Ponder: Review of Reading

I have read and reviewed 11 books in 2019 (omitting the 4 children's books which admittedly were padding). I have 6 more that I have read but which have no blog post yet. With my self-imposed goal of 24 books in one year (2 per month) I am pretty much on track being 8 months into the year with 17 books under my belt. But I count completion as having blogged about it as well. Right now I have 7 draft posts waiting in the wings for me to publish and four are reviews for those 6 additional books. The first draft post on the list is a running tally.

The final draft post, Running List of Books to Read, will never be published. It is just my personal way of tracking, in addition to the pile sitting in the corner of the family room. There are others scattered about the house that did not make it to the pile, I am sure. The stack order of my personal pile is irrelevant. The pile position is how a book happens to end up when I move it around and shuffle through them. Many of the books are by authors I have read and enjoyed before.

Reading however is not about only quantity, it is also about quality. So how did I like and rate what I read? I had a couple dislikes in a row that made me skeptical about my overall choices so I dragged up my rusty Excel skills and plotted my 2019 books versus like level. Those 11 books averaged to 3.6 stars – not stellar – but there were quite a few 5 stars ratings in there so I am content.

An author that I follow is Gretchen Rubin who is an avid reader herself. (Ironically I rated her most recent book only 1 star. See post dated 3/26/29.) She published a blog post I'd like to share about how to get more reading done: https://gretchenrubin.com/2014/07/13-tips-for-getting-more-reading-done/. Do read the post for more details. I summarized for brevity here; my personal interpretation follows in parentheses. Her ten points for me boil down to liking what I read (1, 2, 6, 9), making time to read (3, 4), having books ready (7, 8), and being in the right state of mind for the book (5, 10).

1. Quit reading. (no need to finish every book I start)

2. Read books you enjoy. (same as 1)

3. Watch recorded TV. (time saver)

4. Skim. (time saver)

5. Get calm. (state of mind while reading)

6. Don’t fight my inclinations. (same as 1 and 2)

7. Always have something to read. (availability)

8. Maintain a big stack. (availability)

9. Choose my own books. (same as 1)

10. Set aside time to read taxing books. (state of mind while reading)

I admit that time I spend blogging is time that I am not reading. But I enjoy the writing and feel that I get more out of a book I have read, by stopping to think about it and put my thoughts down on paper (well in electrons to be accurate). To catch up and deter future falling behind, I plan to attempt shorter posts and combine books where possible. I think I tend to write lengthier posts about books I do not like trying to justify why. That is kind of silly. It is like throwing good money after bad. I need to change that! Now, back to reading. I am considering Where the Crawdads Sing as my next candidate. But perhaps I will intermingle that with some blogging catch-up. It depends on how riveting the book is.

Ponder: The Silent Patient

The opening paragraph on the cover flap for this thriller novel by Alex Michaelides ©2019  describes its premise quite succinctly:

Alicia Berenson's life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house overlooking a park in one of London's most desirable areas. One evening, her husband, Gabriel, returns home late from work, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face and then never speaks another word.

The book is written from the viewpoint of criminal psychotherapist Dr. Theo Faber who is intent, almost obsessed, on getting Alicia to speak. The setting for this book is mainly the facility for the criminally insane but also included is Alicia's home before the crime is committed. Both settings are creepy and that ambiance is well imbued throughout. The author describes the circumstances so well that, as I was reading, I could picture each scene vividly in my mind. I kept thinking "I can be brave enough to imagine this in a book, but no way, no how, am I going to see watch this in a theatre if it is ever produced as a movie!" (I did some web-searching and learned that there are plans in the works to make The Silent Patient into a movie.) Whoever composes the music to accompany this storyline as a movie will have fun. (Think Jaws or Psycho.) Author Alex Michaelides got his MA in screenwriting at the American Film Institute in Los Angles so it is not surprising that his first novel reads as a work readily converted to a movie. 

