eBooks eLectrified!

Charlotte Canelli is library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood.

Over two years ago the Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, MA made headlines for a bold and controversial move to eliminate most traditional reading matter from its new school library. “Cushing Academy Library Goes Bookless!” the newspapers exclaimed.

Librarians across the country led the outcry of disbelief. Liz Gray of the Dana Hall School in Wellesley debated Cushing’s decision. “Focused, engaged reading is more likely to occur with printed books than with online material,” Gray wrote.

James Tracy, headmaster of the school, defended the school’s resolve. “Cushing Academy decided to … transform our library into a digital learning center. We wanted to create a … library that goes beyond stacks and stacks of underutilized books.” Tracy and his staff filled the school with eReaders and built a collection of electronic books which could be accessed by every student at the school.

In reality, there are still some “real” books in the Cushing Academy Library and much of the resulting chorus of disapproval was, I believe, emotionally-driven by the love of ‘the book.’

Who can blame them for this emotional response?

An online library can never, and will never, replace the browsing experience of scanning the shelves in a library, a bookstore or your own home. It is certain that the physical book will remain a part of our homes and libraries. Surely, a handwritten heartfelt inscription would be lost in the digital void of an eBook library. Where is the joy in a toddler turning the pages in an actual picture book? Many people will never cozy up to a hard plastic shell that masquerades as reading matter. Others will never accept an eReader, its phantom pages and strange e-Ink.

Author Anna Quindlen wrote: “I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.” How pure and true her sentiments are. Especially to me.

In our home much of our furniture would be bare, many of our walls would lack character, and most of our rooms would seem empty without our collections of books. Our children were raised with hundreds of books in the homes that we lived in. When our son-in-law moved into his new office he immediately sent a photo … of his newly-arranged bookshelves. Our daughter-in-law in Atlanta often has stacks of books on every surface of their home. A love of the physical books is central to our family’s lives.

And so, you might be surprised to learn that I have promoted eReaders at the Morrill Memorial Library, deciding this past year to invest in six of them for our patrons to check out. These are the Barnes and Noble Nooks and we have presented training sessions and encouraged their use. (Each Nook is preloaded with library titles.)

Like many of my friends, and several of my children, I own an Amazon Kindle. Until now my only option has been to purchase books for my Kindle and I’ve done so with great discretion. Kindle owners and Kindle app users have not had the option of borrowing library eBooks.

That all changed last week and we are very excited about it. Finally, Kindle owners can borrow library books.

Free Kindle eBook loans are now offered on the Minuteman OverDrive Digital Media catalog. Thousands of titles can be requested, borrowed and downloaded to a variety of devices. (There is no need to own a Kindle although the reading experience on the actual device is the best to be had. E-Ink displays are easier to read than any backlit displays and it is easier on the eyes than some paper.)

Free Kindle apps are available for a variety of electronic devices – personal computers, iPhones, SmartPhones and iPads among others. The only requirement for downloading aKindle app is an Amazon.com username and password.

Kindle eBooks can be borrowed for 7, 14 or 21 days. If a copy is out, the title can be requested and will be ready for download as soon as it is available. The download process is relatively easy compared to the other options available using the OverDrive Media Console. If the device is WiFi-enabled the transfer is immediate and basically effortless.

The library has scheduled two Kindle eBook information sessions on Wednesday, October 12 at 10 am and 7 pm. The drop-in sessions will run for two hours and patrons can bring their own devices to the library but registration is required. Staff and their families have a variety of devices and they will demonstrate the process. They will lead those interested through the process on assorted devices, especially on their own equipment. Patrons should have an Amazon.com account in advance of the training sessions and should be willing to download the Kindle app to their device or download to an actual Kindle.

Nook sessions were offered some months ago and we will schedule another special Nook Download training night in the future. This special Kindle eBook information session pertains only to downloading the Amazon Kindle eBooks in the Minuteman catalog.

We are very excited to be a member of the Minuteman Library Network and the new offerings on OverDrive. Be sure to register for a session.

If you have a Kindle or Kindle app you’ll find training modules and online help on our website. To sign up for the information sessions or get help in advance, call the Reference librarians (781-769-0200) or visit the library.

Epic

Nancy Ling is an Outreach Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. She is also an author and a poet and loves working with children and teens and teaching poetry. Read her column in the Norwood Transcript & Record.

It’s official. Fall is here as of today. This is when we ask each other questions such as where did the time go? Or what was your favorite summer memory? Surprisingly one of my best memories took place at the library. I know. It’s hard to believe. After all I did venture off to see black bears and whales in Alaska. What could beat that?

Well, the Teen Poetry Club came close. I had the privilege of introducing teens to a variety of poetic forms and several award-winning poets for five weeks. True, I was wondering who would sign up for this club. I mean, there are trips to the beach, visits to grandparents. I found the answer to that question on the first day—teens who are passionate about writing, and who are really, really good at it, too.

That said, I thought it was only appropriate that I share some of their work (with their permission, of course). I do this for two reasons: first, so you can be thoroughly impressed with the caliber of young writers here in Norwood, and second, so you may think about signing up for this workshop next summer.

Each time we covered a different topic in our workshop. Here’s a poem that one student, Lauren Swank, wrote during our first meeting. We were discussing the use of dreams and special places to jump start our writing when Lauren penned the following:

Dreams

Loud voices come from the excited crowd,
all of these sounds seem so loud.
Will he cooperate throughout the course?
Will he be a good little horse?
I look ahead at the obstacles before me.
All I am thinking about is he
who needs support because his head is down.
I tell him softly “a smile is better than a frown.”
A big horse trots on by.
My little horse seems so shy.
My horse looks up for he is towered
by the horse who has over-powered
my poor shire who is all alone
when the whistle blows he stands like stone.
I softly say “Just take your time”
and after that he seemed just fine.
He did the course in two minutes flat.
We walked past the rest and said “Beat That!”
The judges gave us a First Place prize and
I then could not believe my eyes.
Loud noises came from the excited crowd
and those noises made my shire seem so proud.

Here’s another dream-inspired poem by Dina Delic. She brings her reader right into the strange and stirring place of a dream, or nightmare as the case may be.

Breathe

Light flickers through,
blue-white like an old film,
and I see her,
silently staring at a wall
that
doesn’t
exist.
And I can see her closed lids,
see her struggling to breathe,
because her bone corset is laced too tight.
Her wings are tied up, and she wants to fly,
to feel the air on her skin,
but
she
can’t.
She is laced too tight.
Her corset won’t let her breathe.
Society won’t let her breathe.
The heavy damask curtains won’t let her breathe.
She wants out,
but she can’t get out,
can’t loosen the ribbons restraining her freedom.
The light flickers out,
and I can still see her,
struggling to be free.
To breathe.
Just breathe.
Breathe.

This one is a pantoum by Sara Harder. The poet J. Lorraine Brown came to our club to discuss this particular form. In case you want to try writing one, a pantoum as defined by Merriam Webster is “a series of quatrains rhyming abab in which the second rhyme of a quatrain recurs as the first in the succeeding quatrain, each quatrain introduces a new second rhyme (as bcbc, cdcd).”

Cookies

Sweet and tasty
Crunchy and round
Chocolate chip and peanut butter
Sugar cookies and almond rounds

Crunchy and round
Sticky dough on a baking tray
Sugar cookies and almond rounds
With sugar and flour and butter

Sticky dough on a baking tray
Cooling on a wire rack
With sugar and flour and butter
Mixing in a mixing bowl

Cooling on a wire rack
Chocolate chip and peanut butter
Mixing in a mixing bowl
Cookies, sweet and tasty

Another local poet, Jean Tupper, inspired the teens to write a list poem. After all, everyone has some kind of list. I’ve made my To-Do lists into poems now and then.
Often Haiku can appear deceptively easy. Short and sweet, right? But the students learned from poet, Fran Witham, that there are several key elements to haiku, including a reference to nature. This example is by Lauren Swank.

