Book Chase

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The Walnut Creek, California, Mother and Daughter Book Club is about to close its doors after a remarkable ten-year run.  Amazingly enough, the book club is only breaking up at all because the “daughters” part of the equation is moving on to college in just a few weeks.

The Walnut Creek-based book club met recently to review all the book club picks and reminisce experiences over the past decade. Books from the “American Girl” series were among the group’s first choices before they soon graduated toward young-adult novels, their themes ranging from lighthearted to serious. As the girls matured, so did the book picks, Allison said.

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“In middle school, when our daughters would not sit with us one-on-one to talk about sex, drugs, friendships, confidence, or values; they talked endlessly about those issues in book club. Through books, we helped our girls navigate these hard years, and made sure they heard our opinions and perspectives, as well as those outside their comfort zone. We made sure the girls knew they had five other moms, and that if for some reason, they couldn’t turn to their own, they had one of us.”

The book club was a safe haven for these mothers and their daughters, a neutral site where they could discuss all those “growing up” topics in a nonjudgemental setting.  These young women and their mothers will remember the Mother and Daughter Book Club for the rest of their lives – and well they should.  What a great idea…what a great story.

The whole story can be found here at MercuryNews.com.  Please take a look.

>Once again, a child leads the way.  One little boy in Dalton, Georgia, decided that it would be nice to have a bookstore in his hometown – and he decided to do something about it.

According to PRWeb.com:

Charlie got the idea to write a letter to Books-A-Million, the nation’s third-largest book chain, after his parents told him one night they didn’t have time to drive to the store’s nearest location 30 miles away. His mom, Jody, told his third-grade teacher Debbie Reynolds about his plan. Reynolds moved up her persuasive writing lesson and encouraged her students to write letters to the CEO of Books-A-Million. By Thanksgiving, about 500 letters written by students in the Dalton Public School system landed on Anderson’s desk, begging him to open a Books-A-Million store at the local Walnut Square Mall.


On December 3rd, Anderson made a surprise appearance in Reynold’s classroom and announced that a Books-A-Million store would be opening, hopefully in time for the holidays. Anderson sealed his promise by giving each child a $25 gift card to the new store.

Charlie officially becomes the store’s first customer

But that was just the beginning.  Charlie and some of his classmates were part of the store’s official grand opening on December 18 when they probably took advantage of all those $25 gift cards.  Books-A-Million must have worked at record speed to get this location opened before Christmas, so here’s hats off to them for what they did for Charlie, his school, and the citizens of Dalton.  After all, how can anyone live 30 miles from the nearest bookstore?  That’s too horrible to contemplate. 

Thanks to Books-A-Million and to Charlie and his teacher for this just-in-time-for-Christmas feel-good story.

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As I continue my six-month fight of good vs. evil (have no doubt, I represent good in this battle) I am always on the lookout for “feel-good” stories to cheer myself up a bit.  And tonight, I think I found another one in the Charleston Post and Courier:

Sixth-grader Alec Robinovitz sat in a hospital clinic waiting room with his sick younger sister and his mother several years ago.

 There was nothing to do while they waited, he said, and the children in the room looked scared.


 The incident inspired him to help other sick children by collecting some gently used children’s books from family members and friends and donating them to the pediatric clinics at the Medical University of South Carolina.     [...]


The siblings, who attend East Cooper Montessori Charter School, delivered this year’s collection of books Monday, boosting the total books they’ve donated over the past four years to more than 10,000.


“People just started giving us books,” said Alec, who’s now 11 years old.

I know it’s a corny thing to say, but it’s true: anyone can make a difference. (Unfortunately, my evil opponent knows it works both ways.)

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I blame it on all the wives and mothers out there.  You know how it goes, guys.  Sooner or later your wife gets tired of dealing with all your “stuff,” and she starts to pressure you into getting rid of some of it.  So you dump a little of your lesser stuff, not the good stuff, but it still hurts.  And then it happens again.  And then again.  One day you realize your good stuff is gone – all those comic books and  baseball cards you accumulated as a kid are history.  If you were lucky, you picked up a few bucks in the process; if not, you gave everything to nephews and neighborhood kids that are going to destroy it all in a few months time.

Of course, none of that happened if your mother convinced you to give your stuff to your young cousins before you even had a wife to make those kind of decisions for you.  How many guys have come home from college or, as in my case, the military, to find their collectibles gone?

The Sacramento Bee has the story of one man who did manage to hang onto a comic book he paid 10 cents for in 1939.  But this was not just any comic book; it is an almost perfect copy of “Detective Comics #27,” the very first comic book in which Batman appeared, and it sold at a November 18 Dallas auction for an astounding $492,937.

Irwin, who traveled to Dallas with his wife and son to attend the live auction, will make roughly $400,000, once the auction house subtracts its commission fee.


Irwin said he planned to celebrate with dinner in Dallas before returning home today.


He intends to use the bulk of the money from the auction to pay off the mortgage on his Granite Bay home.


“At my age, I’d rather be free and clear so that I don’t have to owe anyone anything,” said Irwin.

Seriously, folks. Think about the odds against something like this happening.  In 1939, a 13-year-old boy hands a dime to a Sacramento newsstand and takes a comic book featuring a new superhero home with him.  Some 71 years later, that same boy, now an 84-year-old man, sells that very same Batman comic book for almost half a million dollars.   His mother and wife/wives must have been slackers.  (Just kidding, ladies.)

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Luann is on the right track…join her?

It’s not too late.  You can still give “Books for Treats” tomorrow night if you participate in the whole Halloween thing.  Now, I’m not saying that you will not have a record number of tricks pulled on you if you do hand out books rather than candy.  So, reader beware.

Take a look at this website and you’ll learn all you need to know about why so many people are starting to give books instead of candy.  Maybe not for you this year, but think about it for next year.

Books feed children’s minds, while candy only feeds their cavities. Books encourage children to read, and parents to read with them and/or ask them about their books. Many children rarely receive books as gifts, so even gently read books are special treats.

[...]

Do you recycle? If so, do you think it is a lot of work? No. You believe in supporting the planet by recycling materials so they don’t go into the landfill. Books For Treats takes a little more time than buying a giant bag of candy, but if you believe that you can help turn Halloween from a cavity-, obesity-, diabeties-contributing holiday into one that shows that society cares about our children, then it’s worth the extra effort.


Giving books instead of candy shows kids you care about them and are encouraging them to read. This not only helps raise their interest in reading, but raises their feeling that the community cares about their future.

I’m not kidding myself into believing that giving out books instead of candy on Halloween will ever become the new normal. But, if enough of us are willing to be a bit different, we can do some good.  Let’s help create a new generation of lifetime readers.

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One thing many of us have in common is the time, effort, and money we’ve invested in building our own home libraries.  We build them, we enjoy them, and then we leave this world without taking any of those wonderful books with us.  Have you ever wondered what will happen to your collection one day?  Is there anyone in your family that cares about books the way you care?  Will anyone in the family even have the space needed to keep all your books together.

Here’s a cautionary tale from The Columbus Dispatch:

Walker Lowman’s beloved collection of 6,500 books – about the same number that Congress purchased from the third president in 1815 – is being scattered all over town.


“He would probably not be very happy right now that his collection is being broken up,” said daughter Karen West, 57.


While helping appraiser Jeff Baker organize the contents of Lowman’s Upper Arlington home in advance of an estate sale starting today, the Northwest Side resident shared reminiscences this week about her father – who died in January at age 85.

[...]

The siblings did what they could to keep things intact, dividing about 1,000 books among them. The rest were offered to the OSU Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, which selected about 200 – many of them first editions signed by their authors.


“Nobody in the family had room for 6,000 books in their home,” West said of the decision to donate and sell the remainder.

Mr. Lowman’s children are doing everything possible to do what is right with their father’s lifetime collection, but there is only so much anyone can do when faced with the sudden burden of finding a home for more than 6,000 books.

Is this something we, as collectors and book lovers, should take care of before we leave this world for our next gig?  Should we find future homes for our books and leave written instructions for those left with the task of cleaning up behind us?  It’s certainly something to think about and I might just start placing little name tags inside the books I want to see kept in the family – as a start to easing the burden on my own family.  Another thing I need to do is to prepare a list of which of my books have some extra value so that they don’t get lost in the shuffle.  Just what I need…another bookish project.

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Guest Blogger Mark Shapiro

14 of the more than 450 books in Mark’s collection

Freda and Mark Shapiro

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1899 First Edition, First State

Almost four years ago (January 2007), I spotted a story about a collector of all things Wizard of Oz that absolutely fascinated me.  I posted about Mark Shapiro and his Oz books back then in what was only the 14th posting I had yet made here on Book Chase (Lions and Tigers and Books, Oh My).  Now, almost 1400 posts and four years later, I have the opportunity to update my original thoughts.

I’ve exchanged a few emails with Mark in the last couple of weeks, emails in which Mark was kind enough to include pictures of a tiny portion of his collection.  Based on what I’ve seen and on what I have read about Mark’s collection on the net, I have to believe that his personal collection of L. Frank Baum material has to rank as one of the finest of its type in the world.

