
Prushinskaya (not available in print in the JCLC, audiobook available via Hoopla for subscribing libraries)
Anna Prushinskaya explores the deep life shifts of
pregnancy, birth and motherhood in the United States, a world away from the
author's Soviet homeland. Drawing from inspirations as various as midwife Ina
May Gaskin, writer and activist Alice Walker, filmmaker Sophia Kruz and
frontierswoman Caroline Henderson, Prushinskaya captures the inherent
togetherness of motherhood alongside its accompanying estrangement. She plumbs
the deeper waters of compassion, memory and identity, as well as the humorous
streams of motherhood as they run up against the daily realities of work and
the ever-present eye of social media. How will I return to my life?
Prushinskaya asks, and answers by returning us to our own ordinary,
extraordinary lives a little softer, a little wiser, and a little less certain
of unascertainable things.
Michelle, Irondale
With her disarming, intimate, completely accessible voice,
and dry sense of humor, Nora Ephron shares with us her ups and downs in I
Feel Bad About My Neck, a candid, hilarious look at women who are getting older
and dealing with the tribulations of maintenance, menopause, empty nests, and
life itself.
Ephron chronicles her life as an obsessed cook, passionate
city dweller, and hapless parent. But mostly she speaks frankly and
uproariously about life as a woman of a certain age. Utterly courageous,
uproariously funny, and unexpectedly moving in its truth telling, I Feel
Bad About My Neck is a scrumptious, irresistible treat of a book, full of
truths, laugh out loud moments that will appeal to readers of all ages.
Mary Anne, BPL Southern History
The bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Werewolves
in Their Youth, Wonderboys, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, The Amazing Adventures
of Kavalier and Clay, and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union Michael
Chabon “takes [his] brutally observant, unfailingly honest, marvelously human
gaze and turns it on his own life” (Time) in the New York Times bestselling
memoir Manhood for Amateurs.
Mary Anne, BPL Southern History
Anything written by Celia Rivenbark
Celia Rivenbark was born and raised in Duplin County, NC,
which had the distinction of being the nation’s number 1 producer of hogs and
turkeys during a brief, magical moment in the early 1980s. Celia grew up in a
small house in the country with a red barn out back that was populated by a
couple of dozen lanky and unvaccinated cats. Her grandparents’ house, just
across the ditch, had the first indoor plumbing in Teachey, NC and family lore
swears that people came from miles around just to watch the toilet flush.
Celia now lives in Wilmington, N.C., with her very patient
husband, Scott Whisnant. Their daughter, the Princess, is a student at
UNC-Chapel Hill but hasn’t managed to get her parents any tickets to the Duke
game. Dammit all.
Judith, Homewood
The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer
The Emmy Award-winning comedian, actress, writer, and star
of Inside Amy Schumer and the acclaimed film Trainwreck has
taken the entertainment world by storm with her winning blend of smart,
satirical humor. Now, Amy Schumer has written a refreshingly candid and
uproariously funny collection of (extremely) personal and observational essays.
In The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy mines her past for stories about her teenage years, her family, relationships, and sex and shares the experiences that have shaped who she is—a woman with the courage to bare her soul to stand up for what she believes in, all while making us laugh.
Ranging from the raucous to the romantic, the heartfelt to the harrowing, this highly entertaining and universally appealing collection is the literary equivalent of a night out with your best friend—an unforgettable and fun adventure that you wish could last forever. Whether she’s experiencing lust-at-first-sight while in the airport security line, sharing her own views on love and marriage, admitting to being an introvert, or discovering her cross-fit instructor’s secret bad habit, Amy Schumer proves to be a bighearted, brave, and thoughtful storyteller that will leave you nodding your head in recognition, laughing out loud, and sobbing uncontrollably—but only because it’s over.
In The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy mines her past for stories about her teenage years, her family, relationships, and sex and shares the experiences that have shaped who she is—a woman with the courage to bare her soul to stand up for what she believes in, all while making us laugh.