Frolicking in dandelions
Her head held high
She is free

Our final class was on ekphrastic poetry. JoAnne Preiser showed us famous works of art as inspiration for our own poems. Meenu Ravi write this poem:

Those Who Are

Our sorrows are of worlds whose patina shed
The laughter and beauty of all long lifeless
The saber of new old battles, the coronal of new queens
And jolly and simple and downhearted sorrows of me

With melody in our hands ever- shall we dance
All are our family, the world is our home
Where the voice of the wind sings my wandering feet
Through the echoing woods and the echoing street

What love shall we sow, what peace shall we gather
The voice of the breeze is the voice of our future fate
No love wishes us dawdle, no peace wishes us wait
Where the wind sings our wandering footsteps we go

So yes, when someone asks me what my best summer memory is, I tell them about my teenage poetry club. What started as the seed of an idea, grew into a spectacular experience. As a matter of fact, I think the teens had a pretty good time, too. After all, I received the ultimate compliment from them. Not only did they ask if we could do this again next summer (yah!), but they told me it was “epic.” In teen lingo, that’s not too shabby. Then again, that’s something a few of us knew all along…poetry is definitely “epic!”

Browsing the Library Shelves

Charlotte Canelli is the library director at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin.

I’ve mentioned before that being a librarian is a little too much like being a kid in a candy shop. The cliché “too many books, not enough time” is the story of my life these days. Imagine spending your day surrounded by so much temptation and not enough time to do it. Add to that the fact that librarians often spend our time off reading about books so that we can make the best decisions for your reading pleasures.

There are many librarians here in Norwood who can recommend the very latest and the very best of books. Every first Friday of the month, many on the library staff meet on the uppermost floor of the library in the Trustees Meeting Room before the library has opened for the day. More than a dozen of us spend the hour before the library opens discussing the books that we have been reading. Those suggestions get passed down to you at the desks of the library. It’s simply what we do and what you should expect of your librarians.

I have the privilege of ordering many of the non-fiction books for the library. This is especially rewarding because most of my favorite books are non-fiction. Sports and crafts, cooking and music are subjects of book that I enjoy reading about. I love seeing them hit the shelves where that you can find them.

What can be more fun, however, is seeing the books in the categories I don’t order. It’s often like peeking under the Christmas wrap. Ah, I didn’t know about this book!

I was surprised when I came across“365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life” (2010). I was going to write this book! How had someone else jumped the gun? John Kralik, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, had much the same idea that I had had only he had the foresight and good sense to begin writing it several years earlier, to beat me to the punch and get it published. Kralik made it a practice to write one thank you note per day for a year to all of the people who had made a difference to his life. John Kralik includes a brief note about each thank you in his book along with an explanation of the motivation to write it.

Many of us have heard Tavis Smiley, a radio and television talk show host on public radio and television for over 20 years. In his latest book, “Fail Up: 20 Lessons on Building Success from Failure” (2011), Smiley packages his best advice in twenty chapters. In Chapter 4, “You’re Always On” , Smiley relates the trouble with live mikes in which he relates his own weak moment of pomposity. The end of every chapter in his book ends with Tavis’s Takeway or some words to the wise. That particular chapter ends with this advice: “Even when you think you are off – you’re on. In the Internet Age, what’s private can instantly become public.” Other smart chapters are “Cheaters Never Win” and “Remain Dignified Even When You’re Justified.”

In “Just My Type: A Book About Fonts” (2010) Simon Garfield explains why fonts (which have been in existent since Gutenberg invented the printing press) have become so popular in recent years. Everyone has come across references to the typeface near the very ending of expensive books but they’ve more than often been ignored. Recently, however, fonts have become vogue. Who would have thought that Comic Sans could be so happily casual, or that Helvetica could ensure the success of corporate giants like The Gap, Verizon and American Airlines.

Next to fonts and typefaces, I love books on words and grammar. However, I can always use a good editor and I have several of them right in the library with me. Here we have copies of all of the dictionaries and the all-important “Elements of Style”. Some of us sometimes bow down to both Strunk and White. However, in a book by the Bureau Chiefs you might as well forget all about clear, concise writing techniques and learning to correct typographical errors. “Write More Good” (2011) is, to quote the source, “an absolutely phony guide” but it is always humorous, sometimes irreverent, and gives one something to think about writing in this Twitter, Facebook and texting age.

“The Pun Also Rises” (2011) or “How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, and Made Wordplay More Than Some Antics” is written by a former presidential speechwriter ,John Pollack. Pollack argues that the pun should rise to a higher level of linguistic honor. Puns have often been thought of as apologetic jokes and as a lowest form of humor. Pollack argues that puns are crucial to learning the relationship of language as a child. His book begins with a particularly laughable account of his winning the 18th Annual World Pun Championships in Austin, Texas.

On a more serious note, Peter Meyers and Shann Nix have written “As We Speak: How to Make Your Point and Have It Stick” (2011) to overcome your fears of public speaking and to win over an audience. No one really loves public speaking; some have become so good at it that they have mastered the fear and the obstacles. Meyers and Nix explain the three building blocks of learning to be self-confident and effective as a speaker: organize, deliver and perform.

All of the books mentioned above are available from our library and other Minuteman libraries. For help searching in the Minuteman catalog for these titles or for placing requests for all library materials please visit the Morrill Memorial Library, call the Reference librarians (781-769-0200) or visit the Minuteman Library Catalog on our website, www.norwoodlibrary.org.

The Family Feud: Enlist Your Local Library

April Cushing is the Adult Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin.

I recently wrapped up a nasty fight with my new neighbors, the Formicidae family. While I had the undisputable size advantage, I was badly outnumbered. Grudgingly, I came to respect them for their dogged refusal to budge despite my best efforts to send them packing. I’m talking about the little black ants that took up residence in my backyard and systemically destroyed my grass.

I suffer from lawn envy. Walking the dog around the block I find myself battling the green-eyed monster while ogling thick carpets of turf. But I’m not the only one coveting my neighbor’s blades. Duffy delights in stopping for a roll in the lushest patch of grass we pass. Sometimes it’s all I can do not to join him.
I have a place on the Cape that once boasted a beautiful lawn. Over the years it’s suffered some benign neglect. Drawn to poor, sandy soil, the ants came marching in one day and decided to set up camp.

I headed to the local Agway for some insecticide but was overwhelmed by all the choices. It came down to the advertising. Who could resist the lure of “Season-Long Ant Control” or “Once & Done!” (hah). When I read the promise, “Kills on Contact,” I was sold.

Rather than broadcast the granules with a spreader as recommended, I decided to attack the tiny Tent Cities like the Navy SEALS who brought down Bin Laden--by going for the direct hit. By the way, if you want a riveting read about Operation Redwing, SEAL Team Ten’s ill-fated attempt to take out a prominent Taliban leader in Afghanistan in 2005, check out Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell. But back to the battle in my own backyard.

The morning after the blitzkrieg I sprang out of bed to count the casualties and declare victory. To my dismay I discovered my nomadic nemeses had simply packed up and moved, mere inches from their earlier campsites, multiplying in the process. I dumped more poison on the offending mounds and watched the little critters scurry around sounding the alarm.

The following weekend I returned to the scene of the crime only to find them rebuilding with renewed energy. It was clearly going to take more than a little Gamma-Cyhalothrin to bring them to their knees.

This was getting expensive—and exasperating. I tried another chemical combination from Ocean State Job Lot and actually followed the directions, more or less, even buying an insurance bag for spot treatments. This scenario continued until I’d experimented with virtually every insecticide on the market. The guilt over my egregiously ungreen behavior was taking its toll. There was so much poison on the premises I was surprised the dog was still alive, although it certainly didn’t seem to be bothering the ants. It was time to bring out the big guns.

There are several books at the Morrill Memorial Library on the subject, but I struck pay dirt with Natural Pest Control : Alternatives to Chemicals for the Home and Garden by Andrew Lopez. The first chapter spoke to me—“Dances With Ants: How to Control Ants Organically.” Organically? What a concept. Another eye-opener was Common-Sense Pest Control: Least Toxic Solutions for Your Home, Garden, Pets and Community by Olkowski and Daar. Did you know that ants are numerically the most abundant social insects around, with an estimated 1,000,000,000,000,000, or one quadrillion of them on earth at any given time? I wondered what percentage of that population lived on my property.

