Donna Leon [Interview]

“Donna Leon" (By the Book) [interview], New York Times Book Review, March 10, 2019, p. 7.

What kind of reader were you as a child?I loved books about animals (and still do: Sy Montgomery’s “The Soul of an Octopus” [1] is a dream)  and about ancient history. When I was about 7, I complained to my mother that I had nothing to do. She did not hesitate but drove me immediately to the local library and took me to the children’s room and told me I could take home five books. The first was a book about Egypt, with pictures. I remember realizing that the whole world was there, in that small room.

COMMENT

Here’s yet another coming-of-age-at-the-library story — that memorable moment when a child is allowed for the first time to chose her own library books and take them home. Leon's memory of the event is so clear she remembers the details right down to the number of books she was allowed to take and what those books were about.

Leon describes a feeing of awe to think that books contain the whole world. Perhaps it’s not just the knowledge and stories inside of books, but also a newfound sense of responsibility that creates such indelible childhood library memories.  Children given the freedom to choose books are also asked to take care of them and return them on time. In a sense,  the rules of the library make them into guardians of the whole world.

[1] Sy Montgomery, The soul of an octopus: A surprising exploration into the wonder of consciousness. Simon and Schuster, 2015.

How to Tap Your Inner Reader

Gregory Cowles, “How to Tap Your Inner Reader,” (Here to Help), New York Times, March 3, 2019, p3.

     In early high school, my authentic self read a lot of Stephen King. I had always been an avid reader — my mother worked at the local library when I was growing up, so I spent hours there after school, making why way methodically and indiscriminately from shelf to shelf and section to section inhaling it all.
     So when my English teacher asked me during a conversation what I liked to read outside of school, I answered honesty and enthusiastically. And he sneered.
     “I mean, Stephen King is a good story-teller, I suppose,” he said or something like it. “But you’re not going to learn anything about writing from him. Don’t you think you should read more serious authors?”

COMMENT

    The library as an after-school refuge; coming of age through unfiltered reading; discovery of beloved books through browsing; the disapproving (and deeply wrong) adult censorship of childhood reading -- this story has it all!

     Several other writers have related memories of clueless adults criticizing their juvenile reading choices [1] and it's obvious to any reader that these adults were dishing out terrible advice.  Who wouldn't want to write like Stephen King? He literally wrote the book On Writing. [2]

     "It's totally fine to read for pleasure," Cowles advises and he's perfectly right.

    The American Library Association has a Library Bill of Rights  that says, "Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves." It's an uplifting though,  but the language treats reading as a very serious pursuit and glosses over reading for fun.

   Author Daniel Pennac [3] rectified that with a Reader's Bill of Rights that includes "the right to read anything" (#5), "the right to escapism" (#6), "the right to browse" (#8) and "the right not to defend your tastes" (#10).  Go ahead and enjoy Stephen King, and while you're at it you might even learn to be a better writer.

 
[1] What are we Teaching Boys when we Discourage Them from Reading Books about Girls? (librarian says Shannon Hale is not for boys) ; Well Read, Well Known (Teacher says Maya Angelou is not a good writer)...

[2] Stephen King. On writing. Simon and Schuster, 2002.

[3] Daniel Pennac. The rights of the reader. London: Walker, 2006.

Taking Notes on How Bibliophiles Flirt

Karla Marie-Rose Derus, “Taking Notes on How Bibliophiles Flirt” (Modern Love), New York Times, February 24, 2019, pl. ST6.

During six years of singlehood in my 20s, I became a person I did not know. Before, I had always been a reader. I walked to the library several times a week as a child and stayed up late into the night reading under my blankets with a flashlight. I checked out so many books and returned them so quickly the librarian once snapped, “Don’t take home so many books if you’re not going to read them all.” “But I did read them all,” I said, unloading them into her arms. I was an English major in college and went on t get a master’s in literature. But shortly after the spiral-bound thesis took its place on my shelf next to the degree, I stopped reading. It happened gradually, the way one heals or dies.

… 

On our seventh date, David and I visited the Central Library downtown.,
“I have a game,” he said, pulling two pens and pads of sticky notes out of his bag. “Let’s find books we’ve read and leave reviews in them for he next person.”
We wandered through the aisles for over an hour. In the end, we say on the floor among the poetry, and I read him some of Linda Pastan’s verse. 

