Blogging@NYPL

["You must allow me to present this young lady to you."]

Over the past few weeks, my blogging voice seems to have evaporated from this site. That’s not because I’ve slipped into some eerie library limbo. My time and energies have instead been devoted to preparing a public presentation, “Elusive Jane: In Search of Jane Austen at the New York Public Library.” For ages, it seems, my desk has been buried under a small mountain of books by and about Jane Austen, necessitating a major excavation every time I needed a pencil or a piece of tape. But the hard part is over, and I’m finally ready to meet anyone curious about the life of Jane Austen this Friday, November 6, at 2:15.

Of the many facets of my job here at the New York Public Library, my favorite is the opportunity to get in front of a crowd of people and share my enthusiasm for my favorite authors. Don’t tell anyone, but I also get to read Jane Austen and call it work.

Is it necessary to know anything about Jane Austen’s life in order to appreciate her novels? Certainly not. But after researching the biographies and background materials available here at the library, I found that the novels I had always loved took on a depth and an emotional resonance they hadn’t had before.

Although there are more available biographies of Jane Austen than you would probably care to count, and the facts they contain remain quite consistently the facts, the interpretation of those facts seems to differ from biographer to biographer. It began with James Edward Austen-Leigh’s Memoir of his aunt’s life, which first appeared fifty years after her death. This gracefully written, kind, and loving work helped to rekindle interest in Jane Austen’s life and writing and was used by all later biographies as their foundation. At the same time, the Memoir created an essentially false image of a placid spinster who wrote her novels as a sort of hobby and didn’t pay much heed to the world outside her own narrow scope. “Of events her life was singularly barren,” he wrote, “few changes and no great crisis ever broke the smooth current of her life.”

This of a woman whose life paralleled the Napoleonic Wars and the American Revolution; who lived through the fears of a French invasion of British soil; whose wide reading included not only novels but histories, accounts of current events, travel books, essays, and religious works; whose cousin brought the French Revolution directly into the family home when her husband lost his head to the guillotine; and whose brothers (both Admirals in the Royal Navy) kept her well informed of events beyond the boundaries of rural Hampshire. It is now clear, as Tony Tanner points out in his critical study Jane Austen that she “was much more aware of contemporary events, debates and issues, of the wars and domestic unrest, of the incipiently visible results of the Industrial Revolution, and of a radical change taking place in the constitution of English society, than the conventional view allows, or perhaps wants to allow.” In addition, Jane Austen was very much a professional author who spent her life developing and perfecting her own manuscripts (which she referred to as her “children”), wrangled with publishers, and was honored by the Prince Regent. She was eventually able to earn an independent living from her writing--a feat few women of the day could boast.

This is the Jane Austen I will be discussing on Friday, November 6th, at 2:15 in the first floor classroom of the New York Public Library. If you can’t make it that afternoon--I’ll be giving the same talk again on December 3rd and January 8th, also at 2:15.

These talks will be alternating with Out of the Blacking Factory, the Charles Dickens presentation I introduced last year, on November 20th, December 18th, and January 22nd.

I recently had the pleasure of sitting in on Peter Apfelbaum’s oral history, conducted by long-time friend and jazz writer, Dan Ouellette. I was most pleased to hear about the origins of The Hieroglyphics – a band Peter formed in his teens. I am fascinated by how the band has successfully shifted and transformed alongside him - growing as he did throughout the years. There is a touch of sadness about this being my last opportunity to hear a Duke Jazz artist tell his story like this – laughing with a friend while articulating the first musical sounds he ever made, pausing to find the right words to describe his artistic process, or discussing the true impact of a commission from organizations like Chamber Music America.

Each time we enter the oral history studio, I am reminded of how invaluable we are as our own, best primary resources. I am reminded of the true power of our stories – and of the humanity we feel when we share in the telling of our experiences. I feel overwhelmed with gratefulness for having had the chance to sit in on, catalog, and provide access to these artist histories. Each one has affected me in ways I would only fail in trying to articulate. I hope you will join the Library in celebrating these fine resources. Utilize them! Bring friends!