To crash their party, Paul Tukey suggests, in his Organic Lawn Care Manual, simply raking the “unsightly anthills that develop from time to time.” He also recommends pouring boiling water over the hills to “discourage the ants,” or, if you feel you need to eradicate them completely (I’m definitely feeling it) you can treat the area with a solution of boric acid and sugar which acts as a stomach poison in the ants. In The Truth About Garden Remedies: What Works, What Doesn’t and Why, Jeff Gillman says hot pepper sprays containing the compound capsaicin have been successful.

Continuing my quest for other eco-friendly ant killers, I consulted the American Horticultural Society’s Garden Problem Solver by Pippa Greenwood. Since it may be difficult to get adequate chemical into the nest to completely eliminate the ants, she advises opening up the nest first with a fork. She goes on to explain that anthills may loosen soil so much that the grass dies, (I noticed) “and are certainly not the best place to sit.” Thank you, Pippa.

I’m pleased to report that most of my six-legged neighbors have since relocated. The other day I noticed that three peach-colored coneflowers I’d just planted had been nibbled down to the nub. Horrified, I saw a cute little cottontail emerge from the garden and stare me down. The battle of the bunnies was officially on, and I knew just where to turn for help.

Hurricane Force

Charlotte Canelli is library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood. Read her column in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin.

It wasn’t until 1953 that the National Hurricane Service began officially naming hurricanes in the scheme similar to today. In that year, they simply began with women’s names in alphabetical order. In 1979 the NHS included male names in the list.

And so, the New England Hurricane of 1938 had several names, among them the Great New England Hurricane and the Yankee Clipper. Amazingly, this hurricane was the first major hurricane to roar through New England in over half a century. (The last was the Saxby Gale in 1869.) The Great New England Hurricane was powerful, costly and deadly due to the intensity of its landfall (Category 3) and it reached far inland with its damage.

In Peterborough, NH there is a granite column marking the high water caused by the storm in 1938. It is outside of the Aquarius #1 Fire Museum on Summer Street, one block off Main Street and the downtown shops. The merging of the Contoocook River and the Nubansit Brook is only two blocks away. The marker is impressive because it is hard to imagine standing in that much water even if it was only waist high for a tall man.

However, it wasn’t the flooding that devastated Peterborough in September of 1938 even though ten bridges were also destroyed. It was the subsequent fire and the fact that the floodwaters prevented firefighters from getting to the blaze and putting it out. Much of the downtown burned, including the local newspaper offices due to the fire and the memories are forever etched in Peterborough’s history.

All of the states of New England were affected by that 1938 storm that spanned 1000 miles and reached from New Jersey to Quebec. Damage in Massachusetts reached far into the west in towns like Amherst and Pittsfield.

Our library owns a copy of “The 1938 Hurricane: An Historical and Pictorial Summary” published by the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory in 1988. This book is part of the library’s reference collection and you are welcome to read it while you are in the library – it is only 128 pages long and is filled with black and white photographs taken in the aftermath of the storm. The Blue Hill Observatory is located in East Milton, MA where the “second highest recorded wind gust in the world occurred” during the 1938 Hurricane.

In “Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938” (2003), R.A. Scotti describes a hurricane with winds as high as 186 miles an hour and an intensity that registered on seismographs in Alaska. In “The Great Hurricane – 1938” (2005) Cherie Burns tells a story of a storm that involved minimal forecasting or warning from the weather experts. There was, in fact, very little talk of weather on the late summer night of September 21. Unlike the preparation (and the media hype) of Hurricane Irene, the fast-moving hurricane struck with little warning, destroying fishing fleets and families and killing 700 people.

In 2005, the Images of America series published “The 1938 Hurricane along New England’s Coast” by Joseph P. Soares. If you are familiar with the pictorial accounts in the Images of America series you’ll know that there are hundreds of historic images included in the 127-page book.

“New England Hurricane: A Factual, Pictorial Record, 1938” is available in the library or it can be viewed online at the Internet Archive (www.archive.org). It was written and compiled in 1938 by members of the Federal writers’ project of the WPA in the New England States. The writers describe the hurricane this way: “3:50 at New Haven. 5:06 at Hadley, Massachusetts. Up through the heart of Vermont. Burlington at 8:00 pm.”

“Oliver’s Surprise” by Carol Newman Cronin is a fictionalized account of the 1938 written for middleschoolers but it includes facts about the storm and a glossary of nautical terms. Cronin wrote a second book about Oliver and hurricanes, this one about Hurricane Carol which hit the East Coast in 1954. That storm, described in “Cape Cod Surprise: Oliver Matches Wits with Hurricane Carol” blew down the spire of the Old North Church.

Once again, the Blue Hill Observatory and Science Center, compiled another hurricane history in the 2005 publication of “Carol at 50: Remembering Her Fury – A Historical and Pictorial Summary of Hurricane Carol” by Charles Orloff. The Great Blue Hill in Milton is home to the oldest continuous weather record in North America and includes the 12-year old Science Center. (Family membership includes free admission and tours of the observatory, science lectures and access to the weather records.)

Sebastian Junger’s “Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea” describes a storm that emerged from the remnants of Hurricane Grace and ended full force as the Halloween Nor’easter off the coast of the Massachusetts and Maine.

Other books record the history of notable hurricanes outside of New England. In “Category Five: the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane”, Thomas Neil Knowles documents “the first Category 5 hurricane to make landfall in the United States” off the coast of Florida. Erik Larson wrote ”Isaac’s Storm: A Man, A Time and the Deadliest Hurricane in History” (1999) about the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. Also in our library’s collection is “Galveston and the 1900 Storm: Catastrophe and Catalyst” by Patricia Bellis Bixel.

There are well over 100 books in the Minuteman Library Network written about the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and an entire column could be devoted to those. One of the most recent is a book that focuses on the Coast Guard’s heroic efforts throughout Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in “In Katrina’s Wake: The U.S. Coast Guard and the Gulf Coast Hurricanes of 2005” by Donald L. Canney.

Several of the books mentioned above are available from other Minuteman libraries. For help searching in the Minuteman catalog for these titles or for placing requests for all library materials please visit the Morrill Memorial Library, call the Reference librarians (781-769-0200) or visit the Minuteman Library Catalog on our website, www.norwoodlibrary.org.

Pearls of Wisdom: Books

Charlotte Canelli is library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood. Read her column in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin.

Nancy Pearl has written half a dozen bestsellers, has appeared on national television and can be heard regularly on National Public Radio. Her appearances at local and national conferences and bookstores often draw standing-room only crowds. She certainly is not a household name, yet you could say that she’s a ‘rock star’ among her following of librarians and readers across the country. This year Library Journal, the publication for everyone involved in any aspect of libraries, chose her as the 2011 Librarian of the Year.

So who is Nancy Pearl and why does she have an action figure doll in her likeness?

Ms. Pearl is a voracious reader, an infectious and enthusiastic speaker, a bestselling author and a now-retired librarian. That description might be too simple, however, for such an amazing woman.

Ms. Pearl was a 48 year old librarian in Tulsa, Oklahoma when the Seattle Public Library lured her to Seattle, Washington to become deputy director. She had already earned two master’s degrees, had raised two daughters, had worked at a book store and as a librarian both in Detroit and in Tulsa. Nancy’s husband, in fact, did not join her in the Northwest until he retired four years later but they both knew she had made the perfect career choice.

In her fifth year in Seattle, and as Director of the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library, Nancy became well-known for developing and implementing the popular and successful “If All Seattle Read the Same Book” project. At the time, Pearl’s dream was deemed a pie-in-the-sky idea. 47 book discussion groups across the city were planned. 10,000 buttons were purchased and distributed to participating readers.

In the end, the project was a huge success, mainly due to Pearl’s hard work and enthusiasm. (Granted, the Center for the Book had received an $180,000 grant from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund to carry out its plan.) With the exception of the year 2000, Seattle has participated in what is now called Seattle Reads each year. This year they are reading “Little Bee” by Chris Cleave. The one-city, one-book scheme has now spread across the nation; it was Pearl’s original idea that has been copied and modeled in community after community.

