Daily Thoughts 02/27/2014
I enjoyed reading What W.H. Auden Can Do For You by Alexander McCall Smith. This book is very much a homage to W.H. Auden's poetry who the author praises in the classic english manner of Robert Graves. The writing is beautiful.
Alexander McCall Smith includes some commentary by George Orwell on W.H. Auden's writing on the Spanish Civil War during the 1930s which is of interest to me. He also calls Auden's later work pastoral and Horatian.
I rather like the visits to Auden's literary critics. Alexander McCall Smith describes visiting Edward Mendelson who is known for writing about Auden. He even writes in Mendelson as a character in one of his books. I was surprised at both the style, prose, and depth of this short book of 137 pages. It is just the right size to read on a subway trip.
This morning, I checked the Twitter and Facebook for the library. I also checked the displays and the gift books. I spent some time preparing for the scheduling of a film, adjusting the public computer class schedule, and on another book discussion group. There was an article on Auden in the latest New York Review of Books. I still have several copies of the New York Times Book Review to look through and a copy of Bookpages to sort through.
I placed a hold on No ordinary time : Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt : the home front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
I am going to a reading at Rockefeller Center in the Simon and Schuster building tomorrow. I will hear several present their works and hopefully should get a few books for the library as well.
Web Bits
The book, Expect More: Demanding Better Libraries for Today's Complex World is now a free download.
http://quartz.syr.edu/blog/?page_id=4598#download
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