Plot twists were unforeseen and sporadic shockers made me jump. I started reading in the early morning and did not go to bed until I finished it in the wee hours way beyond midnight the following day. It was spellbinding – a real page turner. Suspense and the desire to read more were created by the compelling situation and not by a need to clarify confusion or reveal omissions. Alicia's final painting before her incarceration as a murderer was titled Alcestis. It is described as a self-portrait of "Alicia naked in the studio, in front  of a blank canvas, painting with a blood red paintbrush." The expression on her face "defied interpretation" and the canvas is therefore thought to be "a painting about silence" [Ch. 20]. Author Alex Michaelides' allusion to the lesser known Greek play, Alcestis, by Euripides appears to be a natural outcome of his background. Alcestis was a princess in Greek mythology, known for her love of her husband Admetus, and willing to die in his place when Death came to call. Michaelides was born in Cyprus to a Greek-Cyprio father and an English mother and studied English literature at Cambridge University.

The cover design of The Silent Patient also stimulated my curiosity. The faded background image of a woman with a torn paper sliver across her mouth indicative of allowing the words to flow from it seems to reflect the main theme of the book to me as elective mutism. In trying to investigate who the artist was, I came across the name Ivan Ozerov as contributor for the woman image and Anne Twomey for the overall jacket design. I found little further information on either person but stumbled upon an article about jacket designs in other countries. This debut novel for Alex Michaelides has been published all over the world and is available in more than 40 territories. I present the following cover images as samples given in https://celadonbooks.com/the-silent-patient-covers-from-around-the-world/ which also states.

By all accounts, The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides is a runaway hit in the US. Since publishing in February [2019], it’s been on The New York Times bestseller list for 22 weeks (and counting) [as of 8/25/2019]; it’s stayed at the #1 spot on Goodreads all year; it’s spent 22 weeks on the Amazon charts; and it’s one of the most downloaded audiobooks on Apple Books for 2019. But what readers might not realize is that this edge-of-your-seat thriller has also been published all over the world.

The Germany, Estonia, and France covers (first row), like the United States, focus on the mouth of the woman as blocking words from exiting. They seem to focus on the person and, in my opinion, best reflect the novel content. In the second row, the white austere cover of the United Kingdom reflects the sterility of a hospital setting, perhaps hinting as a concentration on scientific/medical treatment of the patient. But the novel does expand to childhood settings both of the patient and those who would help her.  The smeared red of the Lithuania cover calls attention to the crime itself, highlighting the five bullet holes to the face. This is indeed the initiation point of the book but it is not only the crime itself that is the focus. Serbia's black and orange cover with the hanging pendent light  speaks to me of an interrogation setting where knowing the why of the crime is of tantamount importance. The fifth and six covers are least representative of the book to me. The United States cover best captures the book. The mystery of a woman fading into non-existence is what needs to be ferreted out and then brought to the foreground of understanding.

The characters are complex but there are not so many of them that I found it difficult to keep track. There is Alicia's husband, art manager, cousin, aunt, and briefly her parents from her childhood days. For Theo there is his wife, colleagues and his parents also from his childhood years. Background is important for both main characters. Why does Alicia kill? Why does Theo want to be a psychotherapist? He makes a statement from his boyhood, "Somehow grasping at vanishing snowflakes is like grasping at happiness: an act of possession that instantly gives way to nothing." [Ch. 3]

My last two reads – The Library Book (post dated 8/8/2019) and Unsheltered (post dated 8/20/2019) were books highly rated on Amazon and other reputed sources but required discipline and persistence for me to complete. But I am happy to say, I got heavily and eagerly engaged in The Silent Patient and have enough certainty to recommend it to others. I give it five stars! ★★★★★

Ponder: Unsheltered

Occasionally I get more out of writing my blog post about a book than I do from reading the book itself. That is the case with Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver ©2018. Unsheltered had an ever-present down-trodden aura that I found unappealing but I challenged myself to complete the book despite its theme. It was in researching the internet links of several historic characters and one historic place that I came to appreciate the intricacies of the novel. Not that I liked it any better, mind you, but I could recognize more of its merits.