Nancy Pearl won many awards for spreading the love of reading across the country, including the Humanities Washington Award in 2003 and others from the Women’s National Book Association and the American Library Association.

In 2003, Accoutrements, a Seattle company specializing in novelty products, designed an action-figure doll of their local celebrity, Nancy Pearl. (Accoutrements makes other quirky action figure dolls such as the Crazy Cat Lady complete with feral felines and the Lunch Lady complete with counter.)

With its hair in a bun and its ‘shushing’ finger, the doll was both loved and hated at the same time. Some librarians disliked the stereotypical representation of the Pearl, the quintessential librarian. Yet, the doll was a hit. Nancy herself commented that “the shushing aspect of the action figure would determine which librarians have a sense of humor”. Humor notwithstanding, 100,000 of the Nancy Pearl dolls have been sold.

Ms. Pearl’s appearances in libraries, book stores and at workshops and conferences are filled with laughter and smiles. Most important, however, they are filled with her love of reading and books. Her message is simple and that is that everyone should be reading books that they enjoy and everyone’s reading should be pleasurable and infectious. Pleasurable is the key word. At a conference I attended, Nancy shared with us all her Rule of 50: "If you still don't like a book after slogging through the first 50 pages, set it aside. If you're more than 50 years old, subtract your age from 100 and only grant it that many pages."

Ms. Pearl herself actually confesses that she starts 15 books for every book that she actually reads.

Pearl wrote her first book, “Book Lust: Reading Recommendations for Every Mood, Moment and Reason” in 2003 while she was still working for the public library. The book includes lists covering reading for every occasion and personality including lists of Techo-Thrillers to a list of those books Too Good to Miss. Her first book was a success because readers are hungry for recommendations.

In 2004 Pearl retired from the Seattle Public Library and began appearing more often across the country. She now continues to teach courses at the Information School at the University of Washington where she has endowed a scholarship for library students who will become public librarians.

In 2005, Pearl followed her earlier success with “More Book Lust” and in 2007 with “Book Crush For Kids and Teens”.

I love travel writing so late last year I was thrilled that she published “Book Lust to Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers”. What you’ll find in this book, however, are recommended reads for everyone who wants to travel the world in an armchair at home. These books either do the traveling for you, taking you on adventures or journeys around the world or accompanying you on your trip.

Nancy Pearl is a regular contributor to NPR and can be heard recommending books for summer, for the holidays or those that are “under the radar.” Her podcasts can be listened to or read at npr.org. She also has a website and blog at nancypearl.com.

Nancy admits that many of the books recommended on her Book Lust lists, are out of print. This makes for a great opportunity to visit your library. For help searching in the Minuteman catalog for these titles or for placing requests for all library materials please visit the Morrill Memorial Library, call the Reference librarians (781-769-0200) or visit the Minuteman Library Catalog on our website, www.norwoodlibrary.org.

Nothing Too Cheesy about Cheese

Charlotte Canelli is library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood. Read her weekly column in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin.

I’m lucky that my youngest daughter works in Manhattan. I’m lucky enough to have another wonderful reason to visit one of my favorite cities and several times a year.

My shopping excursions in New York City always include a trip to the West Village and Murray’s Cheese Shop on Bleeker Street. Murray’s is a cheese lover’s Mecca. The store sits over a subterranean cheese cave where experts (or the French word, “fromageres”) are creating, checking, aging and storing cheese. (You can arrange for tours and classes at Murray’s and you can also visit their Grand Central Station store.)

A visit to Murray’s can’t be quick and there are several reasons why. A crowd of customers swarm in a relatively small space and there is nearly always a line at the cashier. The main reason, though, is that you need to take your time. Choosing and tasting a cheese or two or three can never be rushed.

Murray’s cheesemongers, or those who sell and advise about cheese, stand behind the cases and listen intently. You won’t find an impatient store clerk at Murray’s. Each of them will good-naturedly ask you if you like your cheese crumbly or soft, punchy or mild, firm or buttery. An example might be a choice between twenty odd blue cheeses which range from American Black River or Irish Cashel Blue.
Only after you are satisfied with a type and taste do you leave the cheese counter at Murray’s. On your way to the door you can choose olives, fruit, jams and crackers as perfect companions for your cheese.

On one my trips to Murray’s this year I picked up a 30-Minute Mozzarella Kit. We’ve been making fresh mozzarella every week in our house and there is nothing like it. Don’t plan on a rubbery chunk of grating cheese if you are making it fresh. This mozzarella is soft but sliceable and it also melts in your mouth. It will lose its shape within days, however, so it needs to be eaten on a regular basis. In the summer it melts yummingly over fresh garden tomatoes and basil when left to sit at room temperature. In the winter it can be baked on top of mushrooms or added to your favorite Italian dish. Homemade mozzarella is buttery, soft and sweet.

In “The Cheese Lover’s Companion: The Ultimate A-to-Z Cheese Guide” (2007), author Sharon Tyler Herbst explains that mozzarella was traditionally made from water buffalo’s milk and the cheese originated in southern Italy. Of course, immigrants from Naples and Rome did not find water buffalo milk plentiful in the United States but mozzarella made from cow’s milk became very popular in the US and has been known as “pizza cheese”. Herbst’s book contains over 1000 listings for cheese and even includes a pronunciation guide.

“The Cheese Bible” by Christian Teubner is coffee-table sized and includes hundreds of photographs, encyclopedic entries and recipes. I was given the book as a gift from my husband last Christmas and I searched for a copy for our library. It is a wonderful sourcebook. Another recent addition to the Morrill Memorial Library’s collection is the “World Cheese Book” edited by Juliet Harbutt. She includes tasting notes and suggestions for how to enjoy 750 cheeses.

“The Murray’s Cheese Handbook” written by Rob Kaufelt (owner of Murray’s Cheese) includes a description of my favorite blue cheese, Great Hill Blue, made nearby in Marion, MA. (You can get it locally in the gourmet cheese sections of the large supermarkets.) Try it topped with warmed fig jam on crackers. You’ll have a brand-new appreciation for blue cheese but be careful because it is addictive.

Love of cheese has turned many “cheese enthusiasts” into cheese makers. “Cheesemonger: A Life on the Wedge” (2010) is Gordon Edgar’s started out not knowing much about cheese (other than that people loved and would pay dearly for it.) He became an expert, selling it in a cooperative grocery in San Francisco. “The Cheese Chronicles: A Journey Through the Making and Selling of Cheese in America, from Field to Farm to Table” (2009) by Liz Thorpe is another definitive source and it is also enlightening and fun to read. Thorpe is second in command at, you guessed it, Murray’s Cheese in NYC.

A very funny read is “Immortal Milk: Adventures in Cheese” (2010) by Eric LeMay. LeMay and his girlfriend, Chuck, traveled the world appreciating cheese including fondue and Parisian chic. LeMay also includes explanations of the slang term, cheesy, which slowed up in the 19th Century to mean something “less than the best” or even “cheap” and “nasty.” Today it is used to mean “tacky” or “corny” among other things.

If you enjoy non-fiction, you’ll also like “The Year of the Goat”. Author Margaret Hathaway and photographer Karl Schatz leave the big-city behind and travel 40,000 miles across the United States in a “quest for the perfect goat cheese.”

Perhaps you’d like to try your hand at cheese making like me. Start with the simple recipes and borrow Ricky Carroll’s “Home Cheese Making” with instructions for delicious mozzarella and ricotta. (Carroll, or the Cheese Queen, lives in Western Massachusetts and teaches cheese making in day or weekend workshops in Ashfield. She also produces the kit that I bought in NY City.) Other great instructional books are “The Joy of Cheesemaking” by Jody Farnham and Marc Druart (2011), “Making Artisan Cheese” (2005) by Tim Smith and “The Complete Guide to making Cheese, Butter and Yogurt At Home” (2010) by Richard Helweg. Yogurt is another very easy and delicious dairy product that doesn’t have to be purchased at the grocery store but can be made daily or weekly at home.

