Accidental Discovery: Lynda Barry
Every library lover has at least one story about a magical moment of serendipity when they stumbled across a book or author, previously unknown to them, who turns out to be a new favorite. We all know that libraries are are great for that type of exploring — you can check out a fat stack of titles and revel in anticipation about what you might find. That’s how I came across Lynda Barry, a prolific comic author and artist who was undiscovered by me until I saw a recommendation for her book, One Hundred Demons, on the library’s website last year.
Cartoons for Adults
Are you an adult who loves cartoons? There are plenty of children’s cartoons that adults can enjoy, but today I want to talk about animated TV shows meant just for grown-ups. Cartoons can be just as engaging as live-action shows, and the format allows them to do things other shows can’t. Most are comedies, but even those can include strong character development and ongoing story lines that beg to be binge watched.
Women’s Voices: Great Audiobooks Read by Their Authors
Those of us who spend lots of time commuting or on long walks, or who enjoy listening to books while we’re engaged with chores or stationary hobbies can attest that getting lost in an audiobook is easy to do, but it’s a real bummer when you don’t vibe with the narrator. Sometimes the voice gets on your nerves, sometimes you don’t feel like the tone of the narrator matches up with who you imagine characters to be, and sometimes you don’t really know what’s bothering you about it, but a voice just rubs you the wrong way. One (almost) sure-fire way I’ve found around this problem is in listening to memoirs.
Can You Judge a Song By Its Cover?
Previously, I posted a list of my favorite “guilty pleasure” songs. Today, I want to talk about covers. Sometimes they’re good; other times… not so much. Some are more popular than the originals. Then there are some songs, like Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” that are so great they get covered over and over.
Celebrating Library Advocates
Each year, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s Board of Directors schedules a public board meeting so that our community members can be updated on CLP happenings and get a view of our governance process. In addition to this transparency, we also use the public meeting as an opportunity to publicly recognize the loudest and proudest library advocates.
Women of the Periodic Table
Ever since reading The Disappearing Spoon, I’ve had a minor obsession with the periodic table. Each element has its own quirks and its own story. Those stories, of course, involve the people who discovered and studied the elements. For Women’s History Month, I thought it would be interesting to explore the women of the periodic table. Two of them have elements named for them — you probably know a few things about Marie Curie. Others you may never have heard of.
Punitive Measures, Pushout and Pittsburgh
At the same time that Black women are outpacing others in the post-graduate arena, many young Black women are being left behind in public schools, marginalized by punitive and surveillance systems embedded into our education programs and into society at large. Black girls make up 16 percent of the public school population, but represent more than one-third of all girls with a school-related arrest.
Coretta Scott King Book Award Winners: Not Just For Kids
The Coretta Scott King Book Awards are given out yearly to “outstanding African American authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults that demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture and universal human values.” Since 1970, the award named for Martin Luther King Jr.’s wife has honored such authors as Toni Morrison, Sharon Draper, and Walter Dean Myers. Although the books receiving the award are written for a young audience, many of them are also great reads for adults. Take a look at some of these winning titles.
Throwback Thursday: Recent Adventures in Library Cookbooks (Vol. 1)
Tired of making the same few recipes over and over again? In this post, I give a quick and dirty run-down of my recent adventures with cookbooks I checked out of the Library! From peanut butter pie to autumn crostini, I’m sure you will find something enticing to try.
Gotta Have Faith
“Wham!” said the headline, “star George Michael dies.” And that’s how I read it. If you pretend for a moment that Wham! isn’t the name of a band, the statement … Continued