Ranging from the raucous to the romantic, the heartfelt to the harrowing, this highly entertaining and universally appealing collection is the literary equivalent of a night out with your best friend—an unforgettable and fun adventure that you wish could last forever. Whether she’s experiencing lust-at-first-sight while in the airport security line, sharing her own views on love and marriage, admitting to being an introvert, or discovering her cross-fit instructor’s secret bad habit, Amy Schumer proves to be a bighearted, brave, and thoughtful storyteller that will leave you nodding your head in recognition, laughing out loud, and sobbing uncontrollably—but only because it’s over.
Judith, Homewood
Billy Ray’s Farm: Essays from a Place Called Tula by Larry
Brown
In Billy Ray's Farm, Larry Brown brings the
appealing blend of candor, humor, and poignancy of his acclaimed novels Fay and Father
and Son to nine personal essays that explore the emotional and physical
landscape of the corner of Mississippi he calls home. The centerpiece of this
collection offers a moving description of life on his son's cattle farm,
capturing Brown's deep-seated attachment to his family and to the land. In
other pieces, Brown takes readers inside the writing cabin he built, chronicles
his attempt to outsmart a wily coyote intent on killing the farm's baby goats,
and reveals his reactions to being constantly compared to William Faulkner, a
writer inspired by the same geography. Threaded through each piece are warm
reflections on the Southern musicians and authors who influenced his writings.
At once entertaining and insightful, Billy Ray's Farm brilliantly
illuminates how a great writer responds, personally and artistically, to the
patch of land he lives on, providing a wonderful look into the mysterious
sources of a writer's motivation.
Kelly, BPL Springville Road
Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett
Immediately upon its publication in Ireland, Claire-Louise
Bennett’s debut began to attract attention well beyond the expectations of the
tiny Irish press that published it. A deceptively slender volume, it captures
with utterly mesmerizing virtuosity the interior reality of its unnamed
protagonist, a young woman living a singular and mostly solitary existence on
the outskirts of a small coastal village.
Sidestepping the usual conventions of
narrative, it focuses on the details of her daily experience—from the best way
to eat porridge or bananas to an encounter with cows—rendered sometimes in
story-length, story-like stretches of narrative, sometimes in fragments no
longer than a page, but always suffused with the hypersaturated, almost
synesthetic intensity of the physical world that we remember from childhood.
The effect is of character refracted and ventriloquized by environment,
catching as it bounces her longings, frustrations, and disappointments—the
ending of an affair, or the ambivalent beginning with a new lover. As the
narrator’s persona emerges in all its eccentricity, sometimes painfully and
often hilariously, we cannot help but see mirrored there our own fraught
desires and limitations, and our own fugitive desire, despite everything, to be
known.
Shimmering and unusual, Pond demands to be devoured in a single sitting that will linger long after the last page.
Shimmering and unusual, Pond demands to be devoured in a single sitting that will linger long after the last page.
Kelly, BPL Springville Road
A podcast of interviews and essays focusing on women's and
gender issues, including non-binary and gender fluidity, in the children’s
literature community and all its intersectionality!
Laura, Homewood
Perhaps no twentieth-century writer was so observant and
graceful a chronicler of his times as Truman Capote. Portraits and
Observations is the first volume devoted solely to all the essays ever
published by this most beloved of writers. Included are such masterpieces of
narrative nonfiction as “The Muses Are Heard” and the short nonfiction novel
“Handcarved Coffins,” as well as many long-out-of-print essays, including
portraits of Mae West, Humphrey Bogart, and Marilyn Monroe. From his travel
sketches of Brooklyn, New Orleans, and Hollywood, written when he was
twenty-two, to the author’s last written words, composed the day before his
death in 1984, the recently discovered “Remembering Willa Cather,” Portraits
and Observations puts on display the full spectrum of Truman Capote’s
brilliance. Certainly Capote was, as Somerset Maugham famously called him, “a
stylist of the first quality.” But as the pieces gathered here remind us, he
was also an artist of remarkable substance.
