Daily Thoughts 12/19/2015

Hand Study with Bible, Albrecht Durer, 1506

Daily Thoughts 12/19/2015


I checked the library Twitter and Facebook this morning.



I checked the displays and the gift books this morning.



I finished reading Twain and Stanley Enter Paradise by Oscar Hijuelos this morning.  The writing was excellent.  I liked that in the end Mark Twain reviews Stanley's autobiography and tells Dorothy Tennant, Stanley's wife that what he writes about Stanley's adoptive father is not true.  I also liked that Oscar Hijuelos describes how Mark Twain joined the Anti-Imperialist league.  It creates a deep contrast with Stanley's forays into Africa.  This book holds deeply contrasting views between its two main characters.  I found this satisfying.



Two books came in for me to read, The New and Improved Romie Futch by Julia Elliott and Secular Meditation A Guide from the Humanist Community at Harvard 32 Practices for Cultivating Inner Peace, Compassion, and Joy by Rick Heller.



I read through a copy of the January 2016 Baker and Taylor Forecast.



I checked out the book, The Girls from Atomic City, The Untold Story of The Women Who Helped Win World War II by Denise Kiernan.  It is the book for the next book club.



The new website is going to be live on Monday.

I started reading The New and Improved Romie Futch by Julia Elliott.  Romie Futch is a down on his luck middle aged taxidermist with bad habits and a heavy metal attitude.  The book is a study in excess with lots of sex and drugs drawing from the worst stereotypes from 1970s and 1980s.  Romie Futch decides to improve himself so takes part in a cybernetic brain implant medical test.  Things get weird, a bit psychedelic, and postmodern.  He is operated on by Dr. Morrow, a clear pun on Dr. Moreau from H.G. Wells.  This is a modern satirical fantasy.





Web Bits

Alberto Manguel to Lead National Library (Argentina)

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/205254/alberto-manguel-to-lead-national-library



Against All Odds Print Books Are On the Rise Again in the US.
http://qz.com/578025/against-all-odds-print-books-are-on-the-rise-again-in-the-us/

Incredible Bulk at a Comic Book Warehouse In Brooklyn
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/nyregion/incredible-bulk-at-a-comic-book-warehouse-in-brooklyn.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0