I absolutely love subscription boxes. They’re like Christmas every month, and if you choose a good one, you’ll always be excited to see that box on your doorstep. In this post, I’ll be looking at 10 that would make great gifts for librarians.
READ MORE: 10 Subscription Boxes for Librarians | CCGC in Libraries
The one struggle of being a woman who reads is that you want to read everything. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by bestseller lists , because there just isn’t enough time in the day to read every hot new book. Between near-constant recommendations of amazing memoirs, new sequels and a terrifyingly long list of bookmarked Internet longreads, it can be stressful to choose what you should pick up next. Knowing which classics you’re missing from your reading repertoire is easy — it’s a little harder to remember what you’ve missed from three years ago.
We’ve done a little bit of the hard work for you (or maybe just increased your book stress… sorry) by pulling together a list of incredible titles from the past few years that you should add to the pile on your bedside table. These books by women are just a few of the incredible titles published recently — an exhaustive list would be hundreds of books longer. Those listed here are some of the most-discussed, thought-provoking and life-changing books from a diverse group of women writers. They make you rethink what being a feminist means, offer life advice to women of all ages, and reinforce your long-held belief that Tina and Amy should be your best friends and life coaches forever. The novels are some of the finest writing from woman authors. From lighthearted memoirs to harrowing thrillers, there’s a genre here for everyone.
Here are 21 books published in the past 5 years that all women should read. READ MORE: 21 Books From The Last 5 Years That Every Woman Should Read | Huffington Post
In March, a group of New York library officials released a statement declaring that a “staggering infrastructure crisis” has crept up on the city’s public library system. In Brownsville, Brooklyn, one branch is “routinely forced to close on hot days” due to problems with air conditioning. Others are plagued with water-damaged books and facilities that are too small to accommodate everyone in their community.
General interest public libraries are no less necessary than they were in 1901, when Andrew Carnegie donated the equivalent of $147 million to construct 65 of them across New York City, but their focus is increasingly shifting away from books and toward things like English classes, job training workshops, community meeting spaces, or just places to read the news online for those without internet access.
While the public must continue to fight for these more practical resources, a number of oddball independent libraries cropping up around the North American continent offer an experience that can’t be found in their traditional counterparts. These boutique libraries are working to stretch our very idea about the word “library,” creating a real living community around the often very lonely act of reading.
READ MORE: The Rise of DIY Libraries | VICE
In Indonesia, one man and his horse have created a walking, braying mobile library to bring books to the remote villages on Java island.
Ridwan Sururi, 42, travels between schools and villages with a tamed wild-horse called Luna who is loaded with boxes of donated books. Sururi named his project Kudapustaka, meaning ‘horse library’ in Indonesian, according to the BBC.
Illiteracy remains high in the rural heartlands of Central Java, despite huge strides to improve literacy rates across the country. “I love horses, and I want this hobby to bring benefit to people,” Sururi told the BBC. READ MORE: How One Man And His Horse Created A Mobile Library In Indonesia | Huffington Post
Last month, a microbiology lab in Nottingham, England made international headlines when it unearthed a substance that kills methicillin-resistant staph, one of the deadliest superbugs of modern times. The most astounding part about the find? It was a 1,000-year-old Viking potion. “This is something we never, ever expected,” said Christina Lee, the Viking scholar at the University of Nottingham who translated the recipe from Old English. “When this tested positive against MRSA, we were just bowled over.”
Bald’s eye salve, intended to vanquish a stye, was discovered in Bald’s Leechbook, an Old English medical primer that hails from 9th century England. The recipe, which claimed to be “the best leechdom” in existence, caught the eye of Freya Harrison, a microbiologist at the University of Nottingham who moonlights as an Anglo-Saxon warrior on the weekends, as a member of the UK’s oldest and largest Viking reenactment society.
“This all kinda started from me being a big nerd,” Harrison told me over Skype. “When I met Christina, she was eager to talk with a microbiologist, because she has an interest in the history of infection. One of the things she had always wanted to do was test some of these medieval remedies out, to see whether they actually work.”
Together with microbiologist Steve Diggle, the three pooled resources to begin the “AncientBiotics” project, which would identify promising Anglo-Saxon remedies and test their medicinal value using modern science. They never expected their first attempt at replicating a medieval potion would be such a roaring success.
“To be honest, I didn’t think anything would come of this,” Diggle, whose interests lie in bacterial communication and evolution, told me over Skype. “For me, one of the most interesting aspects is asking whether this was a true scientific attempt at a recipe for treating an infection. If so, that completely changes our perspective on Anglo-Saxon medicine.”
READ MORE: Scientists are Brewing Medieval Potions to Fight Hospital Superbugs | Gizmodo
A few popular fiction titles I’ve enjoyed reading relating to medieval/historical “primers,” “recipe books” or books of knowledge are:
READ: 32 Essential Asian-American Writers You Need To Be Reading | BuzzFeed Books
I recommend Vincent Lam as an Asian-Canadian writer you need to be reading!
In the above episode of the Japanese documentary series, The Fascinating Repairmen, Tokyo-based book conservator Nobuo Okano brings over 30 years of experience to bear on a tattered, middle school English-to-Japanese dictionary. This is not the sort of job that can be rushed…
…He spends four hours just turning and pressing its battered pages—all 1000 of them—with tweezers and a tiny pink iron.
Although the First Book Marketplace is for educators (to purchase books and educational materials at low prices for children in need), the resource highlights books for children and youth that showcase topics of diversity and inclusion. You can explore books by themes that include African American Interest, Asian American & Pacific Islander, Global Stories, Immigrant Experience, Latino Interest, LGBTQ, Muslim American, Native American, Religion and Special Needs & Abilities. Browse the themes to discover books within each interest area. There are also resources recommended for other topics and themes such as STEM and Me & My Feelings, etc.
“Through the Stories for All Project™ First Book strives to provide all kids with diverse books that act as mirrors and windows. Kids feel valued and validated when they see their own experiences reflected on the pages of books, and they develop curiosity and empathy when they read about experiences different from their own. To help your kids grow as both readers and global citizens, [view] our ever-expanding selection of diverse books.”
Reading this article, it struck me that the website Jonathan Basile has created would be a great premise for an MLIS student’s research paper on multimedia literacies. Or at least continue to inspire others to create online and/or virtual worlds based on ideas and settings as described in fiction.
“When it was proclaimed that the Library contained all books, the first impression was one of extravagant happiness,” wrote Jorge Luis Borges in his classic of philosophical fiction, “The Library of Babel.” One of the most revered stories-as-thought-experiments ever committed to print, Borges’ fiction posits the Universe as a library (“composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries”) that contains every possible text. This intellectual vision, at once playful and poised, has stirred authors (like Umberto Eco and Terry Pratchett) and philosophers (W.V.O. Quine and Daniel Dennett) alike for more than 75 years.
And now it exists! Recently, Jonathan Basile, a Brooklyn author and Borgesian Man of the Book, taught himself programming so that he could recreate Borges’ Universal Library as a website. The results are confounding.
READ MORE: Brooklyn Author Recreates Borges’ Library of Babel as Infinite Website | Flavorwire.
Exciting! I’m at a halt halfway through the book…watching the trailer has given me new motivation to finish it. More information at the BBC One Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell website. The series will air on Space in Canada and on BBC America in the United States.
via ▶ Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: Launch Trailer | BBC One | YouTube.
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