looking for the library where it lives

I haven't been blogging too much lately because I have been very busy starting graduate school! I am going for my Master's degree in Library and Information Studies. Classes started about two weeks ago and I am really enjoying them so far.

Library: An Unquiet History, was my first assigned book for one of my classes. I actually picked this one up awhile ago because it seemed like an interesting read. It was certainly nice not to have to buy this at the school bookstore, where it, along with every other book, was overpriced.

Battles covers an overview and histories of libraries throughout time. The book is a bit scattered, jumping from place to place and from idea to idea. It seems a bit unorganized but interesting. Many of the things he talks about I would want to read more about, such as the ancient Muslim libraries which were just as impressive, if not more so, than the library at Alexandria. He hits the big topics, Alexandria, Guettenburg, the Nazi book burning, and the development of modern libraries.

I think this is a good book to get a quick look into the world of library history, however, I think that there are some better more complete works out there, such as A Gentle Madness by Nicholas A. Basbanes, which covers book collecting and libraries. Basbanes book is much longer than Battles, but far more interesting.

One, heartbreaking quote:

"Andras Riedlmayer described a colleague who survived the siege of Sarajevo. In the winter, the scholar and his wife ran out of firewood, and so began to burn their books for heat and cooking. 'This forces one to think critically,' Riedlmayer remembered his friend saying. 'One must prioritize. First you burn old college textbooks, which you haven't read in thirty years. Then there are the duplicates. But eventually, you're forced to make tougher choices. Who burns today: Dostoevsky or Proust?' I asked Riedlmayer if his friend had any books left when the war was over. 'Oh yes,' he replied, his face lit by a flickering smile. 'He still had many books. Sometimes, he told me, you look at the books and just choose to go hungry."

The tiger does not eat far away

I picked this up from my local library the other day. I've read two of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's books before, Love in the Time of Cholera and Love and Other Demons, and adored them both.

This short work is the recollections of a ninety year old man who wants to celebrate his birthday by having a night with a young virgin. We follow him for a year as he falls in love with this girl who he only sees sleeping night after night.

I liked this book, sort of. I enjoy the way that Marquez tells a story, but I feel like this could have been better. I got confused at some points as to who the old man was talking about and I don't feel that he really talked about the rest of his life satisfactorily. The secondary characters were more interesting to me than the narrator, especially Rosa Cabarcas. I just couldn't get into this story the way I could with his other works. I wouldn't classify this one as a "must read" but I would still give the rest of Marquez's books a read.




I've got a stack of books on my desk I need to blog about. Unemployment means I have lots of time to read. I've also been having a lot of trouble sleeping and have been staying up very late reading. I finished the rest of the Charlaine Harris vampire books, Dave Eggers How We Are Hungry, and am almost done with Neil Gaiman's American Gods. Also almost done with the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Still slogging my way through 2666, though I'm stuck in a slow part right now.

Lately it seems that everyone is lending me books to read. My dad lent me Sharon Kay Penmans When Christ and His Saints Slept, my friend Liz gave me the first three books in Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series and my brother Ryan keeps harping at me to read Robert Jordan's the Eye of the World. I'm not sure which of these I'm going to start first, but I want to finish a couple of the one's I'm currently reading before I start anything else.

Also one more note, as I said earlier I got this book from the library. I went and got my first library card in years the other day. I don't think I've had one since I left for college since during college we just used our student ids. The library out here is pretty small, smaller than the one I grew up with, but it is well laid out and seems to have a good selection. I might go hang out there before work today.