Supporting Your Local Library

Most public libraries in the U.S. aren't nearly this huge.
Many are under-funded and in danger of being forgotten.

Those of you who aren't aware of the greatness that is Maureen Johnson's twitter account probably missed the great conversations she had with her followers yesterday. Basically, Maureen asked her followers (specifically the ones who are librarians) to give some advice on how the average person can support their local library.

I found each of the suggestions quite helpful and I wanted to share them with others who might need some new ideas on how to help a library near you. Let's do our best to show our support for libraries everywhere!

Here are the tweets that started off the conversation:

Maureen Johnson (MJ): I LOVE it when people take my book from the library. Money should never be a barrier to reading. There is a net gain when libraries are used.

MJ: I have a question for librarians: what are the best ways the AVERAGE PERSON can support the library? #longlivethelibrary

And the awesome responses:

Marie R.: @maureenjohnson 1)USE the library! 2) tell local politicians how important you think your library is 3) USE THE LIBRARY SOME MORE.

Jake Rideout: @maureenjohnson Aside from money? Check out books you want to keep on shelves. Attend events to keep programs going. Donate books to sales.

Sara Roberts: @maureenjohnson Use the library! Numbers matter. Check out books, movies, etc. Come to programs.

Jennifer Anne: @maureenjohnson But be nice to your librarian. Often staff, Salary, and benefits are cut before cuts are made to things public

MJ: All librarians saying USE the library. Good numbers matter to keeping the doors open! GO IN! CHECK OUT BOOKS! #longlivethelibrary

ClaraCharlotte: @maureenjohnson I personally financed the new wing of the Hamburg library by consistently paying late-fees ;) #longlivethelibrary

MRHS Library: @maureenjohnson Don't go around proliferating the stereotype of dust-ladened shelves and grey-bun shshhhing...today's library is keeping up!

Angie Manfredi: and talk about the library not only to politicians but to everyone - be "did you know/isn't this cool" for your library.

Lisa Bunker: One thing we need is a Dumbledore's Army of citizenry who understand what a #library offers in TODAY's world. Not the nostalgia.

I love hearing ideas on how to support libraries. I am a firm believer in the immense benefit they have on our communities and our society as a whole. Personally, books and school libraries are what helped me survive my elementary through high school years (ESPECIALLY my middle school years *cringe*). I want to do whatever I can to extend the wonderful benefits of a good library to whomever I can.

Maureen Johnson: author, adventurer, and all-around
awesome person.

And if you're not already following her on Twitter, Maureen Johnson show's she's not just a great novel writer -- she's also a lot of fun and very entertaining. Her handle is @maureenjohnson. Go check her out immediately . . . and don't forget to visit your library when you're done.

#longlivethelibrary

Conversations on Writing Fiction by Alexander Neubauer

"I think we can begin from the assumption that storytelling is vital to human health. It gives us workable metaphors for our lives." -Clarence Major


In Conversations On Writing Fiction, Alexander Neubauer gives us thirteen interviews he conducted with thirteen fiction writers that also happen to teach fiction writing. The result is an anthology of teachers who know what they're doing, spilling their tactics on how to encourage those who are trying to do something or achieve more with their writing. Each of these teachers comes from a different background, touts a different writing/teaching style, and comes at the writing of fiction from a completely different angle.

I had a little trouble getting through this book, but not because the material was particular disinteresting or difficult. For the most part, I really enjoyed it. I simply tend to have trouble following through with collections of separate works. For some reason, they always take me much longer than other types of books.

Even still, I feel like this book had a lot to offer on the front of improving my writing. I always enjoy learning from a new perspective, particularly when it comes to a subject I love as much as writing. The different perspectives were extremely helpful and gives the reader the opportunity to see each part of the idea of fiction in a new light.

I would suggest this book to anyone who wants to be a writer/teach writing, particularly anyone who might be thinking about taking classes or workshops in that area of study. It covers different methods of teaching that would be beneficial for particular students and is a good place to start when considering what one must do to improve their own work.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥


"Writing is like working out; you have to build up to your capacity and then go beyond that. And you have to keep doing that, again and again." -John Irving

Book by Book by Michael Dirda

At any age, but especially in childhood, books can transform lives . . . And what children behold, they become.