For help searching in the Minuteman catalog for these titles or for placing requests for all library materials please visit the Morrill Memorial Library, call the Reference librarians (781-769-0200) or visit the Minuteman Library Catalog on our website, www.norwoodlibrary.org.

Riding the Rails to the Boston Public Library

Margot Sullivan is a reference librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin this week.

I am frequently amazed at the reluctance of some people to take the commuter rail train into Boston. It is so easy and provides a quick (about 22 minutes) ride into Back Bay or South Station. The upcoming stations are loudly announced so you won’t get off at the wrong stop (one excuse or fear I have heard). I suppose you would if you fell asleep!

I love looking at the people on the trains and being a librarian I am checking what they are reading or doing! My most recent trip included two magazine readers, several real book readers, computer users, a kindle reader, a knitter, and me! Young kids are great on trains and ask wonderful questions! A young boy was intrigued by the screeching of the brakes as the train pulled into each station. ”What is that?” he inquired. His father replied “those are the air brakes”. From then on every time the train stopped the little boy asked “How come I keep hearing the air brakes?” I loved the conversation between a mother and her young son. He constantly asked “Is this our station?” as each station was named. His mother patiently said no we have several more to go. When the conductor announced “Readville Station, Readville Station” the little boy said “Mom is that where all the people go to read?” I kid you not! I will admit I am totally annoyed listening to cell phone conversations on the train about just anything - shopping, mental health, gossip, and whatever. Everything under the sun is discussed often in a loud voice. Isn’t it ironic we are so concerned about privacy issues but so many could care less what the world hears while on their cell phones!

I get off at Back Bay. What a wonderful area of Boston to walk around in. A few blocks up Boylston Street and you are in the public gardens and during the summer I just sit on a bench and watch the swan boats – a Boston institution. People watching also goes with the territory! Trinity Church and the Old South Church welcome you to just come and rest and contemplate. Newbury Street is bustling with shops and some art galleries where I usually find some paintings of Maine! My target is always the Boston Public Library. I worked there many years ago and have great memories of the pre-computer/network/internet days when the huge card catalog was the source for locating books in the collection and reference departments housed many reference materials. The original McKim building is magnificent – a real Boston treasure. The building itself has been cleaned and the murals cleaned and restored. The courtyard is a cool oasis. The Map Room Café has luncheon items and beverages. The attached Johnson building opened in 1972 and houses most of the circulating materials and a lot of computers for public use. I sat for several hours reading a novel I was finishing for our summer Beach Reads session here at the Norwood library. Both buildings had interesting exhibits commemorating the 150 anniversary of the Civil War. I especially liked the Winslow Homer prints in the Wiggin Gallery. Homer did the prints for illustrated weeklies and they show rural life, the brutality of the Civil War, pastimes, and women’s roles all during the time period 1858-1873. The exhibits are still on display this summer!

Treat yourself to a day in Boston! It’s easy! It’s affordable! It’s fun!

For the Love of a Good Dog

Charlotte Canelli is library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood. Read her column in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin this week.

Please don’t get me wrong. I love my granddog as much as any grandparent would. I’ve proudly posted her photos in my Facebook updates. Her Christmas stocking hangs by our chimney with care. She cuddles with me on the couch even in shedding season. And I’ve watched her proudly play well with others at the dog park.

However, I admit that when one of our other children mentions bringing a puppy into their households I grimace. I mention the expensive veterinary visits that can absolutely break the budget. I introduce them to our hardworking rug shampooer. I advise them about the insane amount of money I’ve invested in doggie day care over the years to avoid using the rug shampooer. I advise them to think long and hard about getting a puppy.

I read “Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog” as soon as it was released in 2005. I was between dogs at the time. I had had to say a terribly painful goodbye to our ten-year old family dog in 2001. Perhaps it was because she was the perfect dog who was my constant companion for a decade of shuttling children from ballet to soccer. Or perhaps it was because it was concurrent with the last stages of my divorce and right before my youngest child left for college. It was the ultimate empty nest syndrome.

And so, four years later I braved John Grogan’s book about his lovable, laughable and untrainable Yellow Lab, Marley. I chuckled like an idiot throughout the story. During the last chapters I sobbed huge Labrador tears.

I should have known I was in deep trouble when I insisted we see the movie over the Christmas holiday in 2008. I’d read the book, after all! We had a new four-legged family friend in our own home. The movie teasers and trailers were hilarious and duhhhh! I already knew the ending. How sad could it be?

Sad. I was transfixed during the last five minutes of the movie on the big screen. I tried holding in the sobs in the dark of the theater. Tears streamed down my face. When I realized that there wasn’t a dry eye around me I finally succumbed. And it was a deluge of gut-wrenching sobs.

This weekend when I had a few minutes to bond with my television and household chores I found “Marley and Me” on one of our premium channels. This time I told myself that I really, really knew the ending. I’d been through this already. How bad could it be?

Bad. My own dog can’t stand to see me cry. She made the mistake of settling in with me that Saturday afternoon and she abandoned me and my tears. She only ventured near me when she heard my more happy voice speaking on the phone sometime later.

“Marley and Me” wasn’t the first dog story to make the big time. Dog stories have been a hit for centuries. John Grogan’s stories about Marley did reap an entirely new harvest of them. One of those is Dean Koontz’s “A Big Little Life: a Memoir of a Joyful Dog” (2009) which proves again that endings always come too fast for families and their dogs. Their dog, Trixie lived only twelve years even while teaching them a lifetime of lessons.

In “What the Dog Did: Tales from a Formerly Reluctant Dog Owner”, Emily Yoffe’s favorite friend is a rescued beagle, as neurotic as they come. She writes of the appealing wretchedness of Sasha and chronicles the tale of saving her just hours before a scheduled euthanasia. Her story includes tales of other rescued beagles and her conversion from apathetic dog-avoider to lifetime dog-lover.

Julie Klam’s “You Had Me at Woof: How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness” convinces us furry creatures can often steal your heart as much as the human ones. Her first dog, Otto, a Boston Terrier taught her more about love and loving than any of her first thirty years had.

Stephen Foster’s “Walking Ollie: Or Winning the Love of a Difficult Dog” (2006) and “Fetching Dylan: The True Tale of Canine Domestication in Leaps and Bounds” (2008) are two more stories of the irresistible nature of dogs. Their aggravating antics are nearly always forgiven and their crazy appeal is universal.

In “Adventures with Ari: A Puppy, a Leash and Our Year Outdoors” (2009), Kathryn Miles chronicles her amazing year spent discovering both the love of her new best friend and the nature around her, from “roses to roadkill.”

I was planning to lecture you and those of our children who remain dog-less in this column.

I was going to warn you about the downside of owning dogs and mention “One National Under Dog: Adventures in the New World of Prozac-Popping Puppies, Dog-Park Politics and Organic Pet Food.”

I was going to educate you, at the very least, by mentioning books that could prepare you such as “Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know” (2010) by Alexandra Horowitz or Stanley Cohen’s “Why Does My Dog Act That Way?: A Complete Guide to Your Dog’s Personality” (2006). Cohen is also the author of “Why We Love the Dogs We Do: How to Find the Dog That Matches Your Personality” (1998) and “Born to Bark: My Adventures with an Irrepressible and Unforgettable Dog” (2010). Yet, the numbers of books that retell the stories of dogs who love and are loved far outnumber the books that warn us about the pitfalls or possible pain of dog ownership.

In the end, I’ll just quote Agnes Sligh Turnbull who stated it perfectly. “Dogs’ lives are too short. Their only fault, really. “

For these and more titles about our love of dogs please visit the Morrill Memorial Library, call the Reference librarians (781-769-0200) or visit the Minuteman Library Catalog on our website, www.norwoodlibrary.org.

Being Sensible about Jane

Charlotte Canelli is library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood. Read her column in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin this week.

Jane might be amazed.

Jane Austen died nearly two centuries ago. She was born in 1775, shortly before the Declaration of Independence was written in these far-away colonies. She was nearly 36 years old in 1811 when her first novel, “Sense and Sensibility”, was published. It was followed by “Pride and Prejudice" in 1813, “Mansfield Park” in 1814 and “Emma” in 1816.

