Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Donna Brazile Donates Her Papers to LSU Special Colletions

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana — Veteran Democratic political strategist and commentator Donna Brazile makes no secret of her pride in being a Louisiana native and LSU graduate.-- see more

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Homeland Security operating without a real home


It's a little ironic, that the proposed new HQ for Homeland Security is an old mental hospital/asylum. The same place where they kept Ezra Pound.
Homeland Security operating without a real home

Thursday, September 22, 2011

all things paper: Edinburgh's Mysterious Book Sculptures


Thanks to Darren Heiber for sharing this with me. It is really cool. Check it out!
all things paper: Edinburgh's Mysterious Book Sculptures: Ohhh, who would have guessed there's an intriguing mystery taking place in the world of paper art?! While perusing the blog Blue Velvet Cha...

Friday, September 16, 2011

Rabbi, Book Worm, Boxer


As many of you may know, I am a huge boxing fan. I also am a book guy, so besides being a friend and fan of Katherine Dunn, I always like when these two worlds intersect. Here is an article about former champion Yuri Forman, a pretty good fighter, and a person who is studying to become a Rabbi.
From CNN: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/16/the-boxing-rabbi/

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Throwing the book at school libraries


I have been away to long from A Society of Books, but I promise to be better at posting on topics related to Literature, Books, and Book Culture. This article from the LA Times is one of many that I have read recently that is dealing eith the cutting of Librarians and Librarian Aides in Public Schools. This is a real tragedy, along with all the cutting of funding for the Arts.


Throwing the book at school libraries

Monday, September 27, 2010

Ray Charles Memorial Library Opens its Doors


Ray Charles Memorial Library Opens its Doors





From NPR

Anger as a Private Company Takes Over Libraries

Anger as a Private Company Takes Over Libraries
From the New York Times
SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — A private company in Maryland has taken over public libraries in ailing cities in California, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas, growing into the country’s fifth-largest library system.
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J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times
Jane Hanson, at a Santa Clarita library, is opposed to an outsourcing plan.
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J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times
The basic pitch that the company Library Systems & Services makes to cities is that it fixes broken libraries — often by cleaning house.
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Now the company, Library Systems & Services, has been hired for the first time to run a system in a relatively healthy city, setting off an intense and often acrimonious debate about the role of outsourcing in a ravaged economy.

A $4 million deal to run the three libraries here is a chance for the company to demonstrate that a dose of private management can be good for communities, whatever their financial situation. But in an era when outsourcing is most often an act of budget desperation — with janitors, police forces and even entire city halls farmed out in one town or another — the contract in Santa Clarita has touched a deep nerve and begun a round of second-guessing.
Read On

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Boise woman accused of dumping condiments on library books arrested Monday on two warrants | Treasure Valley Crime | Idaho Statesman

Boise woman accused of dumping condiments on library books arrested Monday on two warrants | Treasure Valley Crime | Idaho Statesman

Some people are just crazy.....By the way sorry for the long delay in posting. I am hoping to get this show back up and going on a regular basis. - Doug

Bill Murray is Leading a Poetry Revolution

From a Forbes Article on Poetry House
Forbes article by Elizabeth Alexander

Bill Murray and Billy Collins have been life-long friends,

Monday, February 1, 2010

WWI CPS

Thursday, January 28, 2010

J. D. Salinger, Enigmatic Author, Dies at 91


From the NY Times
J. D. Salinger, the obsessively private author who captured the hearts of several generations with his pitch-perfect knowledge of adolescence and his ear for the vernacular, died on Jan. 28. "The Catcher in the Rye" is his best-known work.

Mr. Salinger, who was born on Jan. 1, 1919 in Manhattan, has lived in seclusion in the small town of Cornish. N.H. for more than half a century. He has not been photographed in decades.

Mr. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" caused a sensation when it was published. With its very first sentence, the book, which came out in 1951, introduced a brand-new voice in American writing, and it quickly became a cult book, a rite of passage for the brainy and disaffected. "Nine Stories," published in 1953, made Mr. Salinger a darling of the critics as well, for the way it dismantled the traditional architecture of the short story and replaced it with one in which a story could turn on a tiny shift of mood or tone.

In the 1960s, though, when he was at the peak of his fame, Mr. Salinger went silent. "Franny and Zooey," a collection of two long stories about the fictional Glass family, came out in 1961; two more long stories about the Glasses, "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" and "Seymour: An Introduction," appeared together in book form in 1963. The last work of Mr. Salinger's to appear in print was "Hapworth 16, 1924," a short story that took up most of the June 19, 1965, issue of The New Yorker. The story, which came out in book form in 1997, continued, and perhaps even

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Thursday, January 21, 2010

Ed Beach, Host of ‘Just Jazz’ Radio Show, Dies at 86




An Early alum of Lewis & Clark College, had a big impact on Jazz. This is his obituary from the NY Times
Ed Beach, the host of a popular jazz radio show in the 1960s and ’70s, who attracted listeners in New York and elsewhere with his sonorous voice, eclectic taste, vast erudition and pleasurably irascible temperament, died on Dec. 25 in Eugene, Ore. He was 86 and lived in Eugene.

Read On....

Ashlanders: Vincent and Patricia Wixon | DailyTidings.com

Two of the finest people one could know... They are a major reason why the Stafford Archives are here at Lewis & Clark College.

Ashlanders: Vincent and Patricia Wixon | DailyTidings.com

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Supreme Court overturns ban on direct corporate spending on elections - latimes.com

Supreme Court overturns ban on direct corporate spending on elections - latimes.com

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Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Long overdue: Scottdale library book returned after 73 years


By Linda Harkcom, FOR THE DAILY COURIER
Monday, January 4, 2010
Last updated: 5:11 am
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'The Birth of Rome' returned
Linda Harkcom/For the Daily Courier

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In 1936, a young Scottdale boy checked out a library book from school that sparked something deep inside of him. The boy loved the book so much he decided he could not bear to part with it so he kept it. Some 73 years later that same boy, now a man of 85, felt it was time to part with that special book and return it to its rightful owner, the Southmoreland School District.

Thomas McArdle was 12 years old in 1936. He was a sixth-grade student at the Chestnut Street Elementary School.

"I had to write a paper in class and I took out a brand-new book, a novel, written for that age about the story of Rome and how Rome developed from when it was founded by Romulus and Remus. I just fell in love with the book and then I did a nasty thing, I kept the book. I read it about three or four times after that," said McArdle.

The book, "The Birth of Rome," was written by Laura Orvieto and published in 1935. McArdle said that after reading that book, "I just literally fell in love with history at that point. I majored in history in college. That book, that class, and that teacher made a big difference in my life. I still read about Roman and European history."

After McArdle graduated from Scottdale High School, he went to the service and to college and lived in various places in the United States including Boston, Mass., White River, Ariz., Richmond, Va., and finally ended up in Greenbelt, Md., where he resides today with his wife Jean. Everywhere McArdle moved, he took the book along with him.

"I can't believe he still had that book after all the moving around he did," said McArdle's cousin, Joe Fagan.

McArdle said he would never have parted with the book except to return it to its rightful owner. "I have quite a book collection now and one day we were dusting the book shelves and I saw the book and thought it was time to return it," McArdle said.

Read On.....

Friday, December 11, 2009