Leslie, Homewood
Tell Me More: Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I’m Learning to Say by Kelly Corrigan
It’s a crazy idea: trying to name the phrases that make love
and connection possible. But that’s just what Kelly Corrigan has set out to do
here. In her New York Times bestselling memoirs,Corrigan distilled
our core relationships to their essences, showcasing a warm, easy storytelling
style. Now, in Tell Me More, she’s back with a deeply personal,
unfailingly honest, and often hilarious examination of the essential phrases
that turn the wheel of life.
In “I Don’t Know,” Corrigan wrestles to make peace with uncertainty, whether it’s over invitations that never came or a friend’s agonizing infertility. In “No,” she admires her mother’s ability to set boundaries and her liberating willingness to be unpopular. In “Tell Me More,” a facialist named Tish teaches her something important about listening. And in “I Was Wrong,” she comes clean about her disastrous role in a family fight—and explains why saying sorry may not be enough. With refreshing candor, a deep well of empathy, and her signature desire to understand “the thing behind the thing,” Corrigan swings between meditations on life with a preoccupied husband and two mercurial teenage daughters to profound observations on love and loss.
With the streetwise, ever-relatable voice that defines Corrigan’s work, Tell Me More is a moving and meaningful take on the power of the right words at the right moment to change everything.
In “I Don’t Know,” Corrigan wrestles to make peace with uncertainty, whether it’s over invitations that never came or a friend’s agonizing infertility. In “No,” she admires her mother’s ability to set boundaries and her liberating willingness to be unpopular. In “Tell Me More,” a facialist named Tish teaches her something important about listening. And in “I Was Wrong,” she comes clean about her disastrous role in a family fight—and explains why saying sorry may not be enough. With refreshing candor, a deep well of empathy, and her signature desire to understand “the thing behind the thing,” Corrigan swings between meditations on life with a preoccupied husband and two mercurial teenage daughters to profound observations on love and loss.
With the streetwise, ever-relatable voice that defines Corrigan’s work, Tell Me More is a moving and meaningful take on the power of the right words at the right moment to change everything.
Leslie, Homewood
The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish
From stand-up comedian, actress, and breakout star of Girls
Trip, Tiffany Haddish, comes The Last Black Unicorn, a sidesplitting,
hysterical, edgy, and unflinching collection of (extremely) personal essays, as
fearless as the author herself.
Growing up in one of the poorest neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles, Tiffany learned to survive by making people laugh. If she could do that, then her classmates would let her copy their homework, the other foster kids she lived with wouldn’t beat her up, and she might even get a boyfriend. Or at least she could make enough money—as the paid school mascot and in-demand Bar Mitzvah hype woman—to get her hair and nails done, so then she might get a boyfriend.
None of that worked (and she’s still single), but it allowed Tiffany to imagine a place for herself where she could do something she loved for a living: comedy.
Tiffany can’t avoid being funny—it’s just who she is, whether she’s plotting shocking, jaw-dropping revenge on an ex-boyfriend or learning how to handle her newfound fame despite still having a broke person’s mind-set. Finally poised to become a household name, she recounts with heart and humor how she came from nothing and nowhere to achieve her dreams by owning, sharing, and using her pain to heal others.
By turns hilarious, filthy, and brutally honest, The Last Black Unicorn shows the world who Tiffany Haddish really is—humble, grateful, down-to-earth, and funny as hell. And now, she’s ready to inspire others through the power of laughter.
Growing up in one of the poorest neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles, Tiffany learned to survive by making people laugh. If she could do that, then her classmates would let her copy their homework, the other foster kids she lived with wouldn’t beat her up, and she might even get a boyfriend. Or at least she could make enough money—as the paid school mascot and in-demand Bar Mitzvah hype woman—to get her hair and nails done, so then she might get a boyfriend.
None of that worked (and she’s still single), but it allowed Tiffany to imagine a place for herself where she could do something she loved for a living: comedy.