Mark, 64 years of age, has been collecting L. Frank Baum books and related material for some 38 years now, but his collecting bug probably can be traced all the way back to the childhood days he spent with his mother touring museums and libraries.  As you can see from the pictures, Mark has combined the best of both those worlds by becoming a first rate collector of rare books and related material, and displaying his finds in a museum-like setting.  He is building his collection in the spirit of his mother, whom he lost in 1998 at age 83, and sees it as a way of continuing to honor her memory.

Mark now has over 450 first edition Baum books but he is particularly excited about his 1899 Wizard of Oz, “B” binding with “O” outside the “C” on the book’s spine.  Mark has 15 first edition, first state copies of Wizard and 5 of them are of the rarer “B” binding (out of only 2000 printed).

Despite the already massive size of his collection, Mark continues to find new items through private purchases, eBay auctions, garage sales and swap meets. The man is forever on the chase.

Illustration by William Wallace Denslow

Best Book Case Ever

>Regular readers here will already know how much I love stories like the one I’m featuring here – another one about an avid reader whose memory will be celebrated by future readers thanks to the efforts of someone who loved him.

(Washington Post photo shows Susan Kamins giving books to Gabriela Miner at Whetstone Elementary School.)

This time around, the story comes via The Washington Post:

Even before he could read, Aaron Kamins was fascinated with books. Kamins was 21 when he died of cancer two years ago, and his mother is keeping his memory alive at Whetstone Elementary School by helping spread his love of reading.

Susan Kamins, a kindergarten teacher at the Montgomery Village school, collected more than 600 books and distributed two to every student March 4 in honor of what would have been her son’s 23rd birthday.

“I wanted to do something to commemorate him, and he always loved books and reading,” said Kamins, of Germantown.

[...]

“It’s the best dream come true, because now I have my own Nancy Drew book that I can read whenever I want,” said Jeeva Thaivalappil, 10, of Montgomery Village, after carefully choosing her books. Paola Flores, 6, of Montgomery Village, was excited to read her books because “I like to imagine,” she said. “You can do anything.”

I’ve probably said it before, but I really can’t think of a better tribute to a book lover – or one that will do more practical good. The beauty of something like this is its potential to create a handful of new readers, readers that might have otherwise never existed. Love it…even if their future holds only e-books rather than real ones.

>As more cities across the country desperately seek ways to slash budgets, it seems that municipal and county libraries are getting hit especially hard in the process. The excuse often given for chopping library budgets is that fewer and fewer citizens use their services. Unfortunately, this becomes a self-fullfilling prophecy: cut funds, put fewer books and DVDs on the shelves, fewer people will show up. Well, duh.

One little girl in Hull, Massachusetts, has had enough of this nonsense and she is fighting back. According to Boston.com, sixth-grader Calliope Pina Parker came up with a plan to raise some cash for the library, even to rallying some local politicians to help her out:

Calliope is also an avid user of libraries, borrowing books from across the region and frequenting branches throughout the South Shore on her way to and from school, ballet, and karate practice. So it came as a particular blow when cuts in Hull not only sheared the library’s budget and hours but also cost the town its state certification last month.

“Now people from Hull can’t go to any other library,” said Calliope, whose library card is no longer welcome in most other communities.

[...]

Today she organized an all-day “readathon” of the J.K. Rowling book that started it all, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” to raise awareness about the situation and money for the nonprofit group that supports the library.

Calliope, a student at the South Shore Charter Public School in Norwell, found a location, publicized the event through e-mail, fliers, and phone calls, and organized a network of readers that extended well beyond her circle of friends.

The schedule of participants, stretching across three poster sheets at the Weir River Estuary Center, included the names of two selectmen, allowed readers to go at their own pace — some took a page, some half a chapter — and provided flexibility for drop-ins.

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To maintain certification with the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners — which enables local residents to borrow more broadly and allows a library to receive state aid and grants — a community must meet a number of requirements for library spending and operating hours, based on population and past funding.

Cities and towns that fail to meet the minimums can seek a waiver, and 97 of them applied this year, nearly four times the number last year and higher than at any time in the last two decades. The board last month granted them all waivers except Hull, because the library was a singled out for a cut 58 percent greater than other departments in Hull’s budget.

There you have it. Sometimes it takes a child to remind adults what is important. Well done, Calliope.

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What better tribute can a person whose life has been defined by a love of books receive than something like this?

Tina McElroy Ansa, who lost her mother last week, celebrates her life in this special Macon.com piece:

One of the first memories I have of my mother is of her sitting in her pink reading chair in the living room with a hard book in her hand. At age 5 or so, I’d come running up to show her something I’d found out in the yard.

She would stop, look me in the face and say softly yet sternly, “Not now, baby. Mama’s reading.” Then she would go back to her book.

I would stomp off for a couple of minutes, probably seconds, and return with the same request, “Hey, Mama, look at this leaf I found. Smell it!”

She would put the book down in her lap again, her manicured finger holding her page, and patiently, slowly repeat her rule.

“Not now, baby. Mama’s reading.”

And I would storm off again, wondering what magic was there in between the pages of those books. Because of my mother, I soon discovered that magic.

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My mother fed us wonderful books in just the way she fed us fried Silver Queen corn in summer and chitlins and rich vegetable soup in winter.

This sharing of books was our family practice initiated by my mother until her death. While I was on the road promoting my books, I was always on the lookout for books I know she would enjoy. My friend Blanche, a bookstore owner in the San Francisco Bay area who made friends with my mother when Mama and her childhood friend, Aunt Mary, joined me on book tour there, made sure all the really good authors who came through her stores signed copies of their books for Mama. Just weeks ago, one of Mama’s granddaughters shared the memoir of Diahann Carroll with her, and they discussed it over the phone.

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My mother gave me words. My writing taught compassion. My mother died. Fifty thousand Haitians are killed. And I know how it feels to mourn for all of them and each of them.

Universally and specifically.

Avid readers already know how books can positively shape a person’s character and life in ways that non-readers will never enjoy. Nellie McElroy understood that. She dearly loved books and reading and she gifted successive generations of her family with that same love, in the process creating new readers that are likely to think of her every time they open the covers of a new book. How great is this?

>Do you have time for a nice Christmas story? This one is about a little girl and the parents who miss her; it’s about books and book people; and it’s about making a difference.

Joe and Carole Hemmelgarn, of Colorado, lost their almost-10-year-old daughter to acute lymphoma leukemia about three years ago. Alyssa, a fourth-grader was an avid reader, sometimes going through two or three books a week. Her great love of books was one of the things that made her a special little girl, and her parents honor Alyssa’s passion today by handing out thousands of free books in her memory.

From the Denver Post:

Her parents grieved hard for more than a year. And in recalling their daughter, they shared stories of her love of books, how she devoured them often at a rate of two or three a week.

They soon started the Alyssa Cares Foundation, registered alyssacares.org and began soliciting donations to purchase books. A year and a half later, the Highlands Ranch couple has distributed for free close to 8,000 children’s books to low-income students at four schools in Aurora and Denver.

They gave a book to each of the 408 children at Paris Elementary, where 94 percent are eligible for reduced-fee or free school meals. The couple now has at least 50 copies of 103 different titles.

“It is a way to keep Alyssa alive in a lot of ways,” Carole Hemmelgarn, 45, said. “We want to pass along a gift she was given, her love of reading.”

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Many of the kids hug her (Carole). She hugs them back. It is why the foundation is just the two of them. The point, she said, is that they be at the schools, telling their story. After each child makes a selection, she slides the book and an orange bookmark into an orange bag, Alyssa’s favorite color. She then asks each child to share the story with her when she returns, blinking hard to keep her tears at bay. “As long as there are tears and emotions,” Carole Hemmelgarn explains later, “I feel like Alyssa is not slipping away, you know? “I don’t care if I cry. I still love her so much.”

Book people are special people. They prove it to me almost every day.

If you would like to help, please go to this link for the Alyssa Cares Foundation. Thanks.

>Lisa Roe, better known in the book-blogging world as The Online Publicist, has come up with a wonderful idea to honor the memory of a lady whose sudden death was a shock to all of us a few months ago. Dewey was a “community organizer” in the best sense of that phrase – she could have taught those who abuse that job title a whole lot about what is right and what is wrong in the world.

Lisa suggests that Dewey’s fellow book-bloggers gather up a few of those hundreds of books we all have sitting around the house and pass them on to others in honor of what Dewey meant to our community. Details and suggestions can be found on Lisa’s website, so please take a look there and help make this project a huge success.

Let’s make sure that Dewey’s good work continues forever. Thanks, guys.

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It’s time for another feel-good story and this time around it comes all the way from the little English village known as Westbury-sub-Mendip. It seems that the villagers have adopted one of those old British phone booths, the reds one everyone remembers from the day when phones weren’t carried in our pockets. But it’s what they’ve done with it that is so cool.

They’ve created the U.K.’s smallest library. Actually, it’s a village book exchange, but, hey, that’s close enough for me – maybe even better. Details come from Mail Online:

Villagers rallied together to set up the book box after their mobile library service was cancelled.

It has really taken off,’ Parish councillor Bob Dolby told The Guardian.

‘Turnover is rapid and there’s a good range of books, everything from reference books to biographies and blockbusters.’