Overview
The storyline of this faction book follows the lives of two somewhat parallel families one in present day times and one in the 1870's, living in a real-life town of Vineland in southern New Jersey founded by Charles Landis as a temperance town.  Both families live in houses that are shambles and falling down about their ears and neither family is in a financial position to repair his home. The patriarch of each family is a teacher, endeavoring to gain tenure or job security. Both are caught in a transition between belief systems. I noticed the closing lines of one chapter were the  title of the next, perhaps the author's tool of further connecting the two time periods. The present day family is three generational, made up of a father and mother, a debilitatingly ill paternal grandfather, a son and daughter both in their late twenties, and a infant grandchild whose mother committed suicide due to depression shortly after his birth. This contemporary family is struggling to make sense of the economic climate and political leanings of factions of today's United States. Nearing retirement age they still are not financially secure to do so. Their neighbor is a large hispanic family whose property is littered with the cars they work on as mechanics. The historic family is made up of a husband, his hard-to-please wife, her younger malleable sister, and her judgmental, formerly well-to-do mother. The historic family is torn in a battle of blind disbelief or blasphemous belief in Darwinism. The coexistence of Science and God is viewed as impossible. Their neighbor is Mary Treat, a naturalist and correspondent with Charles Darwin.

I found this book's topics to be so depressing, the language so stilted, and the continual bouncing back and forth between two time periods so annoying, I was hard pressed to say something positive. I read for pleasure and this book was no pleasure to read. Barbara Kingsolver is a well-renowned, highly respected author. What was I missing?

Normally I abstain from reading reviews of books until I have written my own but for Unsheltered I made an exception.  I checked what the Washington Post said about Unsheltered in its book review: 

https://beta.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/in-barbara-kingsolvers-unsheltered-trump-is-just-the-latest-threat-to-earths-survival/2018/10/16/6aebe630-d140-11e8-b2d2-f397227b43f0_story.html. In my opinion, the article was an excellent summary and assessment. I give that article a rating of 5 resounding stars and encourage my readers to look at it. I give the book Unsheltered 1 star which in my personal rating system translates as "Awful but I read most or maybe even all of it".  This rating reflects my enjoyment of the book and my willingness to recommend it to others rather than its value on some sort of literary scale.

Lemons to Lemonade
When I do read a book that is difficult for me to plow through, I often earmark occasional phrases that catch my eye and cause me to ponder, to adhere to the old adage "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade". A collection of those phrases follows accompanied by my thoughts on them.

• A mother can be only as happy as her unhappiest child. (Ch. 3  - Investigators)
  I found this a thought provoking idea and I think it very well may be true. Children may grow into adults but they are still your babies to worry and fuss over.
  
  
• Polly had let Scylla and Charybdis [names for two dogs] out the back door. He watched them follow the ordained path of their morning constitutional: a direct line to the oak, which they sniffed and circled, then crossed to the beech where they both micturated. (Ch. 6 - Strange Companions)
  This is an example of the stilted language I found obnoxious. I must confess my ignorance in not knowing the Greek mythological reference to Scylla and Charybdis as being synonymous with an idiom meaning "between a rock and a hard place".  Once I knew this, the names were kind of clever if a bit presumptuous. Granted this was a time period in the latter part of the1800's when being educated meant knowing your classic references. But really... morning constitutional and micturated? She let the dogs out to pee! At least I have expanded my vocabulary  – with a word I will most likely never use. But maybe I will. Perhaps instead of saying something "pisses me off", I can more primly and properly claim it "micturates me off"!
  
  
• "Their little families have come here looking for safety, but they will go on laboring under old authorities until their heaven collapses. Your charge is to lead them out of doors. Teach them to see evidence for themselves, and not to fear it." "To stand in the clear light of day, you once said, unsheltered." (Ch. 8 - Shelter in Place)
  The novel has several references to the word unsheltered, its title. I found this one interpretation unique. Unsheltered in this case meant exposing yourself to all the evidence, impartially, with out any protective bias or cushioning. Was I always raised to believe something in particular? Maybe it is time to remove those insulating filters and re-evaluate what I am witnessing.
   
• "Deserving, getting, and wanting are three different things. Typically unrelated." (Ch. 9 - The Front of the Line)
  This message made me think of the recent bout of shootings, the majority by white males, who thought they were being deprived of getting what they wanted and thought they deserved.
  
  
• So here's my problem, Eligibility is based on the MAGI, whatever the heck that is. We three kings? Gold, frankincense, and myrrh?" ..."Mom. Modified adjusted gross income. It says right there." "Wow. We're a Medicaid family." Tig grinned. "There you go. Gift of the Magi."(Ch. 9 - The Front of the Line)
  I found this exchange amusing as mother and daughter wend their way through a confusing government website for financial help with health care.
  
