We love our Friends...

It's National Friends of the Library Week, so I wanted to let our members know how thankful we are every day of the year for your support. Our Friends group supports the Summer Reading Program by buying books for those who finish their reading goal. They purchase book group kits for local book clubs. They fund programs for adults and children. They've purchased new toys for the Children's Rooms at both libraries. They supported the Family Reading Area, and are contributing to the teen room project. They are endowing a Collection for Excellence for the library through the Greater Everett Community Foundation. They volunteer time during the Mayor's Award, National Library Week, and other special events. I love our Friends, and if you're not a Friend now, please consider joining. We'll take your time or your money, or both. It's easy--just click here.

Librarians in fiction and film

Jo Dereske, author of the Miss Zukas mysteries will be at the Main Library on October 10 at 2 p.m. Miss Zukas is a librarian, as is Dereske--as am I. So that got me thinking about other books with librarians as characters. I've read a few, which I'll get to, but I looked first in Novelist, one of our online databases (and a great source for reading ideas) just to get a sense of how ubiquitous we librarians are in fiction. It turns out that librarians are well represented in fiction.

Although I don't ever expect anyone to come up to the reference desk and say "can you recommend a good book with a librarian as a character?" here's a list of books you might enjoy even if one of the characters wasn't a librarian:
Elizabeth McCracken's The Giant's House, Allen Kurzweil's The Grand Complication, Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, Ian Sansom's The Case of the Missing Books, and Richard Powers' The Gold Bug Variations.

When not on the reference desk or between the pages of a book, librarians can also be found in film. But I think that will be another post because this one is getting a bit long.

Words, words, words...

I believe Eliza Doolittle said that in My Fair Lady, but she's not the reason I'm thinking about words today. You may have read that William Safire died this past weekend, and Safire cared passionately about words.

I never followed his newspaper column, but I do remember reading a collection of his On Language columns many years ago. Oddly enough one column from that collection still sticks in my mind. It was a column about names and the tendency of the upper classes to give their children first and last names that could be interchangeable--Chase Parker or Grant Clark for example. I tried to find that column in our collection, but couldn't. However, we do have several book by Safire, including some fiction--which I never knew he wrote.

This morning I was listening to an NPR program in his honor. They were asking listeners to call in their pet peeves and favorite new words. I heard lots of peeves, and very few favorite new words. My pet peeve is improperly used apostrophes. I couldn't think of a favorite new word either, which I guess means I'm more aware of what irritates me than what pleases me. At least linguistically.

Help us celebrate the 75th!

This October marks the 75th anniversary of the Main Library building at the corner of Hoyt and Everett avenues. It's amazing how timeless Carl Gould's art deco inspired design has proven to be, and the renovation and addition by Cardwell/Thomas and Dykeman Architects still serves us well.

Although the basic purpose of the library is the much the same, community needs and expectations for the library have changed over its 75 year life. Obvious changes are the ubiquitous computers that are so much a part of the library business today. Less obvious is the need to improve the resources we provide for teens. Teens are in the library--we know this not only because we see them, but also because over 8,000 of them have library cards. We've got a children's room and lots of space for adults. Now we want to create a teen room.

We are hoping to raise money for this project on Saturday, October 10 at 7:00 p.m. with a history-oriented fundraiser at the Main Library. Click here to find out more about the event and how to purchase tickets. We hope you will join us for an evening of wine, food, and history--with all proceeds going towards our teen room project. Let's give our teens a great place to go.

Reading the newspaper

I'm a creature of habit, I know, but I never feel as if I get off to a good start unless I have my cup of tea and read the morning paper before the rest of my day begins.

Today I learned that children's author Karla Kuskin has died. I remember reading her book The Philharmonic Gets Dressed to my son many years ago. Our library doesn't own that particular book, but we've got several others she wrote, and you might like to try them out on a young friend.

I also learned that Julia Child's book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking has become a bestseller thanks to the popularity of the movie Julie and Julia. I went to see the movie last night, and thought that the sections about Julia Child were the best parts of the film, and Meryl Streep makes a terrific Child. Boeuf Bourguignon plays a prominent role in the film, and I am now inspired to try making it once we get past Labor Day.

Health care and end of life decisions

Like most of you, I've been following the health care policy debates for quite a while now. I have my own opinion about our health care system, but that's not what I want to write about. What has me most upset lately is the lies that are being spread by people who are in a position to know better, and specifically the lie that Obama's proposal would create "death panels." There was a story in the newspaper today that a majority of the population now actually believe this is true.

It is so important to talk with your doctor and your family about what kind of treatment, if any, you want at the end of life. I know this from personal experience. Several years ago my father found out he had metastatic prostate cancer, and very shortly thereafter he had a small stroke. He had always been very clear about what he wanted in the event that he became incapacitated, and everyone in my family knew. He had advance directives, and I had durable power of attorney. As his illness progressed and his memory worsened, it was often a challenge to take care of him--but I never had to worry about not knowing what his wishes were, nor did his doctor. And that was both a tremendous help and a consolation.

It looks as if the part of the legislation that would have allowed people to discuss these very important issues with their doctors--and insured that the doctors would be reimbursed--has been removed to appease those who believe the lies. But that does't mean it's not still important for each of us to make end of life decisions ourselves, and to make sure that our families and our physicians know what we want. And here is where the library comes in--we've got some excellent resources to help you decide what's right for you. Jane Brody's Guide to the the Great Beyond is a new book of this very topic. Sidney H. Wanzer's To Die Well is another guide to end of life decisions. We've also got books on living wills and access to magazine articles that can help clarify what's fact and what's fiction in this huge debate. We've likely got a long and contentious discussion ahead of us on health care--let the library help you sort it out.

What's cooking

The release of the film Julie & Julia and Julie Powell's recent visit to Seattle resulted in a Seattle Times interview with Powell. I read Powell's book , a chronicle of her attempt to cook every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking despite living in a very small New York City apartment with an even tinier kitchen. It's a fun book which began as a blog, and now Powell has left her life as a clerical worker behind (and her tiny kitchen), and has a new book coming out on the art of butchering meat.

I've long been a fan of Calvin Trillin's light-hearted eating adventures, and you can enjoy a collection of them in The Tummy Trilogy. For a not-so-light vision of cooking and relationships there's Betty Fussell's My Kitchen Wars. Fussell was the wife of historian Paul Fussell, and as a young faculty wife she was caught up in the one-ups-manship that resulted when Julia Child's books on French cooking opened up a new world for American cooks.

The Times interview lists some of Powell's favorite food-centered films. But she missed a few of mine, and since they're in the library's collection, you could check them out. Tampopo,a parody of a samurai film, tells the story of a young widow trying to make the perfect bowl of noodles with the help of a truck driver. In Eat,Drink, Man, Woman a retired chef is worried about his unmarried daughters.

If you'd rather be cooking than reading about people who do, you can find plenty of inspiration in our cookbook collection. After years of buying cookbooks, only to find I end up using only one or two recipes per book, I now turn to the library when I feel like I'm in a food rut. So far it's working pretty well.