Jane died in 1817 before “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion” were published. It is these six books that make up the collection of “Austen Scholarship.”

I wasn’t a teen but was in my mid-twenties when I discovered Jane Austen and read all of the six novels back-to-back. Today I know that I don’t have that kind of attention span. The only other one-author marathon I can think of was the summer I devoured Sue Grafton’s mysteries from A-G. I had to take a break at “H is for Homocide” and never quite picked up the pace again.

Jane Austen's books did sell well and she received favorable reviews during the few years that she was alive to see them published. The money she earned from them afforded her financial stability. However, I can’t believe that she would have dreamed that over two-centuries later that the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA.org) would have over 65 regional groups. Boston’s group is one of the most active. Annual general meetings of the JASNA groups have been held each year since 1979 and plans are underway for the 2012 meeting in New York with the theme “Sex, Money, and Power in Jane Austen’s Fiction”.

Yes, Jane might have been astounded.

In “Why Jane Austen?” published just last month, Rachel Brownstein has written part memoir, part explanation, and part history about Austen’s intrigue. In “A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter”, William Deresiewicz describes the lessons one can learn from reading them. He purports that they are not merely chick-lit. They are inspirational and insightful.

Readers crazy for Austen can read over seventy “spin-off” novels such as Maria Hamilton’s “Mr. Darcy and the Secret of Becoming a Gentleman”, “The Perfect Bride of Mr. Darcy” by Mary Lydon Simonsen and “Jane Austen Ruined My Life” by Beth Patillo. Others are “Writing Jane Austen” and “The Jane Austen Book Club.” These books hope to quench the thirst for more Austen than the six books that she wrote.

Jane might be awestruck

Of course, if you’ve never read Jane, you’ll need to start with the first of her books and my personal favorite, “Sense and Sensibility.” It’s also my favorite Austen movie and we won’t argue here why I love the 1995 version with Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant. The first film adaptation of Austen’s book was in 1940 with the MGM production of Pride and Prejudice starring Laurence Olivier. BBCs television miniseries is arguably the best adaptation of her novels and millions of us have succumbed to Colin Firth’s charms.

And back to sensibility. I’ve written in my column before about how much I love to read annotated works. I prefer to read non-fiction and annotated works are a perfect blend for me. They include literary criticism, history, definitions and illustrations along with incredible works of literature.

David M. Shapard has published three volumes of annotated Jane Austen. He began with Pride and Prejudice in 2007, continued with Persuasion in 2010 and has just published Sense and Sensibility this year. “The Annotated Emma” will be published next year.

If you are curious as to what a pianoforte of the time looked like, you’ll find out in Shapard’s books which include about 100 black-and-white illustrations. Wondering how a country home might have been landscaped in the early 19th century in pastoral England? You’ll see several illustrations in the annotated works.

If you’d rather read just one book about Austen’s work, or perhaps take the Jane Austen Aptitude Test, then “The Bedside, Bathtub and Armchair Companion to Jane Austen” by Carol Adams, Kelly Gesch and Douglas Buchanan is the book for you. (Other BBA Companions include Shakespeare, Agatha Christie and Dickens.)

Perhaps Jane herself would love to come back to life to read “A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Great Writers on Why We Read Jane Austen” edited by Susannah Carson or “Jane’s Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World” by Claire Harman.

Jane Austen died in 1817 just after her 41st birthday. Her brother arranged for her last two books to be published as a set. This was the first time his sister, Jane Austen, was actually identified as the author. All four of her first novels were authored, rather cryptically, ‘By a Lady.” These last two novels sold fairly well for several years. However, all of her books were out of print for the next twelve years until they were published as the collected works in 1933.

Jane Austen might be astonished. They have never been out of print since.

If you’d like to read Jane Austen or read about her books, be sure to visit the Morrill Memorial Library. For help with finding books, movies or audiobooks, call the Reference librarians (781-769-0200) or visit the Minuteman Library Catalog on our website, www.norwoodlibrary.org.

In a Tight Spot ... for Gardening

Jenna Hecker is the Technology/Reference Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin.

I am not the best candidate for a garden. I live on the second floor. I have no garden hose, and my backyard is paved over. The house where my apartment is located was built in 1875, and the lead paint that was used at that time is still present in any of the soil surrounding the house.

I felt like my desire for home-grown green beans was never going to overcome all of this adversity, until a friend suggested container gardening. Container gardening allows urban and lead-soil plagued New Englanders to grow food in small and unusual spaces. I decided to research container gardens before I began.

I checked out “Ortho’s All About Container Gardening” By Sally Roth and Pamela Pierce (635.96, Roth). The book gives step-by-step guidelines for new container gardeners, discussing which containers are best for different environments, and what to consider when you begin like portability, ease of watering, and protection from pests.

I chose several large, plastic pots and Tupperware tubs as my containers of choice, and got a friend to drill holes in the bottom for drainage. For a great guide on how to choose soil, put together a container, and choose plants for my garden, I swallowed my pride and grabbed “Container Gardening for Dummies” by Bill Marken. Typically, I won’t check out any book that I feel is insulting me with its title, but this “Dummies” book is well laid out, plainly written, and extremely informative when it comes to mixing soil, and choosing plants appropriate for containers.

I chose to plant a few varieties of tomatoes (For those of you who are curious: Ida Gold, Italian Grandmother’s Tomato, Roma Paste Tomato, Cherokee Purple, and Grandma Mary’s Paste), some small breeds of Japanese eggplant, green ‘provider’ bush beans, a variety of lettuces, alpine strawberries (a delicious, ever bearing, smaller variety of strawberries that are very prolific), sage, mint, a few varieties of basil.

To plan how to situate my pots on my fire escape – both for the best sun exposure and the least threat of tripping over them if there was a fire – I went to “The Patio Kitchen Garden,” by Daphne Ledward. Ledward’s book talks about the care and maintenance of specific container-grown vegetables.

With the help of the book and various gardening websites like davesgarden.com and thegardenhelper.com, I learned how to keep my strawberries from getting attacked by my cat, squirrels, and other furry and troublesome fire escape visitors.

I learned about companion planting from ghorganics.com, and co-located my marigolds and basil with my tomatoes to keep pesky insects away. Another resource that I found very useful for identifying garden pests and learning how to control them was “The Container Kitchen Garden,” by Anthony Atha. The book is a great all-around container gardening resource, bringing you from the planning stages of container gardening right through to the eating-and-enjoying piece. There are a number of great recipes based around plants that are typically grown in gardens in the back, as well as an index that describes interesting container based plants (like my alpine strawberries!), with a calendar explaining when to plant and pick them.

My garden is set up for function rather than aesthetics. There isn’t much space to walk around on my fire escape, and it’s not a particularly safe hang out spot. Many container gardeners, however, relish in the opportunity to create an aesthetically pleasing garden that is also moveable and therefore can change constantly.

“Contain Yourself,” by Kerstin Ouellet is a great guide to designing and planting floral containers. Oullette goes through ‘recipes’ for floral arrangements that work well together in containers, as well as which sorts of containers work best with which plants.

I don’t make my own containers. Gardening for me is about planting – I am just not artistic or handy. However, many people see container gardening as a way to combine a love of flowers and vegetables with a love of building and design. “Gardening with Containers” by George Carter is a great how-to guide for people interested in making their own garden containers, or designing containers using a variety of innovative and interesting materials. This book focuses on non-edible container gardening, but has amazing, creative project ideas for aesthetically pleasing and innovative container design.

Container gardening has become one of my most meditative, fulfilling, and delicious hobbies. My yield this summer has already been enough for salads, stir fries, and lots of healthy snacking. For more information on how you can start gardening in small spaces, head to the library to find the books I’ve mentioned, as well as many more!

The Cookbook Reader

Charlotte Canelli is library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood. Read her column in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin this week.