  
• "The thing is, Mom, the secret of happiness is low expectations." (Ch. 15 - Unexpected Reserves)
  Frank and I have often mused upon this thought, on a more trivial scale. If we go to a movie or show expecting it to be great, we're a bit saddened if it did not present as anticipated; however, we are very pleased when we walk out of an unknown or low rated form of entertainment and find we are upbeat and happy. This nugget of wisdom could possibly be extended to apply to life.
  
  
• "A person can succeed and fail at the same time. Maybe letting me down was your way of getting me to be me... "adaptable" (Ch. 15 - Unexpected Reserves)
  This exchange was between Tig and her mom Willa about possibly her mom not always being there for Tig when Tig needed her. Intermittent lapses in maternal performance or favoritism toward a sibling probably made Tig a stronger adult. Failure at motherhood = success of child.
  
  
• "If you can't borrow from the future you have to steal from the now." (Ch. 15 - Unexpected Reserves)
  This quote is spoken by the modern family's mother as gleaned from her millennial son. Although not generally voiced so blatantly, it may unscrupulously apply to various Ponzi-type investment schemes or stock market manipulations. The mom does find this view disturbing. I find this concept prevalent in all those phishing text messages, phone calls, and emails I get.
  
  
• "One percent of the brotherhood has their hands on most of the bread. They own the country, their god is the free market, and most people are so unhorrified they won't even question the system. If it makes a profit, that's the definition of good. If it grows you have to stand back and let it. The free market has exactly the same morality as a cancer cell." (Ch. 15 - Unexpected Reserves)
  This quote is spoken by the modern daughter who is a staunch recycler and environmentalist in contrast to her Wall Street minded brother with whom she is always at odds. I ask myself is the growth of the majority of start-ups a good thing? If they do succeed, does the product benefit the general public or is the profit merely a contrived wage source for its launching team? See? The negativity of the book is rubbing off on me.

Interesting Historical References
I did find the historic references in Unsheltered led me down side paths to a set of interesting facts. In her Acknowledgments section Kingsolver states

Mary Treat was a nineteenth-century biologist whose work deserves to be known better. ... Unsheltered is a work of fiction, but most of its nineteenth century characters and events are real, if often implausible

Vineland is a real town in southern New Jersey, my native state, founded by a man name Charles Landis as a temperance town with the aim of creating a utopian society. Wikipedia lists ten temperance towns in the United States. (I learned that Palo Alto, California, home to Stanford University is one of those temperance towns.)

In addition to banning the sale of alcohol, Landis required that purchasers of land in Vineland had to build a house on the purchased property within a year of purchase, that 2½ acres of the often-heavily wooded land had to be cleared and farmed each year, and that adequate space be placed between houses and roads to allow for planting of flowers and shade trees along the routes through town.

Per Wikipedia, Welch's, know for it grape juice, was founded in Vineland.

The interactions between Uri Carruth editor of an independent Vineland newspaper and Charles Landis town founder are based on fact. I will admit they lent excitement and disdain both to my read.

****************START SPOILER ALERT ******************

There was indeed a shooting of Uri Carruth an independent newspaper editor by Charles Landis who was then put on trial for murder. He was acquitted! The Landis Wikipedia article states

This may have been the first time in American judicial history where a person claimed insanity as a reason for being not guilty.

The reason for the shooting is clarified in https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Talk:Charles_K._Landis which made me wonder at similarities to today's leaders. To quote from this reference

What is interesting about Landis's life is not the benign "founding father" image that was created for him, but the fact that a flawed person in his "manic" phase could actually accomplish some solid achievements.

***************** END SPOILER ALERT ******************

Conclusion
This book was not enjoyable for me and hence its 1 star rating. I am not politically inclined. The 21st century chapters held my interest but I found myself speed reading or skimming through the 19th century chapters. Checking back I see that seven of the nine "lemons" I thought worthy of juicing were from the 21st century chapters. Yet many of the historical references from the 19th century chapters piqued my interest and I learned a great deal - but only after completing the book. Why did I stick with it? It was on the reading list for my daughter-in-law's book club and I wanted to give this author a second chance even though I hated her book The Lacuna. I can't always eat cookies and ice cream; I have to eat my veggies, too. But I like veggies! I did not like this book!