In the meantime, we do hope you will join us on Friday, November 13th when we end our Duke Jazz Series with a 12-piece bang!

The November Duke Jazz Series concert features Peter Apfelbaum and The New York Hieroglyphics: Peck Allmond, Patrice Blanchard, Charles Burnham, Natalie Cressman, Abdoulaye Diabate, Viva DeConcini, Jessica Jones, Tony Jones, David Phelps, Dafnis Prieto and Josh Roseman.

Composer/multi-instrumentalist Peter Apfelbaum started playing drums at the age of three, taking up piano and saxophone in elementary school and forming his first band at age 11. In 1977 - his senior year at Berkeley High - he formed the 17-piece Hieroglyphics Ensemble as a vehicle for composing and exploring non-traditional musical forms; the Hieroglyphics Ensemble went on to perform with artists like Don Cherry and the Grateful Dead. Apfelbaum put the Hieroglyphics Ensemble on hold during the mid-90s, forming a sextet comprising Hieroglyphics musicians and acoustic bassist John Shifflett. In 1998, Apfelbaum moved to Brooklyn, where he soon formed a New York version of his Sextet. This group grew in 2003 to become the 11-piece New York Hieroglyphics and recorded It is Written in 2004. In addition to the New York Hieroglyphics, Apfelbaum continues to perform regularly with Steven Bernstein, Trey Anastasio, Dafnis Prieto, Josh Roseman, and Kamikaze Ground Crew.

The concert will be held on Friday, November 13, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. in the Bruno Walter Auditorium at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, 111 Amsterdam Avenue @ 65th Street. The program is free and open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. For more information, please call 212.870.1793 or visit nypl.org/lpaprograms.

Please do stick around, say hello and share your Duke Jazz experiences at the public reception to follow! Thank you all for your continued support.

Katrina M. Dixon, Librarian
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Project

When her parents decide they can no longer live in Nixon's US, Bliss is shipped off to Atlanta to live with her grandmother while her parents flee to Canada in Bliss (2008) by Lauren Myracle. The year is 1969 and after spending most of her life living on a commune, or wherever else her parents decided to hang their hats, Bliss is ill-prepared for conventional life in a big city.

Bliss isn't too worried when she starts at the prestigious Crestview High School though because she's spent a lot of time watching TV. Surely The Andy Griffith Show will tell her everything she needs to know about life in the "civilized" world of non-hippies, right?  read more »

Thank you participating in this month’s online book discussion. I hope you enjoyed The White Tiger as much as I did. If you didn’t have a chance to read the book and participate, please feel free to post your thoughts at a later time. The discussion will remain online in the Reader’s Den and hopefully, others will read the book and join in, as well.

Join us next month for our discussion on Kathleen Kent's historical fiction novel, The Heretic's Daughter. Request the novel online or visit your local library branch!

~Lynda P.

Halloween is fast approaching, as is the opening of the new film, The Box, starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden in early November. Of course, many great books have been made into movies, and sure, there's the Twilight series and Cirque du Freak, both book franchises with new movies coming out, but what are the some of the best horror and science fiction books for adults that have been made into films that you may or may not have heard of?

• Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison for Soylent Green
• The Box: Uncanny Stories by Richard Matheson for the new movie of the same title and a new Twilight Zone “Button, Button” episode from 1986. Also, don't miss his novella for "I Am Legend" [see the film]
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick for Blade Runner
• Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist (translated by Ebba Segerberg) for the film of the same title. The U.S. version of the book is sometimes entitled Let Me In. A bestseller in his native Sweden.
• The Ring by Kôji Suzuki for the 2002 U.S. remake with the same title of the 1998 Japanese film, Ringu.
• For an example of Hollywood going to the book first, check out the first of Guillermo Del Toro (The Orphanage, Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth) and Chuck Hogan's new vampire trilogy, The Strain.