Tiffany can’t avoid being funny—it’s just who she is, whether she’s plotting shocking, jaw-dropping revenge on an ex-boyfriend or learning how to handle her newfound fame despite still having a broke person’s mind-set. Finally poised to become a household name, she recounts with heart and humor how she came from nothing and nowhere to achieve her dreams by owning, sharing, and using her pain to heal others.
By turns hilarious, filthy, and brutally honest, The Last Black Unicorn shows the world who Tiffany Haddish really is—humble, grateful, down-to-earth, and funny as hell. And now, she’s ready to inspire others through the power of laughter.
Holley, Emmet O’Neal Library
Everything is Awful and Other Observations by Matt Bellassai
From the break-out star of BuzzFeed and the People’s Choice
Award-winning comedian behind the web series “Whine About It” and “To Be
Honest” comes a collection of hilariously anguished essays chronicling awful
moments from his life so far, the humiliations of being an adult, and other
little indignities.
Matt Bellassai has no idea what he’s doing. Well, to be fair, he did become semi-Internet famous by getting drunk at work, making him a socially-acceptable—nay—professional alcoholic. He’s got some things figured out. But the rest is all just a terrible, disgusting mess.
This is Matt’s book. Just to clarify, though, it is absolutely not a memoir; Matt is far too young to have done anything worth remembering (though he did win an actual People’s Choice Award for his BuzzFeed web series, “Whine About It,” which is pretty good, if you ask his mother). This is also most certainly not a book of advice; he is too woefully ill-prepared for life to offer anything in the way of counsel (though that won’t stop him from talking). Call this a collection of awful moments that led to his grumbling, blundering adulthood—a chronicle of little indignities that, when taken together, amount to a life of hilarious anguish.
With keen wit and plenty of self-deprecation, Matt reveals how hard it is to shed his past as the Midwest’s biggest nerd, that one time a taquito nearly murdered him at his brother’s surprise birthday party, and the time he came out to his friends and family (the closet was a bit messy). Matt also wrestles with the humiliations of adulthood, like giving up on love in New York City, living alone with no one to heat his microwave dinners, and combating the inner voice that tells him to say aloud all the things the rest of us are smart enough to keep to ourselves.
You probably don’t need this book, but let’s be honest—you do. Since you’re already reading, you might as well pull up a chair, grab your glass(es) of wine, and enjoy.
Matt Bellassai has no idea what he’s doing. Well, to be fair, he did become semi-Internet famous by getting drunk at work, making him a socially-acceptable—nay—professional alcoholic. He’s got some things figured out. But the rest is all just a terrible, disgusting mess.
This is Matt’s book. Just to clarify, though, it is absolutely not a memoir; Matt is far too young to have done anything worth remembering (though he did win an actual People’s Choice Award for his BuzzFeed web series, “Whine About It,” which is pretty good, if you ask his mother). This is also most certainly not a book of advice; he is too woefully ill-prepared for life to offer anything in the way of counsel (though that won’t stop him from talking). Call this a collection of awful moments that led to his grumbling, blundering adulthood—a chronicle of little indignities that, when taken together, amount to a life of hilarious anguish.
With keen wit and plenty of self-deprecation, Matt reveals how hard it is to shed his past as the Midwest’s biggest nerd, that one time a taquito nearly murdered him at his brother’s surprise birthday party, and the time he came out to his friends and family (the closet was a bit messy). Matt also wrestles with the humiliations of adulthood, like giving up on love in New York City, living alone with no one to heat his microwave dinners, and combating the inner voice that tells him to say aloud all the things the rest of us are smart enough to keep to ourselves.
You probably don’t need this book, but let’s be honest—you do. Since you’re already reading, you might as well pull up a chair, grab your glass(es) of wine, and enjoy.