Ponder: The Library Book

The Library Book by Susan Orlean ©2018 is a non-fiction work that initially plucked the chords of my own memory by describing her fond remembrances of her times in the library with her mother. Chapter 1 caused me to recall my own library experiences.

I was in sixth grade when my mother went to work at a job in the post office after being a stay-at-home mom for as long as I could remember. I was not a latch-key child because my mother did not believe it was safe for me to be home alone or to wear a key around my neck  – the classic giveaway I would be unattended. So every day, after school, I would walk the block and a half to my local library and wait there until my dad got off from work and picked me up about two hours later. I was very much into dog books and had set myself a goal of reading all the ones in the children's section of the library. With the old wooden card catalogs - three bays side by side, one each for sorting by subject, by author, and by title – I'd look up DOGS in the subject catalog and find the next author alphabetically.

The children's fiction stacks were arranged in a large U-shape around the perimeter walls enclosing the young adult section of the library's first floor. In the following photo of the library that I frequented, the most distant windows in the front building brought sunlight into the section where I spent my hours after school. After climbing a wide curved marble staircase, I'd pass through heavy brass mullioned glass paned doors, walk by the checkout counter, make a left turn, locate a book or take one out of my book bag, and plunk myself down at one of the long oak tables to read. The Linden library of my childhood, whose interior I have just described, is shown in the photo below. Looming over its roof is the newer updated replacement library building.

Next is the Linden Public Library today. The new building replaced the old one in 2010. I saw it in person when I went back to New Jersey in 2011 but did not go in. I wonder how much of the ambience from the grand marble, elegant brass, and oak finishes was retained in its new, more modern interior.

Did I reach my dog book goal? Frankly, I do not remember. I do recall being hung up a long time at the first corner of the three walls, in the "K" area, reading books by Jim Kjelgaard. Per the Wikipedia entry on the author Jim Kjelgaard 

Kjelgaard wrote more than 40 novels, the most famous of which is 1945's Big Red. It sold 225,000 copies by 1956 and was made into a 1962 Walt Disney film of the same name. His books were primarily about dogs and wild animals, often with animal protagonists and told from the animal's point of view.

The image on the back inside cover of The Library Book was also cleverly done to be nostalgic. A trompe l'oeil of an old checkout card inside a manila pocket was so realistic I tried to remove it to look at it more closely. A small touch of humor was the name of the first person on the card who checked the book out. It was Ray Bradbury of Fahrenheit 451 fame. The other names have significance as well: Edith Gross, Susan Orlean, Austin Gillespie. I have deciphered the significance of one of the four dates but the other three remain a mystery to me.

That is a lot of memories conjured up from the first chapter and the back inside cover of The Library Book. To quote Bob Hope's signature tune, "Thanks for the Memory".

Chapter 2 of The Library Book was positively riveting, describing the fire that raged through the Los Angeles Central Library on April 29, 1986. The physics of fires and the architectural features of the building that hampered its battling were fascinating and detailed. My thoughts were that I wanted to discuss these aspects with my son-in-law who is a fire inspector and that he might really want to read this book, at least Chapter 2. Chapter 3 was about the immediate aftermath of the fire listing estimates of books lost and relating tales of volunteer turnout to salvage what remained. Both these chapters kept me very much engaged. Books water logged from fire extinguishing efforts were frozen to prevent mildew and mold and stored at several facilities to be thawed and potentially salvaged at a later date. Chapter 4 introduces Harry Peak as a strong suspect in setting the fire. This promise of an investigation prompted me to want to read this book.

In Chapter 5 and those thereafter, I bogged down and my fervor to continue reading waned greatly. Each chapter covered a topic of interest about libraries in general in great detail but included such minutiae that my eyes glazed over. However, in the spirit of the Boy Scout motto "Be prepared [to blog]", I inserted page markers for specific passages and jotted down notes to myself as to what I summarized the main idea of some chapters to be. Throughout the book the author included the litany of library managers, painting a picture that included the hair color, hair style, body type, dress-style and foibles of each as well as their management style or lack thereof. Orlean went far beyond merely citing their contribution to the growth of the library in terms of books, collections, and programs added. Per Wikipedia there were 17 city librarians since the inception of the library as a reading room in 1873, through the opening of the Los Angeles Central Library Goodhue building in 1926, during and after the devastating fire in 1986, until present. It was not until the Chapter 21 that the Harry Peak involvement and possible complicity was addressed in earnest. Spoiler Alert: Nothing was ever concluded about his role in setting the fire. I was annoyed that I had read a score of chapters before learning the ambiguity of Harry Peak's role.