The 2009 World Series brings together two cities uncommonly rich in baseball history. Though you might guess which team NYPL is rooting for this year, we've posted a selection of images on The Commons on Flickr representing a variety of New York and Philadelphia ball clubs of yore.

Some of the game's earliest years are chronicled in over 500 photographs, prints, drawings, caricatures, and printed illustrations donated in 1921 to the New York Public Library by early baseball player and sporting-goods tycoon A. G. Spalding (whose name to this day is printed across every ball used in the National League).

As the contemporary Yankees and Phillies clash on the field, here you'll find Philadelphia Quakers, Athletics and Keystones in a gentlemanly mix with New York Giants, Knickerbockers and Metropolitans, and of course Brooklyn Excelsiors and Atlantics. Each one of these images of course has an enormous back story, which we hope the baseball history buffs among you will help fill in through comments, links, tags and annotations.

Also check out a smaller set, Proto-baseball, which gathers images of baseball's ball-and-stick forebears like cricket and Old Cat. Here's "Six boys with a ball and three bats, playing Three Old Cat":

We also invite you to explore the full Spalding Collection on the NYPL Digital Gallery and through this finding aid (PDF) from the Manuscripts and Archives Division.

Now let's just pray for the rain to stop so Game 1 can get underway...

***UPDATE*** Picked up by Gothamist!

Beverly Sills musical scores have arrived at Lincoln Center in a venue in which she never sang: The Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. We take pride in announcing that we received the collection of her scores from her estate auction at Doyle's New York on October 7, 2009. (We also obtained two costume designs by Thierry Bosquet, a frequent designer for the New York City Opera, which I'll discuss in another post.)

The auction was filled with people seeking interesting furniture and artwork. There was also a strong coterie of devoted Sills fans determined to come away with mementos of someone who gave so much pleasure. Someone even wore a button proclaiming "Beverly Sills Is a Good High" - a vintage 1970s slogan.

Once we had won the lot of scores, many of those seated near us wondered who we were. When we revealed ourselves as staff members of the New York Public Library, those within earshot applauded and cheered, knowing that the scores of Beverly Sills would be available to the public for research.

In numerous interviews, talk shows, and autobiographies, Sills revealed herself as a cheerful and ebullient personality. But her scores reveal a different side of her. They show that she was a hard-working and dedicated performer. A number of her scores are marked (some in great detail), indicating her great commitment to singing with a striking attention to detail.

The role of Queen Elizabeth in Donizetti's opera Roberto Devereux was one of her signature roles. In one of her two scores of the opera she has not only marked her part with a red highlighter, but has also penciled in translations of key words and penned in more elaborate and dramatic embellishments than that of the composer.

Her two scores for Rossini's L'assedio di Corinto are fascinating. Sills first essayed this infrequently-performed opera at her La Scala debut in 1969, making it also the vehicle of her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1975. In his book, "Divas and Scholars," musicologist Philip Gossett briefly explains the contortions that Rossini's opera went through to be put on stage in these productions which haphazardly conflated different editions, adding a few excerpts from other Rossini operas. He recollected that in 1975, right before Sills's Met debut, he gave a lecture at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, explaining the problems with the Met's version (apparently pioneered by conductor Thomas Schippers). He then quotes Sills's response: "I think some so-called musicologists are like men who talk constantly of sex and never do anything about it." With Sills's scores (and a recordings of her Met broadcast as well as her La Scala broadcast), we now have a chance to re-examine and re-assess the controversies surrounding this work and Sills's performance of it. Shown below are one of the many passages she chose to elaborate, this one with paste-overs to the original score.

Just as she became deeply involved with so many activities throughout her life, it is now possible to view her scores as the result of a serious and consummate performer. Her scores reveal her creativity, as they are the springboard for her thoughts on performance. Used in conjunction with her recordings, one can begin to gain keen insight into what made Beverly Sills such a striking performer.

On occasion her scores attest to Sills's working relationships. So many vocal students begin their studies with Italian arias and songs, familiar to nearly all vocal students. Sills was no different: in her volume of Italian arias, her teacher Estelle Liebling entered markings as well as dates. The resulting album gives us unique view of the progression of Sills's vocal study.