I’ve written in the past how much I love my job and how rewarding it is to work with the public. In addition, I’ve told our readers how much pride I have to work in such a beautiful building in the Town of Norwood. I’ve shared stories about attending Literary Lunches with the 6th graders at the Coakley Middle School and reading to children in the public schools during Read Across America week each spring. I’ve written about programs that we give at the library including our frequent film series, author nights, book discussions, Scrabble and Music Sundays. One of the joys of my job is encouraging our staff to offer these rich and diverse programs to adults and children in Norwood. These are some of our “finest hours” at the library and it gives us great pride to fill the Children’s Room or the Simoni Community Room.

I’ve also shared with you that one of the best parts of my job is ordering books for the non-fiction collection. As a non-fiction reader myself, I love to find out which books are coming out in future months. I like to keep you informed and I write about these in our eNews updates and post them to our website so that you can request them early from the library.

And that’s exactly how I’ve become a cookbook reader. I’ve loved cooking since I was a young adult and I’ve relied on friends, relatives, magazines or newspapers for their suggestions. I’ve collected my own library of cookbooks, purchased on whims or given to me as gifts. But it was only when I began to choose them for our library that I decided to make sure that my choices have been good ones. It’s my job to read cookbooks. Someone has to do it and I love it.

That’s how I discovered the “Beat This! Cookbook” by Ann Hodgman with a foreword by Elizabeth Berg. Berg herself loves reading and writing fiction (“Range of Motion” and “Year of Pleasures” are two of her many books) but when she has asked by National Public Radio to recommend a book, Berg chose Hodgman’s book. On that recommendation, I decided to bring newly-published “Beat This!” on vacation last week.

Was I hooked! I was halfway through reading the book on our first night away. Hodgman was a way of describing her choice of recipe, her enjoyment of the finished product and her family history that is quite simply delicious. She adds some of her advice in large quotations throughout the book and even those are fun to re-read.

“Chili is further proof of my rule that every recipe is better if you add sausage or bacon.”

Or “It’s so much more fun to bite into something triangular than something rectangular.”

Or how about “I try not to feel too embarrassed about relying on a convenience food during a major national holiday.”

I had already brought ingredients to cook for my household for nearly the entire week so when I finished the book on the beach I didn’t quite get to make any of the recipes in Hodgman’s book. However, I will be trying some of Hodgman’s recipes soon. “Pure, Rich, Great Caramels” and “Strawberry Gelato” sounded yummy to me.

Another book I took along on vacation was “At Elizabeth David’s Table: Classic Recipes and Timeless Kitchen Wisdom.” It is wonderfully entertaining and enlightening. Renowned food writer Ruth Reichl wrote the preface to the book and she describes chef David’s personality in and out of the kitchen. Included in the cookbook are Elizabeth David’s (1913-1992) chatty introduction to each recipe and the instructions are written in a knowledgeable go-to-it style. Try “Stewed White Beans” or “Chicken Baked with Green Pepper and Cinnamon Butter.”

I brought “Ancient Grains for Modern Meals” by Maria Speck and “Jekka’s Herb Cookbook” by Jekka McVicar for inspiration. They aren’t quite as irresistible to read but they are wonderful cookbooks full of healthy, delicious recipes.

This summer my husband and I chose to rent a former B&B to house our large brood which included our grandson, our grown children, their spouses or partners and friends for our week at the Cape. As our son-in-law put it, there were an “obscene amount of bathrooms.” One of the other great features was a spacious gourmet kitchen fit for our family of foodies.

I discovered that the owner had written her own cookbook. Tucked on a shelf in the bright, sunny kitchen was “Sleep On It” by Carol Gordon. It is a collection of recipes meant to be made the night or day before so that the host or hostess (in this case, bed-and-breakfast owner) can sleep in until at least 6 a.m. In fact, the subtitle of Ms. Gordon’s book is “Prepare Delicious Meals the Night Before that You Can Pop in the Oven the Next Day!” We had fun reading that cookbook and trying some of the easy appetizer recipes on our hungry, sunwashed crowd.

One of the best values at your library in Norwood is expensive non-fiction books like cookbooks that you can borrow, browse and read bits and pieces without purchasing them. If you can’t resist having them in on your own bedside table or kitchen counter you can always find them at a bookstore. But we have a wonderful cookbook collection that grows larger each month and we love to share it with you. Be sure to visit the Morrill Memorial Library, call the Reference librarians (781-769-0200) or visit the Minuteman Library Catalog on our website, www.norwoodlibrary.org.

Born in the USA

Charlotte Canelli is library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood. Read her column in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin.

Although I have been known to have fun playing trivia games, I’m hardly an expert. Oh, I can hold my own in Arts and Literature categories and can guess and reason well in the areas of Geography and History. Science is mainly hit or miss and I’ve been known to perform dismally in entertainment. No, I can’t sing all the words to “Gilligan’s Island” because I barely remember all the characters.

Don’t get me started on my inadequacy in remembering the names of those Seven Dwarfs. Bashful and Doc don’t end in “y” and I always get stuck.

Sports. Well, sports trivia is simply not my area of expertise.

I do love books about trivia, though, especially history and politics. Luckily my career path has allowed me to work in a place where I am surrounded by books that contain facts. (I’ll admit that any of the twenty-four hours of my day will find me lost in Wikipedia or on the web while I follow a lead to a reference question or a column idea.)

And so this brings me to the 4th of July and this week’s column. Everyone knows that all United States presidents were born in this country. It is dictated by the Natural Born Citizen Clause in our Constitution.

But did you know that a United States president was born on the Fourth of July? If you did, then you’ll know that was Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president of the United States.

I actually learned that Coolidge was born on Independence Day in 1872 because for over several decades of summers my family has camped near the president’s birthplace in Coolidge State Park in Plymouth Junction, Vermont. This tiny town was the presidential “Summer White House” for several years and where he spent his birthday at that time. This was before the days when the Secret Service tightly buttoned-up the area around the president and before it became necessary for hundreds of agents to accompany the presidential family on its vacation. Believe me, Plymouth Junction couldn’t possibly hold that many agents and the press that accompany the current presidents on vacation.

The Coolidge Homestead itself is a very unassuming farmhouse built the year that Calvin was born in 1872. (Until 1992 President Coolidge’s surviving son, John, lived in Plymouth Junction and ran Plymouth Cheese -started by Calvin’s father in 1880 - before his death in 1998.)

I’ve known for years that two presidents died on the Fourth of July but did you know there was a third? John Adams, Thomas Jefferson breathed their last breaths on Independence Day in 1826. James Monroe died on July 4 only five years later in 1831.

You can read all these facts and more in “The Presidential Book of Lists, From Most to Least, Elected to Rejected, Worst to Cursed: Fascinating Facts about Our Chief Executives” by Ian Randal Strock.

Another tome over two inches thick is rich with trivia. It is the eighth edition of “Facts about the Presidents” and we learn in it that that President Coolidge’s son, Calvin Jr. was 16 when he died of blood poisoning he developed after not wearing socks while playing tennis. (A blister became infected and he died during his father’s campaign for reelection.)

If you get tired of reading about the men behind the highest office in the country, you might peruse the “Biographical Dictionary of First Ladies” where you will learn that James Monroe’s wife Elizabeth Monroe was very little known because before her death she ordered all of her papers burned. Monroe himself rarely mentioned Elizabeth in his official papers but protected her privacy.

Or that Thomas Jefferson’s first wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson died September 6, 1782. Jefferson mourned her throughout his life and never remarried.

Six of our presidents were widowers in office and others were actually bachelors for part of their time in office and presided with no official first lady. More presidential facts can be found in “The Big Book of American Trivia” by J. Stephen Lang. Great books for kids include “First Kids: The True Stories of All the Presidents’ Children” by Noah McCullough and “The Look-It-Up Book of Presidents” by Wyatt Blassingame.

My favorite all-time book about the presidents is “The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House” by James David Barber. From 1977 to 1995 Barber was a professor of political science at Duke University and became very well-known for his classifications of the presidents based on their family history and actions while in office. My own copy, the 2nd edition published in 1977, is held together with rubber bands.

When I first discovered this book during readings in a political science class, I poured over it and reread it many times. It is a highly readable and intriguing book in which Barber sorts all presidential performance into four types. The four personality types are dependent on five concepts – character, world view, style, power situation and climate of expectations.