The phone box library is open every day for 24 hours and is lit at night. There is a regular check on it to see if some titles are not moving. These are then shipped on to a charity shop to keep the phone box collection fresh.

As someone who has started book exchanges in locations ranging from Algeria’s Sahara Desert to the tallest office towers in Houston, I have to applaud these guys. Well done, folks.

>I was hoping to find something today that would be a nice contrast to yesterday’s downer about the 12 thieves caught stealing $140,000 worth of textbooks from several Maryland libraries. I never expected to find something as perfect as this story, however.

According to Kentucky.com, sixty-four-year-old Jim Davis of Sheperdsville, KY, is in a desperate race against the clock to collect and donate 100,000 books to Kentucky libraries before his personal battle with cancer makes it impossible for him to continue.

…he was touched by a Kentucky Educational Television program about two months ago decrying the disproportionate number of high school dropouts in some Eastern Kentucky counties as well as the increase in teen pregnancies and soaring use of illegal drugs.

“If we don’t do something now to keep kids in school and give them a good education, this whole country is going to hell in a hand basket,” Davis said.

He contacted Bullitt County Public Schools and churches in that area, asking people to help him collect 100,000 books for libraries that needed them. He asked for textbooks, reference books, children’s books, anything people had on their shelves collecting dust but not enhancing minds.

[...]

Davis saw that KET documentary while recovering from rounds of radiation and chemotherapy for cancers found in his brain, lungs and hip in January.

“The doctors gave me a year to 18 months to live,” he said.

But the treatment sent the cancers into remission, he said. Follow-up CT and PET scans, however, found cancer in his neck, lower spine and stomach, he said.

[...]

Davis estimates he and others have collected 50,000 books. That’s halfway to his goal.

Although he plans to be in Powell County on Monday, “I’m not doing this for that,” he said. “This is something I can do before I’m gone.”

A lot of people, including the Barnes & Noble folks, are working to help Mr. Davis meet his goal but he’s only half way there. If anyone out there is interested in getting books to Kentucky on his behalf, please call (502) 428-6029 for details.

>Well, it seems that Maury County (Tennessee) Library patrons are going to have to use their imaginations a little more than they thought they would when they went to the library for something to read. The library is being victimized by a mystery censor with a big blue pen and a tiny little mind who is marking out all the “offensive” words in those library books.

MercuryNews.com has the details (what there are of them):

Officials believe the same person has used a blue pen to censor words in between 50 and 100 books during the past several months.

Library Director Elizabeth Potts said most of the books are mystery novels, but the vandal also targeted the “9/11 Commission Report.”

Potts said no one is forced to read the books and “if they don’t like them, they should just return them.”

Potts said the library doesn’t have the money to replace the damaged books, so patrons will to have to use their imagination to guess what the blotted out words are.

If this wasn’t so stupid, it would be funny. I am so sick of all the nannies out there who think they know better what’s good for me than I do. Come on, library system, nab this fool before more books are destroyed.

>Nina Sankovitch is my new book-blogging hero – heck, even the New York Times is impressed with what Nina has challenged herself to do and how well she is getting it done.

What’s she doing? Well, how about reading a book every day and writing about each book on her blog? Those of us who have been at this thing for a while know how high a mountain Nina is climbing because most of us are happy to break 100 books and book reviews a year (a milestone I reached this past Sunday, by the way).

According to the Times:

Last Oct. 28, on her 46th birthday, Nina Sankovitch read a novel, “The Elegance of the Hedgehog,” by Muriel Barbery. The next day she posted a review online deeming it “beautiful, moving and occasionally very funny.”

And that’s how it started.

[...]

In a time-deprived world, where book reading is increasingly squeezed off the page, it is hard to know what’s most striking about Ms. Sankovitch’s quest, now on Day 350, to read a book every day for a year and review them on her blog.

[...]

There were a few close calls — Christmas, for example, when she did not start reading until 10 p.m. She has household help for a day every other week, and it doesn’t hurt that the family is comfortable economically or that the household, now in full Halloween mode, seems to have a suburban Glass family quality. Peter, her 16-year-old, is reading Pynchon; the 14-year-old, Michael, reads Ayn Rand and political screeds like those by Al Franken; and asked what kind of books he likes to read, George, the 11-year-old, replied, “Long books.”

I love the thought that the New York Times is showing a little love to a fellow book blogger, so let’s return the love by reading the whole article (see the link highlighted, above).

And, best of all, here’s the link to Nina’s blog. I’m adding her to my blog roll to see what she does on day 365 and, even more intriguingly, on day 366. Check her out.

>One woman in Scotland has set what seems like an unbreakable record for the number of library books checked out in a lifetime – without ever having to pay a late fee.

Louise Brown is 91 years old now and she has been checking out about six books per week since 1946. That comes to somewhere in the neighborhood of 25,000 books and, amazingly, Louise has recently doubled her checkouts to twelve large print books every week.

From Mirror.co.uk comes the details:

She said: “My parents were great readers and I’ve always loved books.

“I started reading when I was five and have never stopped. I like anything I can get my hands on. I also like Mills & Boon for light reading at night.”

Louise is now partially sighted and so mainly opts for large prints books.

But she gets through them so quickly she has almost exhausted the supply at the public library in Stranraer, south west Scotland. Janice Goldie, of Dumfries and Galloway Libraries, said: “We are amazed at Mrs Brown’s achievements.

“When she first joined the library service, she was allowed to borrow six books a week. This has now risen to 12 and she always takes her full quota. The staff at Stranraer Library think she’s a remarkable lady and look forward to her weekly visits.”

Louise’s librarians would like to know if anyone can break her record. If you know of someone who has even come close, do let the librarians at the Stranraer Library (Scotland) know about it – but I doubt that they’re holding their breaths in anticipation.

(Photo is of Louise’s library)

>I have paid very little attention to the hoopla about Michael Jackson’s death. I was out of town the week he died, and didn’t turn on a television set for the six days I was away from home, so I managed to miss the worst of the media blitz about his tragic end. Frankly, though, I found the man to be kind of creepy and not too many years after his “Thriller” period I began to ignore him. So the last thing I thought I would be posting about today was something relating to Michael Jackson.

What caught my attention was the comment from Jackson’s lawyer, Bob Sanger, about Jackson’s reading habits and personal library.

“He loved to read. He had over 10,000 books at his house.”

[...]

“And there were places that he liked to sit, and you could see the books with his bookmarks in it, with notes and everything in it where he liked to sit and read. And I can tell you from talking to him that he had a very – especially for someone who was self-taught, as it were, and had his own reading list – he was very well-read. And I don’t want to say that I’m well-read, but I’ve certainly read a lot, let’s put it that way, and I enjoy philosophy and history and everything myself, and it was very nice to talk to him, because he was very intellectual, and he liked to talk about those things. But he didn’t flaunt it, and it was very seldom that he would initiate the conversation like that, but if you got into a conversation like that with him, he was there.”

The complete column at Seattlepi.com recounts some of Jackson’s bookstore visits and how he was known to bring a van full of kids to bookstores and let them buy whatever they wanted. I love the fact that Michael Jackson was a reader and that he saw giving books to children as something positive but my lasting impression of the man will be that of one who lived a sad and somewhat twisted existence right up to the day of his death…just another wasted life.

>Seventh grader Demarcus Porter received a special medal from his teacher at the end of the school year, a well deserved award to recognize his outstanding reading feat. (Read the whole story here at the Truman Democrat.)

Porter, a Truman, Arkansas, student read an astounding 503 books during the school year, over 50 books a month, more than a book every day of the school year.

“I knew I was going to win,” Porter said. “It gave me an excuse to read.”

His reading list included all seven books in the Harry Potter series along with Twilight and Eragon series and several graphic novels in the Narto series to name a few.

He even read a history of China which he said was about “three inches thick.”

Porter said he got most of the books from the school library but also would find a good comfortable chair to read in whenever he was at Barnes and Noble in Jonesboro.

“They have a little section there where you can read books,” Porter said. “I’d read my favorites there.”

Porter said he enjoys all types of books but especially likes history and old joke books the best and stories with a moral point to them.

Apparently, Demarcus is also an athlete and he will be spending his summer getting into football shape, costing him some reading time, but he plans to keep his mind in shape at the same time by continuing to be a regular reader.

Congratulations, Demarcus. You have a bright future ahead of you, young man.

>From ChinaDaily comes a story about a man who loves books more than anything else in the world. I hope Chinese authorities cut the guy a little slack.

A man who was arrested for trying to steal books in Chongqing municipality confessed on Monday that he stole 1,565 books in the last three years.

Surnamed Liu, he said he felt his crime was just a bad habit but the hobby costs several bookstores 37,000 yuan ($5,417) in losses.

After guards stopped him on Monday, he told police he wanted to read them, not to sell them.

“I have no money but like reading very much, so I stole the books,” Liu said.

Good luck, Mr. Liu. I suspect you’re going to need it.

>I doubt that many would dispute the premise that, as a group, women have a higher percentage of avid readers than men. Just take a look at the blog rolls on any of the lit blogs you read and that fact will become pretty obvious. Male lit bloggers must be outnumbered at least 10 to 1.