Holley, Emmet O’Neal Library
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
In a work that beautifully demonstrates the rewards of
closely observing nature, Elisabeth Tova Bailey shares an inspiring and
intimate story of her encounter with a Neohelix albolabris-a common woodland
snail. While an illness keeps her bedridden, Bailey watches a wild snail that
has taken up residence on her nightstand. As a result, she discovers the solace
and sense of wonder that this mysterious creature brings and comes to a greater
understanding of her own place in the world.
Intrigued by the snail's molluscan
anatomy, cryptic defenses, clear decision making, hydraulic locomotion, and
courtship activities, Bailey becomes an astute and amused observer, offering a
candid and engaging look into the curious life of this underappreciated small
animal.The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating is a remarkable journey of survival and
resilience, showing us how a small part of the natural world can illuminate our
own human existence, while providing an appreciation of what it means to be
fully alive.
Holley, Emmet O’Neal Library
Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith
Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel
almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of
the world's preeminent fiction writers, but also a brilliant and singular
essayist. She contributes regularly to The New Yorker and the New
York Review of Books on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers is a
literary event in its own right.
Arranged into five sections--In the World, In the Audience, In the Gallery, On the Bookshelf, and Feel Free--this new collection poses questions we immediately recognize. What is The Social Network--and Facebook itself--really about? "It's a cruel portrait of us: 500 million sentient people entrapped in the recent careless thoughts of a Harvard sophomore." Why do we love libraries? "Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay." What will we tell our granddaughters about our collective failure to address global warming? "So I might say to her, look: the thing you have to appreciate is that we'd just been through a century of relativism and deconstruction, in which we were informed that most of our fondest-held principles were either uncertain or simple wishful thinking, and in many areas of our lives we had already been asked to accept that nothing is essential and everything changes--and this had taken the fight out of us somewhat."
Gathering in one place for the first time previously unpublished work, as well as already classic essays, such as, "Joy," and, "Find Your Beach," Feel Free offers a survey of important recent events in culture and politics, as well as Smith's own life. Equally at home in the world of good books and bad politics, Brooklyn-born rappers and the work of Swiss novelists, she is by turns wry, heartfelt, indignant, and incisive--and never any less than perfect company. This is literary journalism at its zenith.
Arranged into five sections--In the World, In the Audience, In the Gallery, On the Bookshelf, and Feel Free--this new collection poses questions we immediately recognize. What is The Social Network--and Facebook itself--really about? "It's a cruel portrait of us: 500 million sentient people entrapped in the recent careless thoughts of a Harvard sophomore." Why do we love libraries? "Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay." What will we tell our granddaughters about our collective failure to address global warming? "So I might say to her, look: the thing you have to appreciate is that we'd just been through a century of relativism and deconstruction, in which we were informed that most of our fondest-held principles were either uncertain or simple wishful thinking, and in many areas of our lives we had already been asked to accept that nothing is essential and everything changes--and this had taken the fight out of us somewhat."
Gathering in one place for the first time previously unpublished work, as well as already classic essays, such as, "Joy," and, "Find Your Beach," Feel Free offers a survey of important recent events in culture and politics, as well as Smith's own life. Equally at home in the world of good books and bad politics, Brooklyn-born rappers and the work of Swiss novelists, she is by turns wry, heartfelt, indignant, and incisive--and never any less than perfect company. This is literary journalism at its zenith.
Maura, Trussville
How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals by
Sy Montgomery
National Book Award finalist Sy Montgomery reflects
on the personalities and quirks of 13 animals—her friends—who have profoundly
affected her in this stunning, poetic, and life-affirming memoir featuring
illustrations by Rebecca Green.
Understanding someone who belongs to another species can be transformative. No one knows this better than author, naturalist, and adventurer Sy Montgomery. To research her books, Sy has traveled the world and encountered some of the planet’s rarest and most beautiful animals. From tarantulas to tigers, Sy’s life continually intersects with and is informed by the creatures she meets.
This restorative memoir reflects on the personalities and quirks of thirteen animals—Sy’s friends—and the truths revealed by their grace. It also explores vast themes: the otherness and sameness of people and animals; the various ways we learn to love and become empathetic; how we find our passion; how we create our families; coping with loss and despair; gratitude; forgiveness; and most of all, how to be a good creature in the world.