… 

The Japanese language has a word for this: tsundoku. The act of acquiring books that go unread.

COMMENT


     Shame on the librarian. The writer describes herself as “a 5-foot-3-inch black woman born to a Caribbean mother.” It troubles me to think that the librarian was judging her appearance, not her borrowing habits. What’s more, the librarian is deeply wrong to think that taking out unread books is somehow wrong. A library is an antidote to tshundoku. Unlike the bookstore which clutters your home shelves, you can take a chance with a library book that may not turn out to be worth reading.  (See: What to Do With all the Stuff That's Cluttering your Home; Can't. Just. Stop).

     As other library stories relate, the books that people read and/or buy become deeply personal markers of who they are. Even after Karla stops reading, she considers the books she has read essential to her self perception. Her online dating profile is listed under the screen name “missbibliophile” and her taste in literature speaks for her personality. David, the boyfriend reads history and nonfiction; Karla prefers writers of color and immigrant narratives (writers on her list like  Zadie Smith, Arundhati Roy and Edward P. Jones indicate the importance of diversity to her self-image) Can they overcome their differences to combine their bookshelves?

Like the writer, I experienced a period of non-reading, but I don’t think it was related to romantic disappointment or intellectual fatigue. I believe I lost my ability to concentrate due to too much screen time. I decided it was a big problem that I had stopped reading books and I cured myself by sitting down with Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace until I had read it all the way through. A distraction-free long distance Amtrak trip was helpful to the project of becoming re-literate.

The library game the two lovers play is charming. It reminds me of students who leave paper money in their dissertation to reward anyone who bothers to read their work. Other library stories feature ephemera found in books (See: Lee Israel) or marginalia (See: When Puccini Came, Saw and Conquered). In academic libraries one sometimes finds texts marked up with notes or highlighting from previous readers. Sometimes this seems like annoying defacement, but it’s also an insight into what impressed another reader. I shouldn't admit it, but I don't always mind if library books are marked up if it's done in pencil and not fluorescent-yellow ink.

The library in this story is also a meaningful place.  The two lovers go there on a date.  When David proposes he does it by tucking a note into the pages of a book.

James Lee Burke

James Lee Burke (By the Book), New York Times Book Review, December 30, 2018, p.7.

What kind of reader were you as a child?I loved the bookmobile. My favorite books were the Hardy Boys. When I was growing up, people did not have a lot of discretionary income, and on Thursday afternoons the arrival of the bookmobile on our dead-end street sent kids running down to the cul-de-sac to be first in line for Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.  In many ways it was a grand time to be around. 

COMMENT

     The Hardy Boys is hardly great literature, but in the context of the miraculous bookmobile it became life-changing reading for Burke who grew up to become a mystery writer. It's hard to imagine the Internet having any kind of similar effect to foster a love of reading within a whole neighborhood of kids.

     Burke mentions that his family didn't have a lot of money to spend on books. One way that libraries can promote their service is by reminding people how much value their library card offers. Recently, the Salt Lake Public Library and other libraries have started to print receipts that estimate how much money you saved by borrowing library materials instead of buying them.  In 2018, my teenage daughter borrowed over $1000 worth, and I borrowed at least as much. My property taxes for the library are less than $100/year.  Offering a visible metric also has the psychological effect of making me want to borrow even more stuff so that I can feel virtuous for getting such a good bargain.

     Nonetheless, I have been at meetings with librarians who have pooh-poohed the importance of cost savings through shared resource use (these people tend to be administrators who earn about double the local median income). Their argument is that digital information has become so cheap that people will inevitably prefer the convenience of purchasing what they want over the inconvenience of using shared library resources.  Yet even among the rich, who would want all those Hardy Boys books cluttering ups their McMansions?  Kids (and adults, but especially kids) go through reading stages. There may be a few "keepers" but it's a feature, not a bug to be able to give books back once you have read them.  It also solves the problem of books you liked too well to simply toss but will probably never read again. 

   Another library solution to the problem of book clutter, of course, is to host periodic book collection and book sales events.  It's a mistake to think of book sales as simply library fund raising.  They are actually an essential public service for many library patrons.