But for the few doubters who might still be out there, here is a London survey that makes the point in a number of different ways (as recapped in The Hindu):

Twice as many men as women admitted that they never finish a book.

Forty-eight per cent of women can be considered to be page turners, or avid readers, compared with only 26 per cent of men.

Slow Worms are those who spend a long time reading, but who take their books very seriously and finish them. They can often manage only one or two books a year. This group was made up by 32 per cent of male respondents and 18 per cent women.

Serial Shelvers have shelves full of books that have never been opened and are not likely to be — 17 per cent of women and 20 per cent of men fall into this category.

Call me crazy, but I firmly believe that this split starts in the earliest school years and gets wider and wider all the way through university. Elementary school teachers and the parents of boys desperately need to work together to, at the least, begin to narrow this gender gap.

>It’s time for a little change of pace, something light, but meaningful to book lovers, to start the weekend. This clip, from CBS Sunday Morning, is a nice look into a world within which, I would bet, all of us would love to immerse ourselves.

“Misfits” like us?

>
Specialist Armando De La Paz Jr.

From today’s Los Angeles Times comes the unlikely story of an emotional connection between two book lovers who never met, one an 81-year-old retiree, the other a 21-year-old soldier who lost his life in Iraq:

Longshore learned of the Riverside soldier’s death through a newspaper article.

“I never met him or had any contact with him, but the story moved me deeply,” Longshore said recently. “I felt I knew him because I’m an avid reader and he too, such a young man, he was an avid reader. I felt like I’d found a kindred spirit.”

The article, which ran in the Riverside Press-Enterprise, motivated Longshore to call Scott Godwin, one of De La Paz’s teachers at Arlington High School. Longshore and Godwin spoke about Longshore’s idea to honor the young man with a high school reading program founded in De La Paz’s name.

Godwin said the idea would be a fitting tribute to De La Paz, who grew up in Riverside, because the two would visit after class to talk about literature.

“He’d come to me and say, ‘I need something a bit more challenging,’ ” Godwin said. “So I’d give him serious books, deep books. And he would just eat these big books up.”

De La Paz never failed to quickly read what Godwin threw his way: “The Color Purple,” “Kaffir Boy,” “Rain of Gold” and even a little Shakespeare.

” ‘Bless Me, Ultima’ was another he read in two days,” Godwin said. “And he understood each book, he got them, very complex stories and heavy issues.”

But in class, De La Paz was a student just like any other, keeping his interest in literature quiet.

“He never wanted to be the one answering all the questions, and he didn’t talk about the other books in class,” Godwin said. “I think he figured other kids didn’t share that love.”

The enthusiasm with which readers connect never ceases to surprise me even though I regularly see instances like this one and have experienced some wonderful ones of my own via the book blogging community. But think about this one for a minute and consider the odds against these two men, with only one thing in common, connecting in such a deep way that some good will come from the tragic death of one of the two. The power of books is amazing.

>I’ve always been of the opinion that I can leave three or four brand new hardback books on the front seats of my car, in full view of the public, in perfect safety. And, so far, I have always been right about that. After all, how many thieves are such avid readers that they’ll break into a vehicle to get their hands on forty dollars worth of books?

One California woman had the opposite experience – someone stole a bag of books from her car, and nothing else.

The victim, whose name was not released, said someone forced entry into her locked vehicle and stole a satchel containing books from inside the vehicle, the Sheriff’s Department reports.

The loss was estimated at $365.

I’m impressed – a burglar who can read…or at least knows enough about the book world to turn books into some fast cash. Looks like I need to rethink my own theory about leaving books in plain sight.

>From Press-Citizen.com (Iowa) comes the story of how one woman consistently left children’s books in the waiting areas of dentists, doctors and hospitals so discreetly that no one had a clue as to their orign. Sadly, this woman’s husband killed her and their four children on March 24, 2008 before he used his vechicle to end his own life in a car crash.

But Sheryl Kesterson Sueppel’s best friend, Kathy Benge, has come up with a wonderful way to remember Suppel and her love of children and books.

“I thought, what an appropriate idea to gather friends and family to continue that tradition,” she said.

Benge said she started the book drive Feb. 4, sending out e-mails to family and friends, including the Kesterson and the Sueppel families. Those e-mails were forwarded on two to three times and the effort grew.

“It’s been a great family experience for everybody,” she said. “It was just right up Sheryl’s alley.”

By Thursday evening, Benge said she had 1,000 books. She expected a lot more to come in by today, possibly even doubling that number by the end.

The response has been much more than Benge anticipated, she said.

“It has been very overwhelming for me,” Benge said. “I really felt, for me personally, this was the perfect thing to do.

“I thank everyone from the bottom of my heart.”

Benge said she will get together with Sueppel’s family and friends to label the inside of each book with a message about how the book is in honor of Sheryl Kesterson Sueppel.

What a tragedy that this man was compelled to take the lives of five innocents, the people closest to him in the world, before killing himself over the half million dollars he was accused of embezzling. It would be a very fine thing for Sheryl Sueppel to be remembered for the good she did rather than for her sad end, so I hope that Kathy Benge is able to turn this book drive into a town tradition…passing on Sheryl’s good deeds for many years to come.

>Some of you read so many books that you’ve probably jokingly been asked if you were born in a library. Well, two-day-old Sariah Trevino will be able to say that she really was born in a library, the Denver Central Library.

Her mother didn’t quite make it to the hospital but was lucky enough to be helped inside the library by some alert employees and delivered her daughter there without any complications. In fact, it sounds like everything went very smoothly.

Sariah and her mother
Photo: (THE DENVER POST | JOHN PRIETO)

Trevino was on her way to the hospital Tuesday, riding the “0″ bus, when she started having contractions.

A woman on the bus, who works at the hospital, noticed what was going on, Trevino recalled. She told the expectant mother to get off the bus at the library and used her cellphone to call for an ambulance.

“I tried to get to Denver Health,” Trevino said sheepishly. “I didn’t make it.”

Trevino said as she walked from the bus toward the library, she knew the baby was coming in a hurry.

“As soon as I started walking, I felt pressure,” she said.

Once inside the library, Trevino lay down on the floor and people inside, including library security, began to help. Trevino only had to push twice to deliver her baby girl.

Wouldn’t it be fun to tell your reading friends that you were born in a library?

>

Researchers now believe that Victorian novels did a whole lot more than just reflect the social mores of the time – they actually shaped those mores and contributed to human evolution. From the U.K., the Guardian offers the story:

The despicable acts of Count Dracula, the unending selflessness of Dorothea in Middlemarch and Mr Darcy’s personal transformation in Pride and Prejudice helped to uphold social order and encouraged altruistic genes to spread through Victorian society, according to an analysis by evolutionary psychologists.

Their research suggests that classic British novels from the 19th century not only reflect the values of Victorian society, they also shaped them. Archetypal novels from the period extolled the virtues of an egalitarian society and pitted cooperation and affability against individuals’ hunger for power and dominance.

…

The effect of such moralistic literature was to uphold and instil a sense of fairness and altruism in society at large, the researchers claim in the journal Evolutionary Psychology. “By enforcing these norms, humans succeed in controlling ‘free riders’ or ‘cheaters’ and they thus make it possible for genuinely altruistic genes to survive within a social group,” they write.

Now just how cool is that?

>

From the “Just When You Think You’ve Heard It All” file, England’s Northumberland Gazette offers this true story of a book thief who dares compare himself to Gandhi:

A man fined £255 for stealing a book from a shop in Gateshead has vowed not to pay it and compared his plight to that of Gandhi.

Raymond Scott, 51, was caught stealing The Cannabible Collection – worth £18.99 – and a £32 book on stone sheepfold artworks from a branch of Waterstone’s in the MetroCentre.

Speaking outside the town’s magistrates’ court, Scott said: “I am not going to pay the fine because the amount was totally inappropriate and if they want to send me to prison for non-payment then so be it.

“Was not Gandhi imprisoned by the British?” he asked reporters.

Well, I’m certainly impressed – “Free Raymond Scott, free Raymond Scott…

>

Sarah Weinman, a Los Angeles Times columnist, reads at an incredible speed, completing 462 books in 2008, in fact. I’m astounded when I hear of someone reading even 200-250 books a year, so 462 books in a single year is not a number I ever expected to hear – but the most amazing thing about that number is Sarah’s explanation of how she does it (from the Los Angeles Times):

I’ve been trying to analyze my reading method to see why I’ve almost always been able to do this (well, I started reading at the age of 2 1/2; I don’t think I was speed-reading back then, but I became aware I could read fast when I burned through eight “Sweet Valley High” books in one evening when I was about 9.) A lot of it has to do with my music background. I studied voice and piano fairly seriously during my elementary and high school days, and as such, I became very attuned to rhythm and cadence and voice. So what happens when I read is that I can “hear” the narrative and dialogue in my head, but what’s odd is that I’m both aware of the book at, say, an LP rate (33 1/3 revolutions per minute) but in my head it translates to roughly a 78. I’ve tried to slow this down, but realized that my natural reading rhythm is freakishly fast when an author friend asked me to go through the manuscript of her soon-to-be-published book for continuity errors. I sat in the La-Z-Boy at my parents’ house with a pencil, went through page by page making notes but also enjoying the book, and had the whole task done in about 3-4 hours. This was a 350-page manuscript too, so roughly 80,000 words. Take away the pencil and the editor’s hat and the reading speed would probably be close to 90 minutes. What also seems to happen is that I read a page not necessarily word by word, but by capturing pages in sequence in my head. The words and phrases appear diagonally, like I’m absorbing the text all in one gulp, and then I move on to the next sequence I can absorb by paragraph or page. It’s like I’m reading from a whole-language standpoint instead of phonics — that’s the only way I can figure out how to explain it.