Understanding someone who belongs to another species can be transformative. No one knows this better than author, naturalist, and adventurer Sy Montgomery. To research her books, Sy has traveled the world and encountered some of the planet’s rarest and most beautiful animals. From tarantulas to tigers, Sy’s life continually intersects with and is informed by the creatures she meets.
This restorative memoir reflects on the personalities and quirks of thirteen animals—Sy’s friends—and the truths revealed by their grace. It also explores vast themes: the otherness and sameness of people and animals; the various ways we learn to love and become empathetic; how we find our passion; how we create our families; coping with loss and despair; gratitude; forgiveness; and most of all, how to be a good creature in the world.
Maura, Trussville
The End of the End of the Earth: Essays by Jonathan Franzen
The essayist, Jonathan Franzen writes, is like “a
fire-fighter, whose job, while everyone else is fleeing the flames of shame, is
to run straight into them.” For the past twenty-five years, even as his novels
have earned him worldwide acclaim, Franzen has led a second life as a
risk-taking essayist. Now, at a moment when technology has inflamed tribal
hatreds and the planet is beset by unnatural calami- ties, he is back with a
new collection of essays that recall us to more humane ways of being in the
world.
Franzen’s great loves are literature and birds, and The
End of the End of the Earth is a passionate argument for both. Where the
new media tend to confirm one’s prejudices, he writes, literature “invites you
to ask whether you might be somewhat wrong, maybe even entirely wrong, and to
imagine why someone else might hate you.” Whatever his subject, Franzen’s
essays are always skeptical of received opinion, steeped in irony, and frank
about his own failings. He’s frank about birds, too (they kill “everything imaginable”),
but his reporting and reflections on them―on seabirds in New Zealand, warblers
in East Africa, penguins in Antarctica―are both a moving celebration of their
beauty and resilience and a call to action to save what we love.
Calm, poignant, carefully argued, full of wit, The End
of the End of the Earth provides a welcome
breath of hope and reason.
breath of hope and reason.
Maura, Trussville
What’s Next: The Experts’ Guide: Predictions from 50 of America’s Most Compelling People by Jane Buckingham
In this book, originally published in 2008, the author of The Modern
Girl's Guide to Life asks fifty experts, artists, business leaders,
trendsetters, doctors, athletes, environmentalists, and intellectuals:
What will the next decade look like? Where are we headed?
That is the question professional
trendspotter Jane Buckingham posed to fifty influential leaders in a wide
variety of fields—and their responses are surprising, provocative, compelling,
and important. The result of her conversations with some of the most
fascinating men and women in America today, What's Next is an essential
collection of highly individual perspectives on tomorrow's world, including:
Our world is changing faster than ever. The essential
insights offered in What's Next can help us keep up—and stay ahead.
Acclaimed writer Reza Aslan's belief that American Islam may
become the model for Islam throughout the rest of the world
Attorney Alan Dershowitz's views on the very scientific
future of criminal defense law
Campaign adviser Joe Trippi's thoughts on how politics will
be turned upside down . . .
and more
Our world is changing faster than ever. The essential
insights offered in What's Next can help us keep up—and stay ahead.
Jon, Avondale
Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World by
Maryanne Wolf
From the author of Proust and the Squid, a lively,
ambitious, and deeply informative epistolary book that considers the future of
the reading brain and our capacity for critical thinking, empathy, and
reflection as we become increasingly dependent on digital technologies.
A decade ago, Maryanne Wolf’s Proust and the Squid revealed
what we know about how the brain learns to read and how reading changes the way
we think and feel. Since then, the ways we process written language have
changed dramatically with many concerned about both their own changes and that
of children. New research on the reading brain chronicles these changes in the
brains of children and adults as they learn to read while immersed in a
digitally dominated medium.