Chapters themselves had a number only and no title header; had they been given text headers, I would not have needed to do following exercise for my own edification. 

Chapter  9: litany of burning books in history

Chapter 10: library as haven for the homeless

Chapter 11: fundraising and donations

Chapter 12: various people in post of library manager

Chapter 19: teen and children services

Chapter 18: library architecture

Chapter 24: security

Chapter 29: forensics of arson investigation

Actually, although chapter headings had no titles, interestingly enough each was headed by a listing of four citations. I do not believe they were references the author used for the chapter. Sometimes these books/pamphlets/videos made sense and sometimes not. Chapter 2 is obviously about the fire. Chapters 1, 3, and 5 –  start of book, mold in wet books, and burning books respectively –  made sense after the fact. Chapter 4 introduced Harry Peak so I failed to figure the significance of those citations. The correlations with the Chapter 12 topic...huh? (If I knew how find and to insert a scratching head emoji, I would do so here.) Some chapter heading examples follow:

Even though I felt a bit overwhelmed at times, there were some quotes I ferreted out from the wealth of data and earmarked as wanting to remember, either because of their actual information content or just because of their lyrical descriptive language. I marked those pages with tabs.

• "In Senegal, the polite expression for saying someone has died is to say his or her library has burned; our minds and souls contain volumes inscribed by our experiences and emotions." (ch. 8)
• "In the saga of humankind, most things are done for money – arson especially – but there is no money to be made in burning libraries. Instead, libraries are usually burned because they contain ideas that someone finds problematic." (ch. 9)
• "Taking books away from a culture is to take away its shared memory. It's like taking away the ability to remember your dreams. Destroying a culture's books is sentencing it to something worse than death: It is sentencing it to seem as if it never lived." (ch. 9)
• "In the year leading up to the prohibition, when the ban on alcohol seemed inevitable, every book about how to make liquor at home was checked out, and most were never returned.) The run on these books was probably prompted by a Los Angeles Times story LIBRARY BOOZE BOOKS MAY BE THROWN OUT, which reported that if the Prohibition was enacted all of the guides to home brewing were likely to be destroyed.)" (ch. 16)
• "Goodhue [library architect] wanted visitors to feel more than that they were in a pretty building. He wanted them to feel they were part of a three-dimensional meditation on the power of human intellect and the potency of storytelling." (ch. 18)
• "When the war ended, modern Los Angeles began. The bean fields and orange groves were plowed under and replanted with three-bedroom bungalows." (ch. 18)
• "I rode the elevators downstairs feeling happy. I loved the elevator; it was wallpapered with cards from the old card catalogs – those stained, dog-eared two-by-five paper rectangles, always typed by someone didn't have a firm stroke on the keys, so the letters fade from black to gray, and back to black." (ch. 24)
• "Not every building is as high as it is legally allowed to be, but the building owns the rights to the air-space above it, up to the permitted height. ...  Once the precedent was set, air rights became a salable commodity. For instance, if you had a building that was only seven stories high, which was the case with the Goodhue Building, and zoning would have allowed it to be sixty stories high, you could sell its "right" to the fifty-three more stories to a neighboring building project that wanted to build higher than its allowance." (The library's air rights sold for $28.2 million.) (ch. 25)
• "Public libraries in the United States outnumber McDonald's; they outnumber retail books stores two to one. In many towns, the library is the only place you can browse through physical books." (ch. 30)

The Library Book was all inclusive and yet I felt there was one area not touched upon at all and that is the cataloging system. When, how, and why was the Dewey Decimal system (first published in 1876) introduced and why does the Library of Congress use a different organization system? Per Wikipedia regarding the Dewey Decimal System

The Decimal Classification introduced the concepts of relative location and relative index which allow new books to be added to a library in their appropriate location based on subject. Libraries previously had given books permanent shelf locations that were related to the order of acquisition rather than topic.