The closest thing I’ve ever heard to something like this is the way a friend of mine, who has perfect pitch, describes the way she can always name the exact note she is hearing: she sees each individual note as a different color. She actually identifies each key by the consistent color she automatically visualizes in her mind every time she hears it. I’d love to have either of these talents but… of course I have neither.

>Time for a feel-good story, something we can really use amidst all the bad news that is so consistently being thrown at us twenty-four hours a day.

According to the Lake County News (California), one little girl wanted to make a difference at her local library so she raised enough money to buy eleven new children’s books for Upper Lake’s library:

Applying to Sunkist’s “Take a Stand” – its program to supply lemonade stands to community minded youth aged 7 to 12 – Miranda explained she wanted to give back to her community.

The lemonade stand arrived in late summer, after Miranda had begun her fourth grade year at Upper Lake Elementary School. Miranda asked for and received support for supplies from both Sentry Market and Hi-Way Grocery, who generously donated lemons, sugar and ice.

She also creatively handcrafted ribbon and bead bookmarks to supplement her sales and satisfy her non-thirsty patrons.

Miranda’s delicious, old-fashioned, fresh-squeezed lemonade was a satisfying surprise for those who stopped for refreshment on Sept. 13, a warm and sunny Saturday in front of the historic Upper Lake Library.

The proceeds of her effort netted $49.12 and in honor of her community spirit, the donation was matched by The Friends of the Lake County Library.

When questioned how she wanted her donation spent, Miranda emphatically responded, “More picture books and chapter books!”

This young lady’s efforts resulted in 11 new books for juvenile readers and to each book was affixed a special bookplate honoring its benefactor.

Just look at the proud smile on this little girl’s face. If that doesn’t make you feel good, nothing will.

Eight-year-old Miranda Huntley

>I doubt that many would deny the fact that economies around the world are doing poorly and that the worst is very possibly yet to come. No doubt about it; times are tough, and discretionary income is shrinking for most of us to the point that choices are having to be made. Do we bring sack lunches to the office and use the savings to eat dinner out once a week? Do we trade that new electronic gadget in the window we’ve been coveting for a much needed three-day-weekend away from home with the family?

Tough choices all, but we “book people” are probably faring better than most at this point. Books have never been cheaper, nor have there ever been more sources from which to buy books. They are readily discounted at the big chain stores, on the web, and even in variety and grocery stores. Used-book stores seem to be everywhere, and it is not unusual to pick up a new book for a buck or two while browsing the thousands of used books for sale there.

So I think we’re doing OK despite the near out-of-control addiction that has so many of us rapidly filling our homes with books we’ll probably never finish reading. As addictions go, we have at least chosen a relatively affordable one.

One Kansas student, in fact, seems to have rediscovered her inner-nerd because of how the gloomy economy is forcing her to live “the hermit life.”

I used to go out all the time, didn’t like to stay in because I felt like a loser. However, once I didn’t have the cash to blow thirty or forty bucks on entertaining myself, I had to start spending some major one-on-one time… with no one else but me.

At first it was awful, I was completely bored…

…

Then I discovered it, the answer to all my problems hidden under my bed, I stumbled upon it as I was cleaning my room. A book, but not just any book, it was a book I had always wanted to read, 1984. Its so strange, I don’t even know how it got there, it was fate, and I immediately decided I was going to read it cover to cover. I love science fiction, and I love a good dystopian story. That’s something about me I like, and hadn’t thought about it in a long time. Reading this book reminded me just how much I love to read, and how much of a nerd I really am. Then that book led to another book, then I went back and re-read some of my favorite books from when I was little, like The Giver and Ender’s Game.

And there you have it. Those with the ability to enjoy the simpler joys of life have a definite advantage in times like these. I consider myself lucky never to have lost contact with my own “inner nerd.” He’s a cool little guy – really.

I doubt that many would deny the fact that economies around the world are doing poorly and that the worst is very possibly yet to come. No doubt about it; times are tough, and discretionary income is shrinking for most of us to the point that choices are having to be made. Do we bring sack lunches to the office and use the savings to eat dinner out once a week? Do we trade that new electronic gadget in the window we’ve been coveting for a much needed three-day-weekend away from home with the family?

Tough choices all, but we “book people” are probably faring better than most at this point. Books have never been cheaper, nor have there ever been more sources from which to buy books. They are readily discounted at the big chain stores, on the web, and even in variety and grocery stores. Used-book stores seem to be everywhere, and it is not unusual to pick up a new book for a buck or two while browsing the thousands of used books for sale there.

So I think we’re doing OK despite the near out-of-control addiction that has so many of us rapidly filling our homes with books we’ll probably never finish reading. As addictions go, we have at least chosen a relatively affordable one.

One Kansas student, in fact, seems to have rediscovered her inner-nerd because of how the gloomy economy is forcing her to live “the hermit life.”

I used to go out all the time, didn’t like to stay in because I felt like a loser. However, once I didn’t have the cash to blow thirty or forty bucks on entertaining myself, I had to start spending some major one-on-one time… with no one else but me.

At first it was awful, I was completely bored…

…

Then I discovered it, the answer to all my problems hidden under my bed, I stumbled upon it as I was cleaning my room. A book, but not just any book, it was a book I had always wanted to read, 1984. Its so strange, I don’t even know how it got there, it was fate, and I immediately decided I was going to read it cover to cover. I love science fiction, and I love a good dystopian story. That’s something about me I like, and hadn’t thought about it in a long time. Reading this book reminded me just how much I love to read, and how much of a nerd I really am. Then that book led to another book, then I went back and re-read some of my favorite books from when I was little, like The Giver and Ender’s Game.

And there you have it. Those with the ability to enjoy the simpler joys of life have a definite advantage in times like these. I consider myself lucky never to have lost contact with my own “inner nerd.” He’s a cool little guy – really.

Indystar.com’s Lori Borgman, a little bit tongue-in-cheek, I hope, describes what it’s like to be a bookstore widow (something my wife has experienced for too many years to count). I know that I see a lot of myself in what Borgman says here about her husband. A few years ago, I dreamed of chucking the old day job and making our living as a full-time book scout. In fact, I did pretty well two or three weekends a month, often turning a profit of a couple of hundred dollars a weekend as I bought books from one Houston bookstore and sold my purchases to another on the same day. It was all a matter of knowing the stock of the various dealers and what they were likely to want to add to their inventory.

Then things changed, mostly due to the internet, I think, and dealers seemed more aware of what was available just a few miles from their front doors. All of a sudden, true bargains became almost impossible to find and dealers knew more about the real value of what was on their own shelves than ever before. Let’s just say that I really miss the good old days – and the extra cash I earned for the price of a few gallons of gasoline and a day spent visiting local bookstores, something I would have likely been doing anyway.

This is part of what Borgman had to say about her husband and his love of books and bookstores but do read the whole piece for all the gory details. I suspect you’ll see a little, or a lot, as the case may be, of yourself in Mr. Borgman:

The husband loves books. We have a large used bookstore at a major intersection near the house, conveniently located on the way to everywhere.

I’m not saying he spends a lot of time there, but in six states the store could officially be registered as his common-law wife.

On occasion, when he would “forget” his cell phone, I had to send one of the kids to the bookstore to tell him dinner was ready and it was time to come home.

The husband is not alone in his passion; there is an entire breed of book lovers who lose track of time wandering among the shelves. They are bookies of a different breed and not the kind who place bets.

A bona fide book lover is someone who loves the smell of paper. He or she loves the feel of the book as much as the look of the book. If someone could bottle the smell of ink on paper in an aftershave, I’m pretty sure the husband would wear it.

Mr. Borgman, I feel like I’ve known you forever.

>Indystar.com’s Lori Borgman, a little bit tongue-in-cheek, I hope, describes what it’s like to be a bookstore widow (something my wife has experienced for too many years to count). I know that I see a lot of myself in what Borgman says here about her husband. A few years ago, I dreamed of chucking the old day job and making our living as a full-time book scout. In fact, I did pretty well two or three weekends a month, often turning a profit of a couple of hundred dollars a weekend as I bought books from one Houston bookstore and sold my purchases to another on the same day. It was all a matter of knowing the stock of the various dealers and what they were likely to want to add to their inventory.

Then things changed, mostly due to the internet, I think, and dealers seemed more aware of what was available just a few miles from their front doors. All of a sudden, true bargains became almost impossible to find and dealers knew more about the real value of what was on their own shelves than ever before. Let’s just say that I really miss the good old days – and the extra cash I earned for the price of a few gallons of gasoline and a day spent visiting local bookstores, something I would have likely been doing anyway.