Drawing deeply on this research, this book comprises a
series of letters Wolf writes to us—her beloved readers—to describe her
concerns and her hopes about what is happening to the reading brain as it
unavoidably changes to adapt to digital mediums.
Wolf raises difficult
questions, including:
Will children learn to incorporate the full range of
"deep reading" processes that are at the core of the expert reading
brain?
Will the mix of a seemingly infinite set of distractions for
children’s attention and their quick access to immediate, voluminous
information alter their ability to think for themselves?
With information at their fingertips, will the next
generation learn to build their own storehouse of knowledge, which could impede
the ability to make analogies and draw inferences from what they know?
Will all these influences, in turn, change the formation in
children and the use in adults of "slower" cognitive processes like
critical thinking, personal reflection, imagination, and empathy that comprise
deep reading and that influence both how we think and how we live our lives?
Will the chain of digital influences ultimately influence
the use of the critical analytical and empathic capacities necessary for a
democratic society?
How can we preserve deep reading processes in future
iterations of the reading brain?
Who are the "good readers" of every epoch?
Concerns about attention span, critical reasoning, and
over-reliance on technology are never just about children—Wolf herself has
found that, though she is a reading expert, her ability to read deeply has been
impacted as she has become, inevitably, increasingly dependent on screens.
Wolf draws on neuroscience, literature, education,
technology, and philosophy and blends historical, literary, and scientific
facts with down-to-earth examples and warm anecdotes to illuminate complex
ideas that culminate in a proposal for a biliterate reading brain. Provocative
and intriguing, Reader, Come Home is a roadmap that provides a
cautionary but hopeful perspective on the impact of technology on our brains
and our most essential intellectual capacities—and what this could mean for our
future.
Jon, Avondale
Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes, and Politics by Charles Krauthammer
A brilliant stylist known for an uncompromising honesty that
challenges conventional wisdom at every turn, Krauthammer has for decades dazzled
readers with his keen insight into politics and government. His weekly column
is a must-read in Washington and across the country. Now, finally, the best of
Krauthammer’s intelligence, erudition and wit are collected in one volume.
Readers will find here not only the country’s leading conservative thinker offering a passionate defense of limited government, but also a highly independent mind whose views—on feminism, evolution and the death penalty, for example—defy ideological convention. Things That Matter also features several of Krauthammer’s major path-breaking essays—on bioethics, on Jewish destiny and on America’s role as the world’s superpower—that have profoundly influenced the nation’s thoughts and policies. And finally, the collection presents a trove of always penetrating, often bemused reflections on everything from border collies to Halley’s Comet, from Woody Allen to Winston Churchill, from the punishing pleasures of speed chess to the elegance of the perfectly thrown outfield assist.
With a special, highly autobiographical introduction in which Krauthammer reflects on the events that shaped his career and political philosophy, this indispensable chronicle takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the fashions and follies, the tragedies and triumphs, of the last three decades of American life.
Readers will find here not only the country’s leading conservative thinker offering a passionate defense of limited government, but also a highly independent mind whose views—on feminism, evolution and the death penalty, for example—defy ideological convention. Things That Matter also features several of Krauthammer’s major path-breaking essays—on bioethics, on Jewish destiny and on America’s role as the world’s superpower—that have profoundly influenced the nation’s thoughts and policies. And finally, the collection presents a trove of always penetrating, often bemused reflections on everything from border collies to Halley’s Comet, from Woody Allen to Winston Churchill, from the punishing pleasures of speed chess to the elegance of the perfectly thrown outfield assist.
With a special, highly autobiographical introduction in which Krauthammer reflects on the events that shaped his career and political philosophy, this indispensable chronicle takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the fashions and follies, the tragedies and triumphs, of the last three decades of American life.