For many years, Roland Gagnon was Sills's vocal coach. At the time of his death in 1979, he was in the process of coaching Sills in the role of Juana, in La Loca by Gian Carlo Menotti -- her last new role and a world premiere (there are two scores of this opera in her collection). On her score of Bellini's Norma, Gagnon wrote the inscription pictured here, as well as marked up her score.

Sills was one of Douglas Moore's favorite singers for the role of Baby Doe in his opera, The Ballad of Baby Doe. Into the flyleaf of her score, Sills pasted in a heartfelt Christmas card from Moore, sent in appreciation for her efforts.

Beverly Sills's scores now join collections of other opera singers such as Lorenzo Alvary, Frieda Hempel, Louise Homer, Mathilde Marchesi, Giuditta Pasta, Jan Peerce, Rosa Ponselle, Marcella Sembrich, and Leonard Warren - all to be found in the Music Division. We look forward to allowing the public to access these unique scores.

The largest cultural institutions of New York City like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The American Museum of Natural History and New York Public Library, were established in the latter half of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. There was a major push among the wealthiest Americans to establish a cultural identity of our own. We were a young country, bereft of the cultural lineage that existed in Europe. Despite America’s youth we showed ourselves to be a vast country, devoted to the dollar, with seemingly room for little else. But men, like J.P. Morgan understood that life void of education and culture was a life not worth living. A balance must be met, to soften the edge of a hard capitalist society. Despite the controversy surrounding Morgan in regards to how he conducted himself in business, the fact remains that we owe much to him and others like him who bestowed great wealth on institutions, whose sole purpose was to enrich the lives of everyone and that tenet still holds today.

A number of years ago while in graduate school, I took part in a private tour of the Morgan Library. While we sat in Morgan's sumptuous jewel toned library, replete with priceless volumes from the 16th century to the 20th century, the speaker encouraged us to read Morgan: An American Financier by Jean Strouse. He described the book as the definitive biography of J. P. Morgan. At the conclusion of the tour, my mind a swirl in the world of J.P. Morgan, I made a mental note to myself to read Strouse’s lengthy tome. A few years later, I did.

After reading Strouse’s biography of Morgan, much impressed me about the man: his power, vision and his philanthropy. During the bridge years between the 19th and 20th century, tremendous energy was devoted to giving on a truly monumental scale. Morgan took the lead in giving among his peers. He perhaps more than any other of his colleagues combed the world over for treasures to fill the museums he was establishing back in America. With the steady intelligent eye of Bella de Costa Greene by his side, Morgan created a grand and lasting legacy. Every time I enter the Morgan Library or the Metropolitan Museum, I bow my head in thanks.

Please join Jean Strouse as she examines J.P. Morgan’s legacy in the arts on Wednesday, Oct. 28 @ 6:30 @ the Mid-Manhattan Library

Images of the Morgan Library courtesy of the Morgan Library
http://www.themorgan.org/about/historyMore.asp?id=11

Image of the Metropolitan Museum courtesy of: http://www.nyc-architecture.com/UES/UES074.htm

The commercial strips of the neighborhoods of New York City are the lifeblood of the community and city at large. It is where the action is. People shop, stroll, and mingle on the street. In warm weather men often pull up chairs, to discuss the day’s events in front of their local barbershop, with the twirling barbershop poll acting as a beacon in the background. While bodegas with their blinking colored signs often seem to host a never ending domino game in front of their storefronts. And corner candy stores are magnates for youngsters, tossing balls or cruising on skateboards. Teenage hoods hang out too but at curbside with cigarettes in their mouths. The commercial strips of the neighborhood of the city are a microcosm of the city itself. You can feel the life and energy in front of many storefronts. The social community that is organized around the business district help gauge the health of the neighborhood. Commercial strips are fluid entities and change like a river. In one generation the street may be lined with mom and pop businesses: a bread store, dry cleaner and an Italian deli with meats hanging in the window, while in latter generations the street may change many times over. In Park Slope, where I live, I have witnessed one storefront after another close, because the next generation did not want to continue in the family business.