The Light Under the Bushel

Chigozie Obioma, "The Light Under the Bushel: A Father Ignites a Passion for Reading, " New York Times Book Review, Dec 9, 2018, P20.

     By the fifth month I had read every book my father owned.  One Saturday, he returned home and asked me to get in the car.
     "I have a surprise for you."
We drove through streets clotted with people until we got to a newly painted building with an arch over the gate that read, Ondo State Library. We walked through the arch into the building, the likes of which I had never seen. There were books everywhere, on shelves, on tables, on the floor.
     "I want to register you here and bring you every Saturday here to read, "my father said.
     I wanted breathlessly as he completed the registration at the counter with an elderly, bespectacled woman who seemed in awe of the idea of a child coming in alone to read.  My father, proud, agreed and said that it was all I wanted to do.
     "That is good," I herd the woman say. "Very, very good.  Reading is like finding light, you know.  Jesus said a light cannot be hidden under a bushel"
     "That is true," my father said, nodding as the woman wrote my name on a small, square yellow card.
     "Your son has found the light under the bushel."
     She handed me the card and my father said he would pick me up at noon.  I waved him goodbye and disappeared among the crowded shelves.

COMMENT

     The author tells the story of how he got his first library card at the Ondo State Library in Nigeria when he was eight years old. He receives the treasured card along with a literal blessing from the librarian and from his father.

     Obioma relates how his mother told folktales in Igbo language, but his father's stories, told in English, seemed far more complex and interesting. One day Obioma finds out that his father has been re-telling stories he read in books, He begins reading obsessively himself. Looking back from the perspective of an adult, he realizes that his mother had no Igbo literature to draw from.  English language books were the pathway to education, but also a way to escape the limits of his own culture. He writes, "it struck me that if I could read well, I could be like my father. I too could become a repository of stories and live in their beautiful worlds away from the dust and ululations of Akure."

     Concealed in this triumphant story of education is a sadder tale about the Igbo stories that were never written down and never added to any library. Literature written in English comes to seem more important simply because there is so much more of it.

But a library card is a blessing nonetheless. I got my first library card when I was 5. The school librarian didn't believe a kindergartener could read so she asked me to read aloud from a book which had the word "orphanage" in it. I read the whole book pronouncing the unfamiliar word as four distinct syllables, or-pa-ha-nage. She did not correct my pronunciation until I had read through the entire book.  I was absolutely furious at her for letting me humiliate myself like that. But still, I got the library card and after that could take home all the books I wanted from the school library.  I never asked the librarian for any suggestions.     

At the Gates of Deep Darkness

Scott Russell Sanders, "At the Gates of Deep Darkness: Examining Faith in the Face of Tragedy," Orion, Autumn 2018, p.41-51.

While I was doggedly reading the Bible, three or four pages per night over several years, I was also reading books on science from our public library.  I followed my passions: fascination with dinosaurs led me to study evolution; model rockets led me to astronomy; birds and bugs led me to biology; rocks led me to geology; kitchen table experiments led me to chemistry and physics. When I had exhausted the offerings in the young adult section, I moved on to the books for grownups.  On the advice of a teacher, my parents brought me a subscription to Scientific American, a magazine that reported new discoveries along with the rigorous methods by which they had been achieved. The passages I could not understand-- and there were many-- only inspired me to deeper study.  While my Bible reading was dutiful, homework for graduation to heaven, my reading of science was driven by curiosity and delight. 

COMMENT

     Here's a lovely description of coming of age at the library, transitioning from children's science to the scientific method.  The author does not specifically mention librarians helping to find these books, though he does mention a helpful teacher.  For the most part, it seems to be a self-directed research process.
 
     There are two elements in this story that I've  noticed in other library stories: [1] The transition out of the juvenile section of the library as a rite of passage (See posts on Children's Literature) and [2] The use of library resources to investigate religious faith (Hypocrisy of Hanukkah; Go and See Jane and Emma; God is Going to Have to Forgive Me).   In this story, however, the library research is not about theology but a contrast to a childish understanding of theology.  In fact, when the author needs spiritual comfort, neither form of study turns out to  offer adequate solace.