Jon, Avondale
The Source of Self-Regard is brimming with all the elegance of mind and style, the literary prowess and moral compass that are Toni Morrison's inimitable hallmark. It is divided into three parts: the first is introduced by a powerful prayer for the dead of 9/11; the second by a searching meditation on Martin Luther King Jr., and the last by a heart-wrenching eulogy for James Baldwin. In the writings and speeches included here, Morrison takes on contested social issues: the foreigner, female empowerment, the press, money, "black matter(s)," and human rights. She looks at enduring matters of culture: the role of the artist in society, the literary imagination, the Afro-American presence in American literature, and in her Nobel lecture, the power of language itself. And here too is piercing commentary on her own work (including The Bluest Eye, Sula, Tar Baby, Jazz, Beloved, and Paradise)and that of others, among them, painter and collagist Romare Bearden, author Toni Cade Bambara, and theater director Peter Sellars. In all, The Source of Self-Regard is a luminous and essential addition to Toni Morrison's oeuvre.
Liz, Pinson
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Mary Anne, BPL Southern History
Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age
by Sherry Turkle
We live in a technological universe in which we are always
communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.
Preeminent author and researcher Sherry Turkle has been studying digital culture for over thirty years. Long an enthusiast for its possibilities, here she investigates a troubling consequence: at work, at home, in politics, and in love, we find ways around conversation, tempted by the possibilities of a text or an email in which we don’t have to look, listen, or reveal ourselves.
We develop a taste for what mere connection offers. The dinner table falls silent as children compete with phones for their parents’ attention. Friends learn strategies to keep conversations going when only a few people are looking up from their phones. At work, we retreat to our screens although it is conversation at the water cooler that increases not only productivity but commitment to work. Online, we only want to share opinions that our followers will agree with – a politics that shies away from the real conflicts and solutions of the public square.
The case for conversation begins with the necessary conversations of solitude and self-reflection. They are endangered: these days, always connected, we see loneliness as a problem that technology should solve. Afraid of being alone, we rely on other people to give us a sense of ourselves, and our capacity for empathy and relationship suffers. We see the costs of the flight from conversation everywhere: conversation is the cornerstone for democracy and in business it is good for the bottom line. In the private sphere, it builds empathy, friendship, love, learning, and productivity.
But there is good news: we are resilient. Conversation cures.
Based on five years of research and interviews in homes, schools, and the workplace, Turkle argues that we have come to a better understanding of where our technology can and cannot take us and that the time is right to reclaim conversation. The most human—and humanizing—thing that we do.
The virtues of person-to-person conversation are timeless, and our most basic technology, talk, responds to our modern challenges. We have everything we need to start, we have each other.
Preeminent author and researcher Sherry Turkle has been studying digital culture for over thirty years. Long an enthusiast for its possibilities, here she investigates a troubling consequence: at work, at home, in politics, and in love, we find ways around conversation, tempted by the possibilities of a text or an email in which we don’t have to look, listen, or reveal ourselves.
We develop a taste for what mere connection offers. The dinner table falls silent as children compete with phones for their parents’ attention. Friends learn strategies to keep conversations going when only a few people are looking up from their phones. At work, we retreat to our screens although it is conversation at the water cooler that increases not only productivity but commitment to work. Online, we only want to share opinions that our followers will agree with – a politics that shies away from the real conflicts and solutions of the public square.
The case for conversation begins with the necessary conversations of solitude and self-reflection. They are endangered: these days, always connected, we see loneliness as a problem that technology should solve. Afraid of being alone, we rely on other people to give us a sense of ourselves, and our capacity for empathy and relationship suffers. We see the costs of the flight from conversation everywhere: conversation is the cornerstone for democracy and in business it is good for the bottom line. In the private sphere, it builds empathy, friendship, love, learning, and productivity.
But there is good news: we are resilient. Conversation cures.
Based on five years of research and interviews in homes, schools, and the workplace, Turkle argues that we have come to a better understanding of where our technology can and cannot take us and that the time is right to reclaim conversation. The most human—and humanizing—thing that we do.
The virtues of person-to-person conversation are timeless, and our most basic technology, talk, responds to our modern challenges. We have everything we need to start, we have each other.
Holley, Emmet O’Neal Library