In the time that I have lived in my neighborhood, I have seen the closing of many storefronts. Some close up shop because storeowners want to make a big buck as developers greedily eye the strip and think of tearing down and building anew, while others can’t bear the thought of having an outsider running their business, choosing instead to shut down their business that was instrumental in supporting their family. Remnants of the old sign of the business are often buried under the new signage, sometimes it is visible: a shadow on the wall where the letters were once placed or painted words that peak out from under the new sign and sometimes you can even see hints of where the neon tubing was attached. Or in the case of Garry Jewelers on 5th Ave, in my neighborhood, it is the name Garry in a smooth mosaic tile on the ground, at the entryway. The neon of Garry Jewelers is still there, but now it is always dark and it is only a matter of time until this beautiful sign, established in 1951, finds its way to the junk heap.

Please join the authors of Store Front James T & Karla L. Murray as they present a slide lecture on the Disappearing Store Fronts of New York City on Monday, Oct 26th at 6:30 PM on the 6th floor of the Mid-Manhattan Library.

Images from: http://www.jamesandkarlamurray.com/JamesandKarlaMurraySTOREFRONT.html

Vivian Vande Velde is basically my hero. She is a master at taking traditional fairy-tale-like themes and making them fresh and totally unique. Companions of the Night (1995) does that for the vampire story.

Kerry's little brother, Ian, had a simple request: drive to the laundromat to retrieve Ian's stuffed bear. Kerry knew all the reasons she should tell Ian no (she had a big test to study for, it was the middle of the night, she only had a driver's permit and shouldn't be in a car without a licensed driver), but then Ian started to cry and Kerry knew she couldn't say no--not if Ian was going to cry. It was late, there would be no traffic. Getting the bear would be simple.

And it was simple. Until Kerry got to the laundromat and stepped into what looked like a gang shootout. Or a kidnapping. Or a vampire hunt.  read more »

In his novel, Adiga highlights the dichotomy between the rich and the poor. He discusses the poorer Indian peoples' subservient relationship with their rich masters and their reluctance to rebel against the establishment because of ingrained and learned beliefs passed down from generation to generation. The rooster coop reflects the desperate existence of the poor in India and the perpetual power of the rich to manipulate the system to suit their needs. "Hundreds of pale hens and brightly colored roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages, packed as tightly as worms in a belly, pecking each other, jostling for breathing space; the whole cage giving off a horrible stench--the stench of terrified, feathered flesh. On the wooden desk above his coop sits a grinning young brother, showing off the flesh and organs of a recently chopped-up chicken, still oleaginous with a coating of dark blood. The roosters in the coop smell the blood from above. They see the organs of their brothers lying around them. They know they're next. Yet they do not rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop" (p.147).

What is Balram's perspective on how and why the Rooster Coop works?

To what extent is the narrator finally able to break this obedience to tradition?

~Lynda P.

In the Rossville section of Staten Island there is a small little graveyard. It is hidden away, on the side of a two-lane road. This tiny graveyard seems out of place in an area that is dotted with light industry and that’s about it. The smattering of houses that probably once existed, as well as a store or two are long gone. Perhaps there was a ferry crossing here and a depot too, but whatever was here long ago is only represented by an early 19th century graveyard. The graveyard sits on a bit of land that is on the water, near the infamous Tugboat Graveyard. Stone stairs lead to a shaded spot, where the overhang of the trees acts as a natural screen, blocking any view from the street. No one has stopped by this graveyard in a long time. Maybe a dozen grave markers rest on either side of an overgrown path. Some gravestones are in very good condition, made of stone that has withstood nature’s natural erosion process. Other markers are in much poorer condition, almost bare with only a hint of letters on the face of the marker. The stone of these naked markers is sparkly with crystals and when you touch them, the crystalline grains of stone come right off in your hand. Sadly some markers sit in heaps of thin sheets of shirred brown stone on the ground. It has been years since anyone has taken care of this graveyard. At one time this was a visited place. People whose lives were taken from them while they were in their prime are buried here: children and men and women of varying ages, many quite young. These beautifully carved stones may have been the only relic remaining to give solace to the living for their loved ones who are buried at this graveyard.