This is part of what Borgman had to say about her husband and his love of books and bookstores but do read the whole piece for all the gory details. I suspect you’ll see a little, or a lot, as the case may be, of yourself in Mr. Borgman:

The husband loves books. We have a large used bookstore at a major intersection near the house, conveniently located on the way to everywhere.

I’m not saying he spends a lot of time there, but in six states the store could officially be registered as his common-law wife.

On occasion, when he would “forget” his cell phone, I had to send one of the kids to the bookstore to tell him dinner was ready and it was time to come home.

The husband is not alone in his passion; there is an entire breed of book lovers who lose track of time wandering among the shelves. They are bookies of a different breed and not the kind who place bets.

A bona fide book lover is someone who loves the smell of paper. He or she loves the feel of the book as much as the look of the book. If someone could bottle the smell of ink on paper in an aftershave, I’m pretty sure the husband would wear it.

Mr. Borgman, I feel like I’ve known you forever.

>A program to place books in homes unlikely to have them is beginning its tenth year in Kansas City and it sounds as if the program is having some success in creating a new generation of readers there. According to the Kansas City Star:

After 10 years and more than 700,000 donated books, Kansas City is growing a hooked-on-books generation.

“I’m seeing freshmen coming to school with books in their hands,” Schlagle High School librarian Shelia Blume said.

Not assigned books. Not homework. But their own books, she said.

…

Junior Amanda Chambers, who read more than 58,000 pages over the summer, figures on being an author, if not a fashion designer, or both.

Classmate Noradeli Lopez read more than 15,000 pages herself, pursuing her love of Laura Esquivel novels with the help of vision aids so that her fight with macular degeneration doesn’t slow her down.

What would they be without books? The two teenagers wince at each other just thinking about it.

“TV watchers,” Lopez said, with a tone that said she’d never let that happen.

Lopez came to Kansas City from Guatemala when she was 6, having no books at home and needing to learn English.

She recalled the first books she loved — the Clifford the Big Red Dog children’s books — and that brought a resonating smile from Chambers.

“Oh, they were awesome,” Chambers said.

…

The spreading of books in homes reaches in both directions. Younger children listen to their older siblings read and then take the books in their own hands. And sometimes an older generation catches on, too.

Lopez’s mother had enough of hearing her daughter talk about the novels. Now she’s reading them too, Lopez said.

I can’t imagine having the time to read 58,000 pages over one summer, or the stamina to do so, for that matter. I’m a fairly quick reader and I average about 4,000 pages a month, but Amanda has read more than a year’s worth of pages (at my pace) in less than three months. That’s impressive.

(Photo by Peggy Bair, Kansas City Star)

A program to place books in homes unlikely to have them is beginning its tenth year in Kansas City and it sounds as if the program is having some success in creating a new generation of readers there. According to the Kansas City Star:

After 10 years and more than 700,000 donated books, Kansas City is growing a hooked-on-books generation.

“I’m seeing freshmen coming to school with books in their hands,” Schlagle High School librarian Shelia Blume said.

Not assigned books. Not homework. But their own books, she said.

…

Junior Amanda Chambers, who read more than 58,000 pages over the summer, figures on being an author, if not a fashion designer, or both.

Classmate Noradeli Lopez read more than 15,000 pages herself, pursuing her love of Laura Esquivel novels with the help of vision aids so that her fight with macular degeneration doesn’t slow her down.

What would they be without books? The two teenagers wince at each other just thinking about it.

“TV watchers,” Lopez said, with a tone that said she’d never let that happen.

Lopez came to Kansas City from Guatemala when she was 6, having no books at home and needing to learn English.

She recalled the first books she loved — the Clifford the Big Red Dog children’s books — and that brought a resonating smile from Chambers.

“Oh, they were awesome,” Chambers said.

…

The spreading of books in homes reaches in both directions. Younger children listen to their older siblings read and then take the books in their own hands. And sometimes an older generation catches on, too.

Lopez’s mother had enough of hearing her daughter talk about the novels. Now she’s reading them too, Lopez said.

I can’t imagine having the time to read 58,000 pages over one summer, or the stamina to do so, for that matter. I’m a fairly quick reader and I average about 4,000 pages a month, but Amanda has read more than a year’s worth of pages (at my pace) in less than three months. That’s impressive.

(Photo by Peggy Bair, Kansas City Star)

>While most people dream of retiring from the job somewhere between the ages of 60 and 65, Martha Smith has continued working for about forty years beyond those ages. She still puts in her time every Sunday at the Vinland, Kansas, library that she first started working at in 1926. The Kansas City Star has her story:

Smith is 102 now. She wears a hearing aid and needs an oversized pair of magnifying goggles to read. She has to bend over so far to walk her eyes stare straight at the ground.

Others might have retired 30 years ago. Not Smith. She still shows up every Sunday to put in her hours at the 400-square-foot, one-room library 10 miles south of Lawrence.

Sure, she took a break in 1944 to raise her only son, Edwin. But she returned in 1956 and has been there ever since.

…

She has been there so long the Kansas Department of Human Resources honored her with an outstanding older worker award as the oldest female worker in Kansas.

That was six years ago.

Ray Wilbur, president of the Coal Creek Library Association, said Smith is one of a kind.

“She’s loyal, she’s diligent, she’s always optimistic and cheerful,” he said. “What’s not to like?”

The article is interesting, but even better is the video that the newspaper has attached to it. Take a look…it will make your day.

While most people dream of retiring from the job somewhere between the ages of 60 and 65, Martha Smith has continued working for about forty years beyond those ages. She still puts in her time every Sunday at the Vinland, Kansas, library that she first started working at in 1926. The Kansas City Star has her story:

Smith is 102 now. She wears a hearing aid and needs an oversized pair of magnifying goggles to read. She has to bend over so far to walk her eyes stare straight at the ground.

Others might have retired 30 years ago. Not Smith. She still shows up every Sunday to put in her hours at the 400-square-foot, one-room library 10 miles south of Lawrence.

Sure, she took a break in 1944 to raise her only son, Edwin. But she returned in 1956 and has been there ever since.

…

She has been there so long the Kansas Department of Human Resources honored her with an outstanding older worker award as the oldest female worker in Kansas.

That was six years ago.

Ray Wilbur, president of the Coal Creek Library Association, said Smith is one of a kind.

“She’s loyal, she’s diligent, she’s always optimistic and cheerful,” he said. “What’s not to like?”

The article is interesting, but even better is the video that the newspaper has attached to it. Take a look…it will make your day.

There’s just something that bothers book lovers about the idea of destroying a book, even when there’s probably no good reason not to do it. We all know that libraries have to cull their collections in order to make best use of their usually limited shelf space and we all understand that certain books do become useless because of technological changes and the like. But, admit it. Doesn’t it still kind of bother you to think of trash bins filled with still-readable books?

According to this article from The Mercury News, it bothers Robert Wright a whole lot. But unlike most of us, Mr. Wright does something about it.

With the zeal of a soul-saver, Robert Wright has delved into garbage bins, filled up his minivan and made space in his San Jose basement, rescuing books once destined for oblivion.

This week, Wright, 57, rumpled in sweatpants and a T-shirt, rushed to Morrill Middle School after the Berryessa school board had declared 686 library books surplus. The teacher browsed through volumes laid out on tables. He filled boxes until the custodian turned out the lights and chased him out. He returned Friday morning, his triumph mixed with amazement and distress.

…

A few years ago he rescued a hardback copy of “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” and read it to his son, then 11. They ended up going to the bookstore to buy the rest of the classic “Narnia” series.

“I know that an instruction book on how to use the slide rule would be obsolete, but novels by C.S. Lewis?” he asked.

Wright acknowledged that middle-school kids won’t pick up a book with an unattractive or worn cover, an odd title or outdated contents. But he finds even some of those useful. “Homemaking for Teenagers,” with instructions to girls on how to make a husband happy, for instance, is a historical artifact and can spark discussions about stereotypes, he said.

Many of the books he salvages end up in his English classroom at Morrill. When a student neglects to bring something for free reading time, Wright may hand him a rescued book like Paul Zindel’s “The Pigman,” about two high school kids who befriend a lonely man.

“After I force them to read the first five pages, they’re hooked. I have to tear it from their hands,” Wright said.

Robert Wright is doing his bit to extend the lives of books on the brink of destruction, once again proving that good books don’t die – they are murdered.

>There’s just something that bothers book lovers about the idea of destroying a book, even when there’s probably no good reason not to do it. We all know that libraries have to cull their collections in order to make best use of their usually limited shelf space and we all understand that certain books do become useless because of technological changes and the like. But, admit it. Doesn’t it still kind of bother you to think of trash bins filled with still-readable books?

According to this article from The Mercury News, it bothers Robert Wright a whole lot. But unlike most of us, Mr. Wright does something about it.

With the zeal of a soul-saver, Robert Wright has delved into garbage bins, filled up his minivan and made space in his San Jose basement, rescuing books once destined for oblivion.