Per Wikipedia regarding the Library of Congress System (invented in 1897)

It was designed specifically for the purposes and collection of the Library of Congress to replace the fixed location system developed by Thomas Jefferson. LCC has been criticized for lacking a sound theoretical basis; many of the classification decisions were driven by the practical needs of that library rather than epistemological [relating to the theory of knowledge] considerations. Although it divides subjects into broad categories, it is essentially enumerative [to mention separately as if in counting] in nature. That is, it provides a guide to the books actually in one library's collections, not a classification of the world.

For Susan Orlean's The Library Book, the Dewey Decimal number is 027.4794 ORL. First digit 0 is for information, second digit 2 is for library and third digit 7 is for general about libraries. The numbers after the decimal point required more research and understanding than I was willing to invest but the ORL is the author. I remember being taught the Dewey Decimal system in grade school and we were even tested on our memorization of the ten major categories. Per Wikipedia the Dewy Decimal Classes are shown 

From the Library of Congress website catalog I searched on the author Orlean Susan and located the following image for The Library Book. Its Library of Congress number is Z733.L8742 O75 2018. The first letter Z is for Library Science, the O is for Orleans,  and the 2018 is the date of publication. The remainder represents sub-classification categories that are gibberish to me. 

Per Wikipedia the Library of Congress main categories are shown.

At its top level, the Dewey Decimal system uses numbers and the Library of Congress System uses letters. I thought it ironic that the Dewey system lists libraries first as"0" and the Library of Congress lists them last as "Z". Personally I'd always thought the Library of Congress organization made little sense. Maybe it all boils down to what you grew up with. Per Wikipedia also

Libraries in the United States generally use either the Library of Congress Classification System (LC) or the Dewey Decimal Classification System to organize their books. Most academic libraries use LC, and most public libraries and K-12 school libraries use Dewey.

Susan Orlean's book was about public libraries so perhaps inclusion of a cataloging system comparison would have been inappropriate. The book was long enough as is. She certainly touched on a many, many aspects of libraries today, their history, and the role they play in today's society other than merely housing books. Orlean's fondness for libraries is evident and, like a child asked to cull items from his favorite toy collection, I can understand how reducing the number of topics she chose and the depth with which she went into them would be difficult. Despite all the nuggets of wisdom I gleaned from this book, it seemed to go on and on (like this blog post, I fear). The research was excellent, in depth, detailed but, despite the length of this review, I would rate it only two stars in my system. My ratings are typically more a reflection of my short term memory and enjoyment level. Two stars means "Ok, not great; some redeeming features; I finished it". I felt like at points I trudged through this book and so cannot in good conscience recommend it to others. I learned a lot and tried to capture salient points in this post so I can recall them. I am inspired however, and I firmly resolve, next time I am in Southern California, to visit the Los Angeles Central Library. I want to stand in that glorious rotunda of the Goodhue Building and look up. Maybe some knowledge will soak into me by osmosis as Goodhue wanted.

Ponder: Four Children's Books

Here it is the beginning of August and my tab in my Wander Or Ponder blog of Books Read in 2019 is only eight books long. At this rate I am far short of my 24 books a year goal. Before I feel too contrite, I can state that I have been reading books –  just not getting around to reviewing them in my blog. Book reviews seem less time critical than travel posts and I have been quite busy so far in 2019. Trips to South Carolina, Georgia, Florida (April posts) North Carolina (May Posts), and Oklahoma (July posts).  I will pad my page of 2019 reads by adding four children's books I found particularly good, especially since I got to read at least half of them to grandkids in Oklahoma (amongst other books in their copious collection). Then I will work on reviewing my backlog of adult books I have read.

Waving Girl by J.B. Nicholas ©2004 is based on the true story of Flora Martus who waved to all the ships that passed by the lighthouse near Savannah Georgia. Personally, I find it more difficult to get engaged in non-fiction than fiction so this was a beautiful book to tell a part of history accompanied by very soft beckoning illustrations throughout. I tell the story behind the book and the statue associated with Flora Martus in my 4/9/19 post about our time in Savannah. Autumn turns 7 in October and she was just the right age and gender for it. As children literature I give it three stars because of perhaps a limited audience. Not to be sexist, but research has shown that girls are perfectly happy to read books about boys but boys are not always so happy to read books about girls.