At the time these stones were made, they were carved by hand. Chisels and mallets carved sinuous lines into the hard stone. No computer driven machine wrote the tender missive underneath the name and date of death on one stone. The elegant decorative design that is at the top of another marker was carved by a caring hand. Men with tremendous skill, cut into the hard stone in such a way that makes the letters look light, even ethereal. Some stones show a combination of writing styles. Script with arabesques may be followed by a heavily stylized letter design, and then followed by yet another style. The letters rest on an invisible line of unbelievable straightness. The beauty of these stones is the result of dedicated training, strong hands, simple stone carving tools and an intuitive design sense.

Please join us on Tuesday October 20th at 6:30 PM when Mid-Manhattan Library will be presenting New York’s Early Gravestone Imagery: The Artisans of the 18th Century Memorials in the Metropolitan Area with guest speaker John Zielenski.

Photographs courtesy of Peter and Genevieve:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peteandgenevieve/3645700576/in/set-72157619...

Staff of the New York Public Library recently hand picked a set of nearly 500 images, collected from across our Digital Gallery, composing them as a curated set of images at the Commons on Flickr. They represent the Hudson River Valley through several hundred years of history and complement Mapping New York's Shoreline, 1609-2009, now up in the Gottesman Exhibition Hall at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.

The images depict landscape scenes in stereoscopic vision, a popular 19th century format; everyday and commemorative menus from restaurants and catering halls; postcards of scenic places and buildings; and engravings of important estates, prominent citizens and dramatic turning points in historical events. These images have been geocoded and are part of map-based bibliography, The Storied River, coming soon to the NYPL. Stay tuned, the launch will be posted on the NYPL's map blog...

In the meantime, enjoy the same photos at the Commons on Flickr, perused as a gallery of images... Mapping New York's Shoreline: The Storied River

...or, my favorite, pinned to a map on the Flickr website.

Learn more about the NYPL Map Division.

The first thing to keep in mind about Swoon (2009) by Nina Malkin is that it's a sexy book. By which I mean racy. The second thing to keep in mind is that it's totally nuts. More about that after the summary.

Nothing ever happens in Swoon, Connecticut. Just ask Candice, Swoon's newest (transplanted) resident. There are many reasons Dice would rather be in her native New York City but the fact remains that she is in Swoon. And strange as this land of cookie-cutter preps and family values is, Dice is getting used to it.

Everything changes when Dice's cousin, the beautifully and tragically perfect Penelope, nearly dies. In those moments between life and death, Pen's body picked up an uninvited guest: a long-dead ghost named Sinclair Youngblood Powers. Wronged by the town years ago, Sin is looking for revenge and none too concerned about the Swoon residents who stand in his way.  read more »

Almost 30 years ago, my husband and I stood on a corner in Brooklyn, to watch the New York City Marathon. We were essentially alone watching the runners on that cool fall day so long ago. We watched, as a trickle of runners became thousands of runners, coursing through the streets of New York City, eventually to the large fanfare that would greet them in Manhattan along 1st Ave, Central Park South and in Central Park itself at the finish line.

Since that day, I have watched a lot of NYC marathons. I live on a street that is steps away from 4th Ave, the long stretch the runners hit as they come off the Verrazano’s Bridge. I leave my house early, grab a spot next to a traffic light on my corner, I place a step stool at the base. I bring a warm drink and I sit on the stool and wait. It will be hours before the main body of runners come. I cheer and clap as the early starters pass my spot. Sporadically, a few at a time come by, often with guides by their sides. I think about the commitment it takes to undertake such a feat. Soon my corner where I have set myself up becomes incredibly crowded. Police try to hold back the crowd, as spectators lean out far into the street to catch a glimpse. I now stand on my stool and over the heads of others; I can watch the mass of runners pour down the avenue better than anyone else. I scream, clap and shout the runners names who have them affixed to their jerseys. I become overcome with emotion and sometimes my eyes tear up. The sea of bobbing bodies that is the New York City Marathon, is my favorite event of the year.

