Tuesday, March 22, 2011

In which I come back on bended knee.

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I have been a very bad reader/blogger lately. Ok, not so much a bad reader, but definitely a bad blogger. I have the March funk. Yes, a serious funk. While many people nationwide feel this revitalization of life with Spring in the air, one does not feel that in New York. At least, not this girl. Why? Because the forecast for tomorrow is 38 with snow. SNOW!

BUT, hopefully Spring is somewhere close in the neighborhood, and warm weather outdoor reading is just around the corner.

Lately, I've read:

Summer at Tiffany by Marjorie Hart — Wow, how I would kill to experience NYC in previous decades. Marjorie's memoir of a 1940s summer spent working at Tiffany and Co. is wonderfully nostalgic. It's sweet and simple and full of slang like "gee whiz" and "golly." Hart describes a New York I certainly have never seen—one with daily lunches at the Automat and hats covering everyone's heads! I'm sure I glamorize this era of NYC history just as many people (or, ahem, TV shows) glamorize the NYC of today, but I don't care. It's a great escape, and that's what reading is for, right?

Side note: To any of you visiting for BEA week and interested in NYC history, check out the NYC Transit Museum. Admission is cheap, and you can see all the old subway cars from decades ago. So fun!


The Summer Book by Tove Jansson — I thought I'd love this book because a) it's NYRB, b) it was recommended by Idlewild, c) it's about SUMMER. But it was only "meh." The book is pretty much a series of short vignettes about a grandmother and 6-year-old granddaughter spending the summer on a remote island off the coast of Finland. It's supposed to be the contrast of a girl starting her life, while another one is ending hers, as told in simple pieces. But mostly, I was just kinda bored. The characters had an interesting dynamic but I didn't really like either of them, nor see their merit. I did like the grandmother's methods of imparting wisdom to Sophia—a very "learn through lessons" kind of way—but I thought Sophia was just a brat. Maybe I should reread this sometime when I'm in a better mood.


This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson — The author is basically out to prove one thing: that librarians are absolutely necessary, especially with new technologies, though the means by which they perform their services are always changing and expanding. Johnson uses a variety of case studies to make her point, most of which were very interesting. This is one of those books I need to own so I can mark the pages that interested me, mostly because now I want to search out all the librarian blogs and archive websites she listed. My only gripe was an overly long chapter on Second Life which seemed less relevant (she could've just said "Real life librarians become librarians in Second Life" to make her point rather than write pages on specific Second Lifers). The book was definitely interesting, but I think only those interested in Librarianism will enjoy.


I swear I'll get back to real reading and posting soon....

5 comments:

Jenny said...

I loved Summer at Tiffany too!! Sweet, simple, and wonderfully nostalgic are great ways to describe it.

Thanks for the info about the transit museum. I'll have to plan that for my next visit.

softdrink said...

The March funk is going around. Let's hope April is a better month!

Booklineandsinker said...

I've also been impacted by the funk and haven't been posting or commenting nearly enough. I blame auctions and 30 rock, a television show I'd never seen until discovering it on Netflix. I've watched 40+ episodes in the last two weeks. Very sad but true. I adore Tina Fey--she's so funny!

Kari said...

Getting hooked to TV shows like that is the best. I've been watching the series Road to Avonlea, and it's 7 seasons long, taking up lots of my time!

Kari said...

As long as I don't wake up any April morning and see snow on the tops of cars like I did this morning, it will be better than March.