Superpower Dogs by Cosmic ©2019 was purchased at the Tech Museum in San Jose when we went to see the IMAX Movie of the same name on Mother's Day. I posted about the movie on 5/22/19. I took the book out to Oklahoma for Isaiah and Autumn who are very much into Superheroes. Robin reports back that Isaiah likes his dad to read this book to him often. It is a big hit. It is not very long but the photography is awesome and moreover it is a non-fiction book that holds the child's (and adults') interest. I give it five stars.

Extremely popular with Autumn and Isaiah was Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Mix & Match Hardcover by Harper Benjamin ©2015. Per the Amazon description:

Captain Phasma, Kylo Ren, Poe, Rey, and Finn are featured in this book that blends spectacular action with three-panel pages to create confounding combinations! Mix and match the heads, bodies, and legs more than 200 different ways to create crazy mash-ups between the Resistance and the First Order!

I started by explaining to them that this book could be read two ways. The first way is that the pages are turned three at a time – first Isaiah does the top third, then Autumn does the middle third, and finally Grandma does the bottom third. This method is great for practicing taking turns but it does get boring after the second read through. 

Then the fun begins. We each take a turn  flipping a page but can flip more than one in the top, middle, or bottom third. The kids found the resulting character combination and story positively hilarious. As the clueless reader (aka Grandma), I truly failed to see the humor because I did not know the characters. For those equally ignorant as me: Captain Phasma and Kylo Ren are the bad guys, members of the First Order who command the stormtroopers (army of the bad guys). On the side of the good guys are Poe, an X-wing fighter for the Resistance, Rey, a female metal scavenger with her own dilapidated ship, and Finn, a reformed stormtrooper. Apparently seeing an elite First Order Captain collecting trash is cause for uproarious laughter and giggling. This book, bought at the The Tech Museum in San Jose was certainly a dark horse for success with Autumn and Isaiah. I defer to their immense enjoyment and rate this book five stars.

When Robin and Dan were small, My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannet ©1948 was the first chapter book I read to them. This book is fantastic and I have always loved it. I enjoyed reading it to my eldest granddaughter Autumn during our most recent Oklahoma visit and I look forward to sharing it with other grandchildren as they get of chapter book age.

Autumn was truly engaged in following along on a map the path the hero Elmer takes on Wild Island and delighted in the creative solutions Elmer devises to deal with the dangerous animals that live there. Braiding a lion's untamable mane as shown on the front cover is just one example. Giving a rhinoceros a tooth brush to clean his yellowed tusk is another.

As Elmer eats and picks more tangerines, Autumn loved showing off her addition and subtraction skills. I tutor reading English at our public library and my adult Chinese learner was also entertained and eager to read on. My Father's Dragon is a real page turner at the most elementary level. It is a children's book but do not let that stop you from reading it! I give it five stars, most definitely!

I recall having old tattered copies of My Father's Dragon (and its two sequels) out on the shelves in our garage. For a while I believe the trilogy was out of print so I hung onto them dearly. They apparently made a comeback. The book I took to Oklahoma to read to Autumn was a library copy. I could not understand the temporary scarcity since it is both a Newbery Honor Book and an American Library Association Notable Book; but I learned from Wikipedia that its copyright was not renewed and now it is a part of public domain.  In the United States Public domain is explained per Wikipedia as

... every book and tale published prior to 1924 is in the public domain; American copyrights last for 95 years for books written between 1924 and 1978.

I wonder what happened after 1978? Per the

 

U.S. Copyright Office

As a general rule, for works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years.

I was still confused as to being in teh public public domain entails. Amazon still sells these books and someone must be reaping the profit. Per the Stanford University Libraries article on copyright and fair use

The term “public domain” refers to creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws. The public owns these works, not an individual author or artist. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission, but no one can ever own it.

So I learned about copyright from my frivolous ponder post on children's books. The implications of being in "public domain" still confuse me somewhat, however. Sigh. It does not really matter since My Father's Dragon is still accessible. Of the four books reviewed in this post, Waving Girl, Superpower Dogs, Star Wars Mix and Max, and My Father's Dragon, My Father's Dragon is still my absolute favorite and not to be missed.