Yet again I've stumbled upon a book from the library that I literally have to buy as soon as I have the funds to do so. Barring Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable (which I am still currently in the process of reading), this is the book I have written out the most notes for in my book journal. It spans quite a few pages.

I'm a big fan of books that tout the importance of reading. I clearly love to read and I want to be a published author in the near future. Therefore, it follows that I very much enjoy examining this fascination I have for books and the way they really can change lives. Stop What You're Doing And Read This! was just that sort of book and I knew Book by Book would be quite similar.

It was even better.

Michael Dirda is a masterful critic and wordsmith in his own right. He begins by explaining his own passion for books and learning, how it was fostered at an early age and has continued to grow every day of his life. He explains that this book is, in essence, a collection of advice and life lessons gleaned from the pages of books and their authors, mostly concerning reading but also expanding to general advice for life in and of itself.

Everything about Book by Book was wonderful. Dirda has a poetic touch to his words and has become the type of teacher he touts as the best -- they type whose passion for what they teach inspires that passion in others. I may already have such a passion, yet even still, my passion seemed to feed off of his, giving me even more excitement for the topic at hand.

I would suggest this book for anyone who loves to read or is just curious as to why reading is so important. I assuredly benefited from the information I found in this small volume and I hope you will do the same. I'm sure it won't be long before I'm poring through this book a second time.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 


But it is impossible to read serious novels, poetry, essays, and biographies without also growing convinced that they gradually enlarge our minds, refine our spirits, make us more sensitive and understanding. In this way, the humanities encourage the development of our own humanity.

Patterning Works

I'm currently in the midst of reading Book by Book by Michael Dirda, basically a book written about the importance of reading and how books and learning change our lives. Look forward to the review of it soon. In the meantime, I wanted to share a particularly interesting passage at the beginning of Dirda's book. It is essentially a list of books one ought to read in order to have a good grasp of world literature and a firm foundation in one's reading.

I have already read some of these, but there are plenty here that I haven't arrived at just yet. Rest assured, they are now being taken into consideration when it comes to books I need to read in the near future.

Anyway, here's the passage. You may do with it what you will:

What should a person know of the world's literature? It has always seemed obvious to me that the great patterning works ought to lie at the heart of any structured reading program. By "patterning works" I mean those that later authors regularly build on, allude to, work against. There aren't that many of these key books, and they aren't all obvious classics. Here's a roughly chronological short list of those that the diligent might read through in a year or two. For such famous works you can hardly go wrong with any good modern editions, though for the Bible the Authorized, or King James, Version is the one that has most influenced the diction and imagery of English Prose.

The Bible (Old and New Testament)

Bulfinch's Mythology (or any other accounts of the Greek, Roman, and Norse myths)

 Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey

Plutarch, Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans

Dante, Inferno

The Arabian Nights

Thomas Malory, Le Morte D'Arthur (tales of King Arthur and his knights)

Shakespeare's major plays, especially Hamlet, Henry IV, Part One, King Lear, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Tempest

Cervantes, Don Quixote

Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

The fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen

Any substantial collection of the world's major folktales

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 

Stop What You're Doing and Read This!

"And imaginary though it was -- a world invented by poets and novelists -- it was as real to her as the world from which she was escaping. In fact, the books were less a wall than a ladder. By reading them, and learning from them, and then flourishing academically at school, she climbed up and away to freedom." -Blake Morrison

Stop What You're Doing and Read This! is an wonderfully composed collection of essays on the importance of reading. Ten intriguing literary minds each hash out what exactly is so great about reading, why we as humans need stories, why literature is such a great foundation to healthy society.

Crafting their ideas with a literary expertise I found both intellectually stimulating and visually stunning, each of these writers gives explicit reasoning one can't easily dismiss on why reading is such a great opportunity and why, in a world rife with technology, it's sometimes better to just sit down and read a book.

As an avid reader and aspiring author, I found each new essay truly inspiring. Never have I been so excited not only to read, but to write as well. I've known for years that reading was important. It's always been a huge part of my life and the way I live it, but even so, I know I couldn't have explained why as beautifully and exquisitely as each of these essays did.

I would recommend it to anyone who values reading or wants to realize its full value.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥


"Reading is primarily a symptom. Of a healthy imagination, of our interest in this and other worlds, of our ability to be still and quiet, of our ability to dream during daylight." -Mark Haddon