What draws me to watch the NYC marathon year after year is the simplicity of the event. It is a footrace where runners take to the streets of New York, running an incredible distance, touching a foot in each of the boroughs to complete the race in the fastest time possible. On the surface that’s all there is to it and it’s free to watch. But it is the stark reality of a 26 mile race juxtaposed against the stories of each and every runner: from the elite runners to the everyday runners, some of whom just might be your neighbors, which make marathon watching such a pleasure. I often wonder what it would be like to inch my way forward to a finish line I could not even see, even if all 26 miles were laid out in a straight line right in front of me. Roughly 30 thousand runners from all over the world take part in the race every year. And every year I marvel at the beauty of the mass of runners as they come barreling down past my lamppost where I stand atop my stool. Arms raised, hands waving, I scream at the runners to forge ahead to the end and with joyful eyes and sometimes with shouts of enthusiasm of their own, the runners answer back and in an instant a bond is formed. On that day a part of them is in me and I in them, as I cheer to heavens “COME ON RUNNERS…YOU CAN DO IT….RUN, RUN, RUN…YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!!!!”

Liz Robbins, author A Race Like No Other, presented a program on the New York City Marathon at the Mid-Manhattan Library on Tuesday October 13th. Liz revealed that the reason why the New York City Marathon is so successful and different from any other marathon is that the race is in the streets of New York, a city of people. Two million race watchers line the street to watch the runners. And runners will testify to what a joy and pleasure it is to run through the neighborhoods, with people cheering, handing out water and marching bands playing music for them. The runners feed off the good energy of the spectators. And there is no race in the world that best does this than the New York City Marathon. During the program Liz asked some of the audience members who had ran the marathon before to talk about what it is like to run this race. Feelings of joy, accomplishment and camaraderie were touched up, as well as debilitating pain. What I found interesting is some participants in the audience did not consider themselves athletes. They took up running late in life, though now they are committed runners, with some having run in hundreds of marathons already.

Lisa Peterson-de Cueva attended Tuesday night's program and posted about the event on her blog.

Early on in the novel, we learn that Balram is a successful businessman in Bangalore and an extremely complex character. In his first letter to the Chinese premier, he writes "my country is the kind where it pays to play it both ways: the Indian entrepreneur has to be straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere, at the same time." What are your thoughts about Balram? Is he a psychopath?

Sudheer Apte, a reviewer for Mostly Fiction Book Reviews, wrote, "the most enjoyable part of this novel is the richly observed world of the have-nots in India: the flocks of drivers hanging out by their vehicles outside air-conditioned buildings, waiting for their masters to summon them, the beggars at traffic stops, who get money mostly from the poor; the petty manipulations among the servants of the house. This is the view most missing from so many Indian novels with a middle class sensibility" (Mostly Fiction Book Reviews). If it is one thing Adiga captures in his novel, is the division between the "haves" and "the have-nots" and how both sides are corrupt and manipulating the other in their own way. Because of his circumstances as a servant in India, do you feel Balram was justified in committing murder as a means to an end? Do our circumstances in life ultimately decide who we are?

Hopefully, you were able to get yourself a copy of The White Tiger and are enjoying the novel as much as I did. Here are a few questions to think about:

Why is Balram addressing his letters to the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabo? What is his intention in writing these letters?

In the first chapter, Balram describes himself as "a thinking man" and "a man of action." Do you agree or disagree? What examples do we see that he is both?

What is the significance of the title, The White Tiger?

~Lynda P.