Interestingly, the book includes Barber’s predictions on “presidential performance before Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush ever served.” The analysis ends with George H. Bush. The fourth and last edition of Barber’s book was published after his death in 2004 as one of the Longman Classics in Political Science.

For these and more titles about American presidents, political science, or simply facts and trivia please visit the Morrill Memorial Library, call the Reference librarians (781-769-0200) or visit the Minuteman Library Catalog on our website, www.norwoodlibrary.org.

Interesting Lives Enriched by Books

Bonnie Wyler is the Outreach/Literacy Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin.

Since 1947, the Outreach Department of the Morrill Memorial Library has been delivering library materials to residents of Norwood who can’t come to the library because of special needs, illness or disability. One of the greatest pleasures of being an Outreach Librarian has been getting to know the many people who use the program and finding out about their lives. I’d like to tell you about two of our patrons whose experiences not only show us how important reading can be in an older person’s life, but whose lives themselves give us an interesting glimpse into the past.

Edna is 101. You may have read about her life in the May 27th Norwood Transcript article describing the Norwood Senior Center’s birthday party for those over 90. Born in England, Edna came to the U.S. in 1911 at 22 months of age. Her family is Jewish and she told me that her father who was from Edinburgh was bar mitzvahed in a kilt!

Edna recalls that times were very different then. In her entire childhood, she had only one doll. She grew up in the South End and remembers the ice man bringing blocks of ice to her house. Edna wasn’t a reader growing up, largely because there was no neighborhood library and books were expensive. As she got older, she would walk to the Boston Public Library whenever she needed to look up information for school. After graduating from high school, Edna did office work before marrying her husband Phillip. Shortly after she learned to drive the family Ford, she recalls coming to an intersection at the same time as a policeman on horseback, who reprimanded her by saying, “Don’t you know, horses have the right of way!”

Edna and her husband raised their daughter in West Roxbury before moving to Norwood in 1978. Reading was not a priority during the busy years of childrearing, or even later on when Edna was active in many clubs and organizations. During this period of her life, Edna and her husband traveled in the United States, though never abroad. Edna says that she became a reader by necessity in her 70’s because she needed something to occupy her mind as she got older. Now she loves to read books set in foreign countries – China, the Middle East, Afganistan – places she never traveled to, but can now visit via the books she reads. Even at 101, Edna still lives independently, cooks for herself, and maintains a lively interest in what’s going on in the world.

Another Outreach patron Grace, aged 82, has always loved to read. The youngest of nine siblings, Grace’s first language was French, which her parents spoke at home. But by the time she started school, she spoke both French and English. Grace attended Catholic schools in Salem where she grew up, and remembers that the nuns did not approve of her selection of books. She liked Dickens and Dumas, while they wanted her to read books about the saints or other religious topics. Her favorite book when she was young was The Count of Monte Cristo. Money was scarce because it was the depression and her mother told her not to spend money on books because she could always get them at the neighborhood library. She bought the book she wanted anyway. When she got in trouble with her mother, Grace said, “I know you will eventually stop being angry, and I will still have the book.” One of 19 students in her graduating class, Grace worked for Sylvania after high school and met her future husband at a dance. He was a science teacher in Westwood. They got married, moved to Norwood and had two daughters. There wasn’t much time to read when the children were growing up, although Grace did a lot of sewing, knitting and crocheting.

Grace has very definite tastes in books. She doesn’t like romance, war stories, science fiction or westerns. She loves mysteries, crime novels and “who dunnits.” . Grace reads so extensively in her favorite genres that she has devised a special system. She makes a very small squiggle on the back inside cover of every paperback she borrows from the library so she can remember which ones she has read. Grace says that books can take you everywhere and make you forget you’re alone. You can visit Paris, Istanbul, or anywhere in the world. Grace tells me she’d “go crazy with boredom” without books to read. Maybe the nuns from her early schooling had some influence after all because now her favorite reading is the Bible and books about faith, and she starts every day with devotional reading.

Edna and Grace are representative of the many people served by the Outreach Department, each of whom has a unique and interesting life story. They show us that it doesn’t matter when in your life you become a reader – it could be when you were a child or much later in life – and that books can play an essential role in keeping life stimulating and connecting you to the larger world. You probably know people like Edna and Grace who love to read and would enjoy having an Outreach volunteer bring them books and stop for a visit each month. We hope you will help us find these people so that they can enjoy the pleasures of reading. You can reach the Outreach Department by calling
781-769-0200, ext. 228.

Keeper of Thousands of Tales

Samantha Sherburne is a Simmons College intern at the Memorial Memorial Library. Read her column in the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin.

When I was a child, visiting my local library was a weekly event. I would carefully select which books and movies to bring home and spend the next week with. The library was a place filled with stories and I envied the Children’s Librarian, whom I viewed as the keeper of these thousands of tales.

As a teenager in high school the school library became a home base for me. I would find any excuse possible to spend time in the library - working on term papers, studying for tests, or reading. The librarian knew me well, and we would spend time discussing the latest book I was reading or he would suggest something for me to jump into next.

Despite these wonderful and positive experiences with libraries and the librarians who made such big impacts on my life, I didn’t take the steps towards becoming a librarian myself until I graduated from college. Now I am a student in the GSLIS program at Simmons College and will begin my final semester this September. My hope is to become a Children’s Librarian, working with young children and teenagers to help foster a love for reading and give them a safe and welcoming place to spend time in.

While I grew up frequenting my town’s public library, then spending time in the school library, and staying up late studying for finals in my college library, I still had no experience with working in a library. During my second semester at Simmons, in the summer of last year, I was enrolled in one of the core courses of my program, Principles of Management. A key assignment in this course was to contact the director of a library of your choice and then conduct an interview to learn more about the job of a library director and the various styles of management we were learning about in class.

The director I contacted was Charlotte Canelli, the director of the Morrill Memorial Library. The library in Norwood has been a favorite building of mine for the past few years, since I moved to the area. I was in awe the first time I recognized the last names of famed authors and poets engraved in the stone on the outside of the building. The inside of the library is just as lovely and the material collections have something for every type of reader. For these reasons, when I had to think of a library director to talk with, I immediately thought “Norwood!”

From my interview with Director Canelli I learned all about how the library runs and the amount of work that goes into providing as many materials as possible for as many people as possible. Following the interview, I was offered the opportunity to be an unpaid intern at the library. At the time, Simmons had yet to begin an official internship course, and I knew the experience I could gain by learning from the librarians in Norwood would be invaluable to me. For the past ten months I have been coming to the library every week to spend time in the many different departments that operate in the library.

Now I am enrolled in the internship course Simmons initiated this Spring, and will complete 120 hours at the library from May through July, working to further grow my understanding of the many responsibilities the librarians have here.

When I began interning last September I was amazed to learn how many departments exist in the Morrill Memorial Library, many that I hadn’t heard about before. For instance, I hadn’t known about Outreach Services, a department that brings books and other materials to patrons who are unable to come to the library on their own. I also hadn’t known about the Literacy Department, which pairs up volunteer tutors with adult learners who wish to improve their English skills or who are working towards their GED or Citizenship tests. I’ve learned the amount of care that goes into selecting books and songs for children’s storytimes, and the energy needed to carry them out. It seems that every day that I am at the library I am learning something new about a department, a specific job, or the building itself.

The librarians and staff members have been welcoming, knowledgeable, and open to share everything they know, experiences they have had, and answering any questions I have about how things are done in the library. Even before my internship, when I would come to the library as a patron, doing research for class or browsing the stacks for a good book to read, I felt very welcome, and the Reference librarians were always ready and willing to help me locate the materials I needed to complete school projects. If you have not yet been to the Morrill Memorial Library, or it has been a while since your last visit, I would recommend dropping in and enjoying the building, its resources, and the people who make it great.

Being a part of the library community in Norwood and working as an intern here has reminded me of those wonderful memories of a childhood spent in libraries and immersed in books, and has confirmed that I have chosen the absolute best career in the world to pursue.

Visit the library's website, www.norwoodlibrary.org, or visit the library in person at 33 Walpole Street, Norwood, MA