This week, Wright, 57, rumpled in sweatpants and a T-shirt, rushed to Morrill Middle School after the Berryessa school board had declared 686 library books surplus. The teacher browsed through volumes laid out on tables. He filled boxes until the custodian turned out the lights and chased him out. He returned Friday morning, his triumph mixed with amazement and distress.

…

A few years ago he rescued a hardback copy of “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” and read it to his son, then 11. They ended up going to the bookstore to buy the rest of the classic “Narnia” series.

“I know that an instruction book on how to use the slide rule would be obsolete, but novels by C.S. Lewis?” he asked.

Wright acknowledged that middle-school kids won’t pick up a book with an unattractive or worn cover, an odd title or outdated contents. But he finds even some of those useful. “Homemaking for Teenagers,” with instructions to girls on how to make a husband happy, for instance, is a historical artifact and can spark discussions about stereotypes, he said.

Many of the books he salvages end up in his English classroom at Morrill. When a student neglects to bring something for free reading time, Wright may hand him a rescued book like Paul Zindel’s “The Pigman,” about two high school kids who befriend a lonely man.

“After I force them to read the first five pages, they’re hooked. I have to tear it from their hands,” Wright said.

Robert Wright is doing his bit to extend the lives of books on the brink of destruction, once again proving that good books don’t die – they are murdered.

There’s just something that bothers book lovers about the idea of destroying a book, even when there’s probably no good reason not to do it. We all know that libraries have to cull their collections in order to make best use of their usually limited shelf space and we all understand that certain books do become useless because of technological changes and the like. But, admit it. Doesn’t it still kind of bother you to think of trash bins filled with still-readable books?

According to this article from The Mercury News, it bothers Robert Wright a whole lot. But unlike most of us, Mr. Wright does something about it.

With the zeal of a soul-saver, Robert Wright has delved into garbage bins, filled up his minivan and made space in his San Jose basement, rescuing books once destined for oblivion.

This week, Wright, 57, rumpled in sweatpants and a T-shirt, rushed to Morrill Middle School after the Berryessa school board had declared 686 library books surplus. The teacher browsed through volumes laid out on tables. He filled boxes until the custodian turned out the lights and chased him out. He returned Friday morning, his triumph mixed with amazement and distress.

…

A few years ago he rescued a hardback copy of “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” and read it to his son, then 11. They ended up going to the bookstore to buy the rest of the classic “Narnia” series.

“I know that an instruction book on how to use the slide rule would be obsolete, but novels by C.S. Lewis?” he asked.

Wright acknowledged that middle-school kids won’t pick up a book with an unattractive or worn cover, an odd title or outdated contents. But he finds even some of those useful. “Homemaking for Teenagers,” with instructions to girls on how to make a husband happy, for instance, is a historical artifact and can spark discussions about stereotypes, he said.

Many of the books he salvages end up in his English classroom at Morrill. When a student neglects to bring something for free reading time, Wright may hand him a rescued book like Paul Zindel’s “The Pigman,” about two high school kids who befriend a lonely man.

“After I force them to read the first five pages, they’re hooked. I have to tear it from their hands,” Wright said.

Robert Wright is doing his bit to extend the lives of books on the brink of destruction, once again proving that good books don’t die – they are murdered.

Over the last few years I’ve taken to marking passages from most of the books I read, even novels, so that I can more easily find the quotes again when I go back looking for them. I didn’t use any quotes in my comments of a couple of days ago on The Secret of Lost Things but a few things did seem “mark-worthy,” in particular some of the characters’ observations about the shop’s customers:

“I think what you mean is that book collecting is only meaningful if it’s personal,” Oscar clarified. If it’s just another way of accumulating wealth, instead of for the books themselves, it isn’t right. Collectors are trying to protect themselves. To separate themselves. It’s a hierarchy. That’s my complaint with Gosford. In a way I’d rather Redburn steal the books – at least I know they mean something to him. He takes a risk to get what he wants.”

I can really identify with this one because I hate the idea of anyone collecting books simply for competitive purposes or as investments. I would certainly have a great book collection if I were a multi-millionaire but I’m proud to have the simple collection I’ve put together over the years because each and every one of the books on my study shelves means something personal to me.

“Our business is to find homes for books with the hope they will be loved as we have loved them. My heart is broken every day I make a sale; then renewed again by the arrival of an unexpected replacement. I keep learning to love again…After nearly fifty years my relationship to books remains mysterious to me, but I know from my own collection that ownership is the most intimate tie we can have to objects.”

Now, I realize that this is a romantic version of bookstores and their owners, but don’t we all want to believe that this is the way it really is…or the way we would feel if we finally got to live out our fantasies of owning our own indie bookstores?

Exclusively male, these compulsive book buyers and collectors were neurotically convinced that a day missed was a volume possibly lost, or at least in someone else’s hands. What were their lives made of, apart from books? The Arcade was their first destination, a quick stop to check on fresh inventory piled at the base of Pike’s platform; an obligatory daily search for hidden treasure. Acquisitiveness drove them, and envy – the ingredients, I suppose, of any passion.

I’ve seen some really aggressive collectors on occasion, but I also see a little of myself in this description, too, so I’ll stop at that.

Oscar appeared outraged on Melville’s behalf, but of course he sold used books every day whose authors never saw a penny of what Pike pocketed. Even the new review copies that Walter Geist sold from the basement left an author out of any profits, because they had been sent, to garner publicity, to journalists and reviewers who hadn’t paid for them, but sold them nonetheless to the Arcade, collecting a quarter of retail price.

We all want to see our favorite writers do well financially so that they can afford the time to keep doing what they do so well, and this quote does kind of make a person think. I love used book bookstores as much as the next guy and I’m always willing to buy an ARC when I spot one by one of the authors I read but I do sometimes wonder what writers themselves think about the lost royalties…not all that much, I suspect (and hope).

At the least, these quotes will give you a bit of the flavor of The Secret of Lost Things. And maybe they will give you something to think about…

>Over the last few years I’ve taken to marking passages from most of the books I read, even novels, so that I can more easily find the quotes again when I go back looking for them. I didn’t use any quotes in my comments of a couple of days ago on The Secret of Lost Things but a few things did seem “mark-worthy,” in particular some of the characters’ observations about the shop’s customers:

“I think what you mean is that book collecting is only meaningful if it’s personal,” Oscar clarified. If it’s just another way of accumulating wealth, instead of for the books themselves, it isn’t right. Collectors are trying to protect themselves. To separate themselves. It’s a hierarchy. That’s my complaint with Gosford. In a way I’d rather Redburn steal the books – at least I know they mean something to him. He takes a risk to get what he wants.”

I can really identify with this one because I hate the idea of anyone collecting books simply for competitive purposes or as investments. I would certainly have a great book collection if I were a multi-millionaire but I’m proud to have the simple collection I’ve put together over the years because each and every one of the books on my study shelves means something personal to me.

“Our business is to find homes for books with the hope they will be loved as we have loved them. My heart is broken every day I make a sale; then renewed again by the arrival of an unexpected replacement. I keep learning to love again…After nearly fifty years my relationship to books remains mysterious to me, but I know from my own collection that ownership is the most intimate tie we can have to objects.”

Now, I realize that this is a romantic version of bookstores and their owners, but don’t we all want to believe that this is the way it really is…or the way we would feel if we finally got to live out our fantasies of owning our own indie bookstores?

Exclusively male, these compulsive book buyers and collectors were neurotically convinced that a day missed was a volume possibly lost, or at least in someone else’s hands. What were their lives made of, apart from books? The Arcade was their first destination, a quick stop to check on fresh inventory piled at the base of Pike’s platform; an obligatory daily search for hidden treasure. Acquisitiveness drove them, and envy – the ingredients, I suppose, of any passion.

I’ve seen some really aggressive collectors on occasion, but I also see a little of myself in this description, too, so I’ll stop at that.

Oscar appeared outraged on Melville’s behalf, but of course he sold used books every day whose authors never saw a penny of what Pike pocketed. Even the new review copies that Walter Geist sold from the basement left an author out of any profits, because they had been sent, to garner publicity, to journalists and reviewers who hadn’t paid for them, but sold them nonetheless to the Arcade, collecting a quarter of retail price.

We all want to see our favorite writers do well financially so that they can afford the time to keep doing what they do so well, and this quote does kind of make a person think. I love used book bookstores as much as the next guy and I’m always willing to buy an ARC when I spot one by one of the authors I read but I do sometimes wonder what writers themselves think about the lost royalties…not all that much, I suspect (and hope).

At the least, these quotes will give you a bit of the flavor of The Secret of Lost Things. And maybe they will give you something to think about…

Over the last few years I’ve taken to marking passages from most of the books I read, even novels, so that I can more easily find the quotes again when I go back looking for them. I didn’t use any quotes in my comments of a couple of days ago on The Secret of Lost Things but a few things did seem “mark-worthy,” in particular some of the characters’ observations about the shop’s customers:

“I think what you mean is that book collecting is only meaningful if it’s personal,” Oscar clarified. If it’s just another way of accumulating wealth, instead of for the books themselves, it isn’t right. Collectors are trying to protect themselves. To separate themselves. It’s a hierarchy. That’s my complaint with Gosford. In a way I’d rather Redburn steal the books – at least I know they mean something to him. He takes a risk to get what he wants.”