This weekend is a big one for yarn lovers, knitters, and crocheters—there’s both a Handmade Crafternoon devoted to knitting and crochet, and there’s also a weekend-long Yarn Crawl that’ll take you all over the city! Here are the details on both events:

About the next Handmade Crafternoon:
Date and time: Saturday, October 10th, from 2:00 to 4:00pm
Location: Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
42nd Street and Fifth Avenue
Margaret Liebman Berger Forum (Room #227, located in the northeast corner of the second floor)

We’ll have these three special guests, talking about art, wool, and what they do:
Sabrina Gschwandtner, author of KnitKnit
Teva Durham, author of Loop-d-Loop and Loop-d-Loop Crochet
Annie Modesitt, author of Romantic Hand Knits, Men Who Knit and the Dogs Who Love Them and more

If you’re in the middle of a project, bring it with you so that we can all stitch together. And if you are curious about learning to knit or crochet, we’ll lend you some supplies for the afternoon and help you to get started. I’ll have stacks of vintage knitting and crochet books and magazines to look through—think glamorous World War II styles and Mad Men-esque dresses and sweaters too. And just like last month, we’ll have a fundraising raffle too. So come and join the fun!

About the New York City Yarn Crawl:
What’s this Yarn Crawl, you ask? It’s a full roster of events and specials at yarn shops all over the city, and it runs from Friday the 9th through Monday the 12th. There’s plenty to do—including raffles and a scavenger hunt--so check out the site and plot your route!

In his recent movie review of the documentary film No Impact Man, available in book form from NYPL here and in blog form here, A.O. Scott writes, "The year of doing something crazy to learn a lesson or prove a point is by now less a gimmick than a full-fledged publishing genre. Activities that would, in the course of ordinary life, count as modest or private undertakings acquire a special significance when they become the basis of book proposals. A. J. Jacobs followed numerous biblical commandments (there are a lot more than 10) [The Year of Living Biblically]; Morgan Spurlock ate nothing but fast food [Supersize Me]; Julie Powell cooked her way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. [Julie and Julia: my year of cooking dangerously]
And Mr. Beavan, in a similarly self-displaying if more austere spirit, weaned himself, Ms. Conlin and their young daughter from motorized transportation, nonlocal food and light bulbs."

There are certainly many films and books that have this theme, and I wanted to highlight a few others:

Ultramarathon Man: confessions of an all-night runner by Dean Karnazes

The Urban Hermit: a memoir by Sam Macdonald
In an attempt to get out of debt and to lose weight, Macdonald embarks on a year long experiment of living on lentils and little else.

A Year Without 'Made in China': One Family's True Life Adventure in the Global Economy by Sara Bongiorni.
A mother and journalist, Bongiorni is shocked one day by how dependent her family has become on items made in China. She makes (and occasionally breaks) rules for her family to try to break this dependence, not so much as a boycott, but more to try to give other countries a chance, sometimes with humorous results. Watch a short video about this book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56rPPYMVJMM

Give It Up!: My Year of Learning to Live Better with Less by Mary Carlomagno.
Each chapter is dedicated to something different that she tries to live without.

Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine
Levine tries to give up shopping, except for "necessities". Like Bongiorni, she starts out with a set of rules for her family, which are sometimes broken.

Mulberry Street's Do It Yourself Series continues on October 19th at 6:30 p.m. We'll be constructing a paper magic folding box that is sure to please!

As some of you remember, this year's summer reading theme was "Be Creative!" Here at the Mulberry Street Branch, we participated by starting a summer Do It Yourself Series for adults. The program was held once a month and met with very enthusiastic participants. Mulberry's creative staff members transformed and revamped ordinary items into awesome and useful objects.

The first craft was a cereal box notebook using recycled cereal boxes and scrap paper. Who needs expensive Moleskine notebooks, when you can make your own!

In July we took old t-shirts and transformed them into tote bags! The library may have run out of plastic bags, but these easy to make totes hold all your library materials.

We got a little fancy in August with wearable button art. Using colorful buttons and felt, participants made fantastic brooches with these simple objects.

The staff and participants had so much fun this summer with our adult crafting programs that we've decided to continue the series into the fall. RSVP to our next craft on October 19th by calling or emailing the Mulberry Street Branch!