Even from Afar, Carol Channing Served up that Broadway Wow

Ben Brantley, "Even from Afar, Carol Channing Served up that Broadway Wow," New York Times, Jan. 15, 2019, p.A23

     When Ms. Channing, who died on Tuesday at 97, first appeared in the part with which she would forever be identified, I was only 9 years old and living in Winston-Salem, N.C.
     But as a boy in thrall to all things New York, and especially all things Broadway, I monitored whatever was happening on its stages as closely as long distance allowed in the pre-internet age. My parents subscribed to The New Yorker, so that was a help, and I could go to the Wake Forest College library, just a bike ride away, and check out the arts pages of The Times.

COMMENT

   Carol Channing first appeared as Dolly in 1964. At that time, a young musical theater fan had to bicycle to the library periodical room to read the New York Times.

   In the post-internet age, good arts reporting might actually be more difficult to find. Newspapers are laying off arts critics and drastically shrinking arts coverage [1]. It's easy enough to find celebrity gossip, but not so easy to find reviews, history or critiques.  That's a real loss to the community, not only because there  is no way for people to find out about arts events they might want to attend, but because there is no recorded history of the local arts community.
 
      Here in Utah, Artists of Utah 15 Bytes  and  LoveDanceMore  are examples of online publications that are trying to fill the niche for regional arts reporting. The arts reporting gap is also one that libraries could try to fill through community journalism.

    One obvious way librarians could promote local artist is by writing and collecting book reviews for local authors.  When the Portland Press Herald threatened to stop publishing book reviews a local author (Stephen King) launched a successful protest.  King argued that  the newspaper was taking away publicity that local writers depend on.  As newspapers downsize,  local arts is often replaced by generic news-wire stories about nationally famous authors or artists. Without regional arts reporters, people will probably still  see reviews of Stephen King's books, but may never even learn about new books by people who write about their part of the world.  These local books are essential to building a sense of place that is a foundation for resilient communities.

[1]  Jed Gottlieb, "Curtains Fall on Arts Critics at newspapers," Columbia Journalism Review, January 6, 2017.   "With their champions banished from papers, legitimate artistic endeavors start to recede from the mainstream consciousness in favor of fluffy celebrity-driven stories."
 

Illiberal Values

Kirn, Walter. Easy Chair: Illiberal Values. Harper’s vol. 337, no 2019 (Aug. 2018). p5-7.

Paula was our town librarian. She used Ms. in front of her name and held opinions— on Nixon, the Vietnam War, and civil rights— that I’d heard on the news, from protest leaders and such, but hadn’t experienced up close.  Since the library was on the first floor of the town hall, an old wooden building with a bell on top and an air of venerable officialdom, I wondered whether she was endangering herself by sharing her views while on the job. To demonstrate my own courageous spirit and win her respect, I picked out books that struck me as controversial or sophisticated from the adult shelves, then plunked myself down to read them in an armchair that was visible from her desk. Though I was just eleven, I read Slaughterhouse Five and Future Shock this way. Sometimes we ended up talking about the books. Through gentle questioning, she would elicit from me opinions I wouldn’t have dared to share with others, such as my hope that humans would die out as punishment for harming whales and dolphins. [p. 5]

COMMENT: 

     I have a bit of a crush on Paula. She’s what I would like to be as a librarian. I especially love her willingness to discuss books with her callow young admirer.  

     I can remember doing this kind of reading when I was about eleven, but I didn't always rely on the library.  Slaughterhouse Five and Future Shock were on the bookshelves of my parents or my friends’ parents, as were the utterly fascinating Joy of Sex and Our Bodies Our Selves.  I don’t recall ever trying to discuss them with an adult. Even though I had a perfectly good library card, in Jr. High I loved Kurt Vonnegut so much that I spent my own money on paperback copies of his books so I could read and re-read them. I recently re-read Slaughterhouse Five because it was on my daughter’s high school reading list, and was pleased to find that it is still as good as ever. “Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.”  It gives you chills, doesn't it?

Branching Out

Nalini Nadkarni. "Branching Out," in Nature Love Medicine: Essays on Wildness and Wellness. ed. by Thomas Lowe Fleischner, 2017, pp. 27-40.