I can really identify with this one because I hate the idea of anyone collecting books simply for competitive purposes or as investments. I would certainly have a great book collection if I were a multi-millionaire but I’m proud to have the simple collection I’ve put together over the years because each and every one of the books on my study shelves means something personal to me.

“Our business is to find homes for books with the hope they will be loved as we have loved them. My heart is broken every day I make a sale; then renewed again by the arrival of an unexpected replacement. I keep learning to love again…After nearly fifty years my relationship to books remains mysterious to me, but I know from my own collection that ownership is the most intimate tie we can have to objects.”

Now, I realize that this is a romantic version of bookstores and their owners, but don’t we all want to believe that this is the way it really is…or the way we would feel if we finally got to live out our fantasies of owning our own indie bookstores?

Exclusively male, these compulsive book buyers and collectors were neurotically convinced that a day missed was a volume possibly lost, or at least in someone else’s hands. What were their lives made of, apart from books? The Arcade was their first destination, a quick stop to check on fresh inventory piled at the base of Pike’s platform; an obligatory daily search for hidden treasure. Acquisitiveness drove them, and envy – the ingredients, I suppose, of any passion.

I’ve seen some really aggressive collectors on occasion, but I also see a little of myself in this description, too, so I’ll stop at that.

Oscar appeared outraged on Melville’s behalf, but of course he sold used books every day whose authors never saw a penny of what Pike pocketed. Even the new review copies that Walter Geist sold from the basement left an author out of any profits, because they had been sent, to garner publicity, to journalists and reviewers who hadn’t paid for them, but sold them nonetheless to the Arcade, collecting a quarter of retail price.

We all want to see our favorite writers do well financially so that they can afford the time to keep doing what they do so well, and this quote does kind of make a person think. I love used book bookstores as much as the next guy and I’m always willing to buy an ARC when I spot one by one of the authors I read but I do sometimes wonder what writers themselves think about the lost royalties…not all that much, I suspect (and hope).

At the least, these quotes will give you a bit of the flavor of The Secret of Lost Things. And maybe they will give you something to think about…

This is one new trend that I have to like. According to Springfield’s News-Leader, the latest thing in baby showers is one in which everyone brings their favorite children’s books as gifts.

A new shower trend, the book shower, aims to stock the new baby’s bookcase. The theme is catching on with modern moms, many of whom receive several showers and get plenty of the nuts and bolts of babydom.

…

Susie Richardson of Urbandale, Iowa, hadn’t heard of a book shower until her sister suggested throwing one for Richardson’s son, Max, now 18 months old.

“When she first mentioned it, I thought, ‘How weird,’” she says. “But it turned out to be wonderful. We have so many books, things I never would have thought to purchase on my own.”

…

The best thing about the shower was the emotion and thought her friends and family invested in the gifts. Inside the front covers, many of the givers scribed short messages for the new baby. Mom and baby have discovered the notes as they’ve read the books.

What a great idea! I hope this catches on and helps to create a whole new generation of readers. We’ve always kept a special bookshelf at home for our three grandchildren and, almost from the beginning, they have loved dipping into the books to choose some of their favorites for us to read to them. Now that they are a little older, they sometimes even ask us to read them a bedtime story over the telephone when their day is done. Starting life surrounded by books is a good thing.

>

This is one new trend that I have to like. According to Springfield’s News-Leader, the latest thing in baby showers is one in which everyone brings their favorite children’s books as gifts.

A new shower trend, the book shower, aims to stock the new baby’s bookcase. The theme is catching on with modern moms, many of whom receive several showers and get plenty of the nuts and bolts of babydom.

…

Susie Richardson of Urbandale, Iowa, hadn’t heard of a book shower until her sister suggested throwing one for Richardson’s son, Max, now 18 months old.

“When she first mentioned it, I thought, ‘How weird,’” she says. “But it turned out to be wonderful. We have so many books, things I never would have thought to purchase on my own.”

…

The best thing about the shower was the emotion and thought her friends and family invested in the gifts. Inside the front covers, many of the givers scribed short messages for the new baby. Mom and baby have discovered the notes as they’ve read the books.

What a great idea! I hope this catches on and helps to create a whole new generation of readers. We’ve always kept a special bookshelf at home for our three grandchildren and, almost from the beginning, they have loved dipping into the books to choose some of their favorites for us to read to them. Now that they are a little older, they sometimes even ask us to read them a bedtime story over the telephone when their day is done. Starting life surrounded by books is a good thing.

This is one new trend that I have to like. According to Springfield’s News-Leader, the latest thing in baby showers is one in which everyone brings their favorite children’s books as gifts.

A new shower trend, the book shower, aims to stock the new baby’s bookcase. The theme is catching on with modern moms, many of whom receive several showers and get plenty of the nuts and bolts of babydom.

…

Susie Richardson of Urbandale, Iowa, hadn’t heard of a book shower until her sister suggested throwing one for Richardson’s son, Max, now 18 months old.

“When she first mentioned it, I thought, ‘How weird,’” she says. “But it turned out to be wonderful. We have so many books, things I never would have thought to purchase on my own.”

…

The best thing about the shower was the emotion and thought her friends and family invested in the gifts. Inside the front covers, many of the givers scribed short messages for the new baby. Mom and baby have discovered the notes as they’ve read the books.

What a great idea! I hope this catches on and helps to create a whole new generation of readers. We’ve always kept a special bookshelf at home for our three grandchildren and, almost from the beginning, they have loved dipping into the books to choose some of their favorites for us to read to them. Now that they are a little older, they sometimes even ask us to read them a bedtime story over the telephone when their day is done. Starting life surrounded by books is a good thing.

I spotted this touching story in the Houston Chronicle this morning concerning a 79-year old woman who has collected books for years even though she could not read any of them. It’s a beautiful story about how she expected that one day all those books would come in handy and how learning to read has given her a whole second life.

Picture: Ruth Mims, front, and her tutor, Emily Hopkins, meet twice a week at Tye Preston Memorial Library in Canyon Lake.

Mims was first exposed to the world of books through her friendship with the little girl whose parents owned the farm on which Mims’ parents worked. The girl would read storybooks to her when Mims was 5 or 6 years old; that experience sparked in her a lasting desire to read.

“I said, ‘I’d like to learn to read that myself,’ and she said, ‘You have to go to school. You can’t learn by listening to me read, that’s not how it’s done,’ ” Mims said. “And I said, ‘OK, one day I’ll find out how it’s done.’

It would take her seven decades to learn the secret. In the meantime, life got in the way.”

…

She began working with Emily Hopkins, a volunteer with 38 years of experience teaching preschoolers through eighth-graders. They began with the first volume of the “Laubach Way to Reading” series, which starts with phonics.

“I sat down and started with that very, very basic curriculum and realized she had some skills,” said Hopkins, 70. “People at her age have learned to cope, so Ruth had quite a few coping skills.”

…

“I’m going as far as my education will take me, darling. I have no intention of giving up,” she said.

And of course, she plans to go through all the books in her house.

“When I had money, I bought all the things I wanted, and it was books and more books and more books. I have a full set of encyclopedias. I bought them in 1994,” she said. “I knew one day I was going to learn to read them. I got enough books here to read the rest of my life and I have every intention of reading them.”

To get a real feel for this lady, the life she’s lived raising several successful children, and the spirit that inspires her to keep going full-speed ahead, read the whole article. It’s a great way to start off the weekend.

>I spotted this touching story in the Houston Chronicle this morning concerning a 79-year old woman who has collected books for years even though she could not read any of them. It’s a beautiful story about how she expected that one day all those books would come in handy and how learning to read has given her a whole second life.

Picture: Ruth Mims, front, and her tutor, Emily Hopkins, meet twice a week at Tye Preston Memorial Library in Canyon Lake.

Mims was first exposed to the world of books through her friendship with the little girl whose parents owned the farm on which Mims’ parents worked. The girl would read storybooks to her when Mims was 5 or 6 years old; that experience sparked in her a lasting desire to read.

“I said, ‘I’d like to learn to read that myself,’ and she said, ‘You have to go to school. You can’t learn by listening to me read, that’s not how it’s done,’ ” Mims said. “And I said, ‘OK, one day I’ll find out how it’s done.’

It would take her seven decades to learn the secret. In the meantime, life got in the way.”

…

She began working with Emily Hopkins, a volunteer with 38 years of experience teaching preschoolers through eighth-graders. They began with the first volume of the “Laubach Way to Reading” series, which starts with phonics.

“I sat down and started with that very, very basic curriculum and realized she had some skills,” said Hopkins, 70. “People at her age have learned to cope, so Ruth had quite a few coping skills.”

…

“I’m going as far as my education will take me, darling. I have no intention of giving up,” she said.

And of course, she plans to go through all the books in her house.

“When I had money, I bought all the things I wanted, and it was books and more books and more books. I have a full set of encyclopedias. I bought them in 1994,” she said. “I knew one day I was going to learn to read them. I got enough books here to read the rest of my life and I have every intention of reading them.”

To get a real feel for this lady, the life she’s lived raising several successful children, and the spirit that inspires her to keep going full-speed ahead, read the whole article. It’s a great way to start off the weekend.