                Although immense amounts of knowledge are contained in the science libraries around the world, rates of deforestation, climate change, species invasion, and over-consumption if tree-derived products are increasing.  Humans— especially those living in urban environments and working in windowless cubicles— are more and more separated from their connections to trees, soils and wind.  Midway into my academic career, I realized that communication of all my scientific findings to scientists — through my academic papers and talks at ecology conferences —did very little to fulfill my childhood dream of being a grownup who protected trees. [p. 31]

COMMENT

 The fact that so much academic writing has no market has misled some academic librarians into misunderstanding the motivation and interests of academic authors. Often, academic writing is an indirect path to the rewards of scholarly reputation, job promotion and successful grant applications, valued according to citation statistics. Some librarians therefore assume that scholars only care about reputation. However, in this case Nadkarni has a much larger goal. She wants her writing to create change in the world. This ambition places her squarely into an academic no-man’s-land between science and activism.

      There has long been an ongoing debate among scientists regarding the role of activism in the sciences and where to place appropriate limits. In his classic textbook, Fundamentals of Ecology (1953), Eugene Odum hoped that ecology would emerge as an  interdisciplinary bridge between science and society.  Instead what happened is the vocabulary shifted.  "Ecology" became more scientifically focused and integrated in Biology departments. The term “environmentalism” gained favor to imply ecological activism. In the academic environment, biological scientists criticized environmental studies as  being a “church of the environment” for idealistic students.  Eventually, the word “environmentalism” was deemed too narrow and after the Brundtland Report (1987) it was replaced by the word “sustainability." Sustainability was defined by a triple bottom line of ecology, economics and society, an attempt to deliberately pull science and society back together.  However, once again scientists balked at the fuzziness of social science and policy. The ideas of sustainable development, criticized as insufficiently evidence-based, spun off  “sustainability science” on the one hand and “resilience” on the other.  And so it goes.  As each new term becomes “tainted” by association with activism, scientists imagine that the next effort to save the planet will succeed due to rigorous standards of objectivity.

     In the end, Nadkarni was not able to create change within the context of pure science. Instead she engaged with humanities by inviting “forest novices” to help interpret what she was seeing —  artists, dancers, musicians, and indigenous people from the Arctic who have never seen a tree.  

 

     Academic librarians like to structure collections and organizations to mirror the structure of  academic departments at a university, but that means libraries are bound by the same limitations. Interdisciplinary ideas can end up marginalized, or caught in a tug-of-war of words and definitions. I wonder how many of the science libraries that have Nadkarni’s academic papers also have a video of the dance performance inspired by her work?

Seeing My Son Read is a Bittersweet Joy

Viet Than Nguyen. Seeing My Son Read is a Bittersweet Joy. New York Times, August 5, 2018. p.4SR.

Books were not a priority for my parents, so we never had them in the house. I would go to the public library every week and stuff my backpack full of books, which were barely enough for a week. I never owned my own until high school. My son has a bigger library than I ever had.  While my parents showed me they loved me by making sure that I always had enough to eat, I show my love for my son by making sure that he always has enough to read (as well as to eat). For me, the library was a second home, and I want my son to have his own home

By 11 or 12, I knew how to get to my second home by myself, on foot or on the bus.  But in remembering that childhood library, what I also know is that libraries are potentially dangerous places because there are no borders. There are countries called children’s literature and young adult literature and adult fiction, but no border guards, or in my case, parents to police the borders and protect me. A reader could go wherever he or she wanted. So, at 12 or 13 I read Philip Roth’s “Portnoy’s Complaint” and Larry Heinemann’s “Close Quarters."

COMMENT

     We may not normally think of letting kids get inappropriate books as a desirable function of the library, but considering how often reading the “wrong” book influences the course of someone's life it strikes me as a particularly valuable service. There is a kind of coming-of-age that happens when a child starts reading books that reveal  truly shocking adult knowledge. Reading these books becomes a formative experience precisely because the reader was so ill prepared. Some kids can find such transformational books on their parents’ shelves, but Nguyen’s refugee parents didn’t have any books at all. The library had to facilitate his coming-of-age.  Luckily, the librarians provided guidance for curious kids by dividing books into shelves for children, young adults and adults. Any child who wanted to sneak a peek at adult secrets would know exactly where to look. Nguyen, now a protective parent himself, is absolutely right that by learning to read his son is “one step further on his own road to independence, to being a border-crosser, someone who makes his own decisions, including about what he reads and what he believes.” I like to think that Banned Books Week helps this coming-of-age process along.